Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Hidden messages?

I'm beginning to think someone is trying to tell me something. There was a time when I didn't purposely go out to find micros. I had a couple of reasons for this. One, micros represented something that I felt took geocaching in the wrong direction. Two, I have no patience when I'm looking for something that had been hidden so evilly that I get the feeling that the hider doesn't want me to find it in the first place.

When it became apparent that micros were here to stay, I started looking for them, mainly because if I didn't, I probably wouldn't go caching very often due to lack of nice hiking trails in my general area. So I compromised. There were times when I found a few, and there were times when I found a lot and there were times when I didn't find any. Today, I fell into the last category.

Let me describe my day. I went out to get some socks, gas up the car and get the car washed. Where I was headed was an area near my work that I'd avoided caching in for awhile, so there was a buildup of new caches in that area. I figured as long as I was out there, I could pick up a couple of caches. My first stop was a gas station, where the placement of the cache was such that unless you could grab the parking spot next to where it was hidden, you'd look pretty out of place. The place was packed, there were muggles everywhere and as I've noted before, I don't have a lot of patience, so after about five minutes of trying to look nonchalant, I decided that I needed to move on.

The next cache, I could see. The problem was, it was hidden only five feet away from a restaurant/bar that was open. I couldn't see in, but I knew people could see out. The other problem with this cache was it was hidden two feet over my head. I'm not the tallest person in the world, but unless I come with a friend that I can boost up, or bring a stool, that one's not going to be found. The establishment being open didn't help me either. I've contemplated getting one of those grabbers that I've seen our janitors using to pick up trash. This tool would have allowed me to get the cache, but everyone inside would have seen me grab it.

The next cache down the road I'd tried once before, with the help of a friend. We, obviously, hadn't found it so I was back again. The clue for the cache had been changed significantly that I'm sure I could have found it with little to no problem without a GPSr, but with a muggle sitting in her truck not two feel away from the cache site, it didn't help matters and so, once again, I walked away. Cache number 4 was hidden in a wall of ivy with serious signal bounce. After five minutes of getting nothing but dirtier, I decided that was it. I turned the GPSr off and came home since my errands were done.

Maybe someone is trying to tell me something. I usually don't have a problem finding caches when I'm out on a hike, but then again, I'm usually finding larger sized containers then. I also don't usually have a problem finding micros when I cache with friends. So, do I give up on micros all together? Or do I only go caching with friends? There are times when I want to wash my hands of micros all together, Perhaps this is the push that I need to start thinking in that direction. I'm going to hope that it's just my attitude of a frustrating day leaking out in to the photons of my computer at the moment. Who knows? Maybe there really are some hidden messages that are being sent my way.

2 comments:

Steve Natoli said...

This whole rigamarole sounds dangerous. Today's description talks of putting yourself into a number of situations in public places where, to play this particular game of hide and seek, you had to loiter, hang around looking at things regular people take no notice of, and in general acting very suspiciuous. It sounds like a prescription for getting shot as a prowler or having the police called on you. I'm wondering what the attraction of this behavior could possibly be. This hunt for micros in public places sounds seriously not worth it to me. I say listen to your gut on this one.

chaosmanor said...

You and I have talked a lot about this, Webbie, so you know I'm with you, in principle. There are still caches near home that I've looked for at least twice that I have now given up on. The only way I'll get them is if I'm with another cacher. And in three of those cases, I've already been with another cacher (you and the Tadpole were along on one of those hunts), and we still came up goose eggs :-( I got over 20 caches in the Ojai area this past Sunday; a few were on a hike which was the main reason for the trip, but most of them were smalls or micros, and many of them were along busy roads, with a couple near businesses. Only because I was with another cacher did we do as well as we did; some of them we each would have bailed on if we had been on our own, but with one of us to be a decoy, it went a lot better. For us, there is no great attraction to a numbers run of urban micros. Occasionally we'll go for 15-20 with one or two other people, but then, that's as much about the camaraderie as anything else. Amazingly, what one person cannot do without looking like a freak or a pervert, two or three can do, because then it looks like something for a TV show, or a party game, or something. Humans be weird critters, hey?