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Best Excuse For The Question: "what Are You Doing?"


50Cal

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I'm one of the lucky folks. I have a landscaping business and so have the perfect excuse for most situations - "just checking the plants".

 

I have more issues when hiding a cache.

 

"What's with the box?"

"Why, yes officer I was carrying a box into the woods, and why yes, I did leave it there."

 

I ALWAYS carry my geoshillellagh (with the geocaching staff medallion on it) with me when geocaching as it's a little easier to explain to those friendly officers that I'm doing something legit.

 

It also helps resolve that hesitation when I encounter another geocacher on the trails.

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I've used two excuses:

 

1) "Utah P and P surveying earth shifting equipment. Its really interesting, you see when a car or vehicle drives within 1 mile of the survey equipment the Earth can shift almost a milimeter and can affect the reproduction cycle of the American Earthworm. When two Earthworms are reproducing a milimeter shift can cause the penis of the male Earthworm..." Usually by that time they leave.

 

2) "University of Utah Entomology Department. We've had reports that Elephant spiders have been found in the luggage of the military returning from the Middle East. I'm trying to see how many have gotten into the wild here in Utah. Nerve racking job, these things are the size of my head, I hope I don't find anymore today."

 

-=7ofclubs=-

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---homework

 

--class project (which usually means I am taking a picture)

 

---repacking backpack (usually self-explanatory and not questioned) - we are getting really good at making it look like that is all we are doing. Really get funny looks for the contents we are repacking. Kids along are good cover-ups in this case. Not so strange to have trinkets if you have kids along.

 

All three of these were used on the same day in various locations with heavy muggle activity.

 

Distraction and redirection items include: walking the dog; cameras/picture taking (sometimes with dead batteries but what do they know); cell phone conversations on turned off cell phones while walking & looking around (who can bother to interrupt a woman engaged in a passionate cell phone conversation while walking her dog and lugging around a camera?)

 

Since we are new to this I am sure we are going to have our pat answers down, and make some truth out of them by incorporating geocaching into other areas of our lives.

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Only once was I asked what I was doing. I was looking for a cache near the edge of town in the woods near a residential area when I was approached by an older lady who I noticed was watching me from her house from the time I left my truck, a blue Ford Explorer that could pass for a state vehicle. My answer was that I was there doing stage one survey work for a new sewer wast treatment plant. She responded OH and walked off, I'm sure to call all the neighbors.

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I really have fun with this question.

(It's a lot funnier if you've ever seen me. I was born without a right hand.)

When someone approaches me, they usually have a funny look on their face, having seen my right arm, I just hold up my arm and tell them I'm looking for my other hand. "I had it when I came through here yesterday and I really want it back. If you see let me know...It's the one with the big green booger on the index finger" :blink:

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I really have fun with this question.

(It's a lot funnier if you've ever seen me. I was born without a right hand.)

When someone approaches me, they usually have a funny look on their face, having seen my right arm, I just hold up my arm and tell them I'm looking for my other hand. "I had it when I came through here yesterday and I really want it back. If you see let me know...It's the one with the big green booger on the index finger" :blink:

Ok, that sooo wins.

You officially have the best excuse.

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On my very first find, I was with a few people and we were all looking for the cache. The cache was in a hotel parking lot. Being our first time, we were pretty conspicuous and hotel security (about 3 guys) stopped us and asked us what we were doing. I didn't know what else to do so I just told them about geocaching. We thought for sure that they would remove the cache, but it has been found a few times since, apparently still intact.

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Whenever you are out geocaching and you run into another person(s), what do you say when they ask you what your looking for or what you're doing? Anyone know some good answers?

 

The voices tells that there is a box here... yes, a treasure, a great treasure, must now search for box...

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About 30 feet off of a small path and me and my geo-toddler, 2.5 at the time and potty training, we (meaning I) was searching around and the geo-toddler was looking at the tree that the cache was near and being rather loud ...All of a sudden, a guy is walking up to us asking if we are ok. My son (without missing a beat,) pulls down his pants and pees on the tree and says "I am peeing." I have *never* been so embarrassed in my life. :anicute: The guy just smiled and said "keep up the good work watering the tree" and walked away. Soooo, sooooooo, sooooooo mortified.

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About 30 feet off of a small path and me and my geo-toddler, 2.5 at the time and potty training, we (meaning I) was searching around and the geo-toddler was looking at the tree that the cache was near and being rather loud ...All of a sudden, a guy is walking up to us asking if we are ok. My son (without missing a beat,) pulls down his pants and pees on the tree and says "I am peeing." I have *never* been so embarrassed in my life. :anicute: The guy just smiled and said "keep up the good work watering the tree" and walked away. Soooo, sooooooo, sooooooo mortified.

 

LOLZ thats classic! It reminds me of my latest geocaching video where i reenact the time i got caught peeing while out night caching by the POLICE! blink.gif

 

check it out and if you like what you see SUBSCRIBE!

 

GEOvloger

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9/10 times I say "I'm taking part in a world wide, never ending treasure hunt". Usually it's older people that don't want me terrorizing their neighborhood, or security guards that monitor parking lots. I gladly explain to them what geo caching is and show them the app on my phone. I have never had someone be negative once I explain what I'm really doing. More often than not they are actually interested and blown away that something so huge is completely unknown to them. I figure I have a lot better chance of not having the cops called on me, or having the cache found and removed, if I just be polite and act as if I'm trying to spread the word on a nice recreational activity that cause no harm to anyone.

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I recently did a multi-cache in a wooded area that required me to do a puzzle. Here I am in the middle of the woods, putting an Elmo puzzle together. For the non-geocacher, what in the world would someone think?

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing: crying with laughter! We really are insane, aren't we! But we do this all the time! Often times I'm sitting there in the middle of the bush with some weird contraption (the last one being a metre long hyperdermic syringe!) and wondering what any passing muggle would think if they happened upon me at that instant.... :blink: :blink: :blink:

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If I am doing something that is legal, i do it. If someone asks, I just say "geocaching" if they persist to ask in a nice way, I explain. If they get snarky I ask them to kindly go about their own business...only had one instance when I had to use the latter. every other interaction with people wondering and asking has been very pleasant.

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We really are insane, aren't we! But we do this all the time! Often times I'm sitting there in the middle of the bush with some weird contraption (the last one being a metre long hyperdermic syringe!) and wondering what any passing muggle would think if they happened upon me at that instant.... :blink: :blink: :blink:

I'm way more comfortable when I'm working with a weird contraption because they'll think I'm doing something weird that they wouldn't understand, and that's fine with me. Even reasonably accurate. When I just come out from behind a bush with nothing in my hands and a smile on my face, I'm sure they have a very specific idea exactly what I was doing, different, of course, depending on whether I come out alone or if my wife's with me...

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In 11 1/2 years and over 6000 caches I've been asked twice, and I told the truth.

I've found 2 caches that were in front of police cruisers and the officers were in them, after finding the caches went and talked to them to explain and they weren't even interested in what I was doing.

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We were doing a multi part night cache. We walked about a mile into the woods and found the two parts that we needed. It ended up that we had to walk the same way that we came in. We get about 1/4 of a mile and we see flashing lights. Not just a few. Red...blue...all of them. We get a hundred feet further and a cop comes out of nowhere and is shining a light directly in our eyes. He asks us what we are going, we tell him honestly. He says, "Oh yeah, I found that one last year...you are on the right track." We asked what was going on and it ends up that a bunch of kids had lit a bonfire that had gotten out of control. Drinking was involved and they had scattered. They were working on finding the kids and putting the fire out. He radioed ahead that we were coming out. It ended up that the final part of the cache was hidden about 10 feet from the back of the cruiser. Yeah, it was an interesting night ;)

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It was snowing in ohio today- the kids and I went caching. a few into our run my feet got soaked in a very soggy low-lying ground area . once we got back to the car my daughter and I took off our shoes and socks. well, on the way home there was a nice little string of 7 caches aLong an industrial parkway. I figured " what the heck" and decided to go for them- they were basically p&gs . so of course , no cars in sight. I jump out barefoot and go for the finds - no LPCs though, and most required a bery short walk across some grass. wouldn't you know 6 out if 7 times cars drive by right as I am standing along the road with no shoes on. then I realized one of the cars keeps circling around and goes past me at least 4 times at various caches. I'm hoping that they were fellow cachers, but no one stopped to ask so I lucked out I think.

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I was recently doing some owner maintenance and turned around just in time to be muggled by 2 black labs and a german shepard. Figuring that the owners were not too far behind, I headed out to the trail, dogs in tow. When I got to the trail, two girls came around the corner. I was bent down scratching the dogs. I said, "I think I found your dogs," one of the girls responded, "please tell me that the dogs didn't find a body...they didn't find a body right?" I was a bit confused until I realized that I was wearing my official looking "coroner" shirt. I think that I am going to get some crime scene tape so that I can mark a perimeter and I won't get muggled :anibad:

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Officer, I am trying to find a place to bury this shovel.

We had someone see us coming out of the woods with our kids and a shovel in hand (we had just buried a cache). The guy later asked what were we doing and we told him we had to bury a hampster. I also say I lost something and am looking for it.

 

Not trying to pick, just asking out of curiosity, but don't the rules say a geocache can't be buried?

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Officer, I am trying to find a place to bury this shovel.

We had someone see us coming out of the woods with our kids and a shovel in hand (we had just buried a cache). The guy later asked what were we doing and we told him we had to bury a hampster. I also say I lost something and am looking for it.

 

Not trying to pick, just asking out of curiosity, but don't the rules say a geocache can't be buried?

 

The guidelines have changed since that was written in 2007.

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