Cachin and fashin

[+ox2004]

"Great" we thought, "A brand new child-themed cache near our home. We will visit on the way to Tescos with our toddler."

 

So off we set with Andrew (age 3) and our teenage daughter. She took an hour to get ready (after all, in Tescos someone might see her)

 

Picture the ensemble: Jane Norman handbag, Jane Norman jeans, Warehouse Coat (no, I do not mean a donkey jacket) and high heel boots. Made up to the nines, as we say in the UK.

 

All went well for the first clue, and we headed off down the catwalk (sorry, I meant down the path) heading for the second clue. That was when disaster struck. "There's muuuuuuuuuuuud." she wailed. "You never said there would be muuuuuud."

 

The stream had broken it's banks, and the path was waterlogged. Undeterred, we forged on, with our son happily splashing and our daughter bringing up the rear.

 

It was then that she discovered that high heels are not the best thing for geocaching.

 

"I'm siiiiiiiiinking" she cried. "Don't let the mud get on my jeans." Slowly, ever so slowly, her heels were sinking in the mug, coming dangerously close to the hem of her designer jeans.

 

We could take the wailing no longer. We turned back, and found an alternative route. At the playground Andrew decided that swings and slides were better than a treasure hunt, and announced "No more geo-catching with melon" (Skippy will understand what that means, if ever she reads this log). Our daughter also did not want to go on because "I might get mud on my jacket", so we forged on without children, and eventually found the cache.

 

I do not know what the moral of this tale is. Perhaps "Don't let your toddler see a swing on a treasure hunt", perhaps "High Heels and mud are not a good combination." But I think it is: "When Geocaching worry about the terrain, not whether boys might see you."

Edited February 28, 2007 by ox2004

[+Bud]

Thanks for sharing. I got a chuckle reading this; it sounded like my sister-in-law back when I was dating my wife-to-be in the 80's. You couldn't run out to the store without your hair done just so, and changing your clothes at least twice to make sure it matched your makeup that day.

 

We hadn't found geocaching all those years ago, but if we had, I'd have been sure to drag her along just to torment her. She's still as vain, but not as big of a pill.

Edited February 28, 2007 by budophylus

[+emurock]

That's a funny story.

[+RCDispatchersx2]

I could have wrote this with my 14 yr old. I am lucky enough she has been raised on a farm though.

[Double Agents]

Mud is good for fasion. Just like dirt and grease!

 

Come on guys, admit it... Which would you rather have, a girl who's too girly to ever consider even walking on the grass for fear of grass stains; or a girl who realizes there's a time and place for being dressed to the nines, and also realizes that you can't have all the fun without getting dirty sometimes?

 

Great story, sounds like it would have been fun (at her expense). Hope she wasn't too annoyingly whiney about getting dirty.

[+bugsmasher69]

JUst change a few names and places and it sounds just like the time we took our then 17 year old daughter with us.

[+NorthWes]

Too funny! My 3 daughters have cached up here in Alaska - and as their canine companions are always along we always get a bit of the forest and trail on ourselves courtesy of our happy-to-be-hiking canines. The two youngest daughters are cross-country runners and skiers, well-versed in looking good while muddy, sweaty and rain-soaked (Both of them clean up pretty nice afterwards too). However, they've learned that footwear (the bane of our experiences) will be put to the test on any cache hunt, no matter how simple... and they've learned that if dad's wearing knee-hi mud boots (Wellingtons) they'd better be wearing something similar! The oldest daughter is pretty rugged too, having married a rock-climbing aficianado (they honeymooned, in part, at Joshua Tree Nat'l Park because the free-climbing is so good). All three of them have gone through the learning curve of what looks good on the trail vs what walks good on the trail; those doggone Danskos aren't always the best in mud and snow!

[leswon]

A funny story but not all 16 year old girls are like that, believe me I know.

[ramapirate]

That was good! I have a cousin that's 48 and just starting to outgrow that. She use to wouldn't walk to the street to get the mail without doing herself up.

 

Thanks for sharing that,

Ramapirate

 

Oh, and by the way, is "melon" child-ese for "Marilyn"? That's what we call my sister-in-law due to my son calling her that when he was little.

[+SGT red jeep]

I've taken my girls with me alot when caching. Being girls, they still have to look their best.

Sometimes the hardest thing is to get them to wear long pants or hiking boots.

But even wearing shorts and sandles still doesn't prevent them from getting to the cache ahead of me.

[+fairyhoney]

All great stories and responses!

[+Team_Spirit]

Try making that 8 teenagers on a muddy path, in the dark. Oh yeah. With one flashlight. That would be us last week: The Eyes Have It #2 log

 

I'm not sure which was worse - the girls whining about the mud wrecking their shoes, or the boys whining about how they might accidentally drop their cell phones IN the mud. It's not like they weren't warned. Sheesh.

[+emurock]

Try making that 8 teenagers on a muddy path, in the dark. Oh yeah. With one flashlight. That would be us last week: The Eyes Have It #2 log

 

I'm not sure which was worse - the girls whining about the mud wrecking their shoes, or the boys whining about how they might accidentally drop their cell phones IN the mud. It's not like they weren't warned. Sheesh.

Teenagers.