+Snoogans Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 I happened upon a GREAT geocaching story that got squashed because of some language and commercial linking issues.... So I took it upon myself to contact the writer of this story to clean it up to be presented in a family friendly forum. It's a unique perspective from a non-player (aka muggle) who got curious about something he saw and decided to check it out, stumbled upon a cache, and decided to blog about his experience of finding is first geocache. It's a long story, but worth the time it takes to see the other side of the fence..... The Process JESUS…it was a beautiful day…66 degrees, a light breeze, and not a cloud in the sky. Heavenly! A perfect day to either put the top down and take my Jeep out to the desert or clean out the garage. Personally, I would rather spend a week in a line at the Dept of Motor Vehicles than clean out the garage, so the desert was an obvious choice. It’s quiet and I can think peacefully, plus…I like my Jeep the same way I enjoy my martinis and my women…dirty. The desert here in El Paso is everything you would expect. Tumbleweeds, lizards, snakes, garbage, sand, sand, sand, and oh…did I mention the freaking sand. In my experience, people usually use the desert for a few reasons – to go off-roading, exercise, shoot guns, or dump garbage (jerks). But I am also painfully well aware that there are other possible no-so-good purposes for that vast wasteland too and I always take caution. Sunday afternoon and all of the usual suspects were accounted for; helmetless atv riders, drunken 4x4er’s, and expert target shooters killing the ever dangerous empty beer bottle. Countless years of human evolution and this was the inevitable circus showcasing the finest in our species. Now, I normally avoid the insanity of this Ringling Brothers hooligan-esque weekend madness like homeless people asking me for change, but I couldn’t resist today and I casually made my way out to a quieter spot overlooking the El Paso valley. From my hilltop perch, I listened to sports radio while I fumbled through my Dayplanner – trying to strategize my world takeover – when I noticed an suv parked off in the distance. Nothing unusual, but when Captain Kangaroo (what can I say, he was old & had a beard) came stumbling out of this extremely rugged little arroyo, it piqued my curiosity. Being a former conman, drug dealer, DEA informant, and all around social engineer…I tend to notice things that other people completely miss. I took my usual mental inventory of this guys dress, walk, behavior, whatever and it didn’t make any sense to me, but then again – I am a cantankerous, suspicious, overly-imaginative pain-in-the-rear. But about 30 minutes after the ‘Captain’ hastily left, a nagging feeling in my gut prompted me to go check it out. After making my way down the hill, I performed a careful initial examination of the scene that would have made a criminalist proud. I picked up his trail and noticed that this fellow took a circuitous route back to a secluded part of this deep arroyo where I surmised that only tarantulas and people trying to hide something would go. And being the ever curious cat that I am, I decided to press on. Maybe I would find D.B. Coopers secret loot or a small fortune in hidden drug money or Onate’s gold or the entrance to the bat cave or maybe an tail whooping, but whatever it was…I WAS THERE! I got about 50 yards in, when I realized that I was just wearing flip flops and that I had left the keys in the Jeep with my cell phone in it. I also realized that Captain Suspicious might come back to the scene, while I was being the curious little cat. And since I have already used up a good portion of my nine lives in the past, I decided to regroup. So I went back to the Jeep and prepared for a hike. Keys, check. Cell phone, check. Hiking boots, machete, and a bottle of water; check, check, & let’s get the hell out of here already! Now I was curious, probably too curious. But what in the heck was this guy doing? Who was he? If I find money am I gonna turn it in to the authorities…? Well, I knew the answer to this one…NO! Should I buy a Dodge Viper? Another laptop? A new flatscreen? Ohhhh, a trip to Cancun would be nice this time of year, but wait I don’t have a passport…SHUT UP ALREADY…my alter ego screamed! I needed to concentrate, so I went back to tracking and I found his trail & took notice of his gate in the sand. It looked from his strides that he was my height but heavier. I couldn’t see if he was fat from the distance, but could he have been carrying something? A body? I better get a freaking reward for this. Up one ridge, down another, across some railroad tracks, over a barbed wire fence – that decided it needed to eat & took a bite from a very private area – across a small valley and up a steep hill. I painfully followed each step looking for a clue, while thinking about all the ways that I was gonna either find treasure or how long it would take them to find my body in the desert. I estimated that I was about a mile away from where I started when I climbed this steep embankment. Ever alert for rattlers, scorpions, anything else that bites, desperate illegals, drug runners – basically anything dangerous – I relied on all of my life experience to constantly survey my surroundings while dreaming of treasure. That was…until his trail came to an end behind some overgrown desert brush on the edge of a steep embankment. I looked down and couldn’t believe it; half buried in the sand was an ammo box. Bloodied, dirty, tired and needing a tetanus shot…I froze. This was too good to be true. I found treasure and I was gonna be rich! I wanted a gold Rolex, no…a silver one with diamonds, maybe BOTH! As my heart thumped, I double checked that I wasn’t followed and slowly knelt near the box. I looked for booby traps and gently nudged it with my machete. After pulling it out, I opened it facing away from me and peeked inside awaiting my spoils. Butt kiss! The only thing in there was a bunch of childish knickknacks that only retarded kids would find interesting, but nothing cool. Some notebooks, several quarters, a 2 dollar lottery ticket, pencils, some coasters, a GI Joe, a bolo, and other assorted crap not worth mentioning. I wanted to take a leak in it, but then I began to profile Captain Crazy. What type of guy would do this? Would my disturbing his stash cause him to kill someone? What if this lunatic caught me here? My mind was racing and my flight or fight response kicked in. I was ready to jet, when I decided to quickly take a peek at the journals. “This was too easy, didn’t have to use the GPS.” “Greetings from the visiting Blueheels.” “Cachers, this was a beautiful hike.” WTH? There were several different handwriting styles and all the posts had dates. Obviously I had found someone’s game. DAMMIT! How come I am never the guy that finds that lost bag of money from a Brinks armored truck? You won’t see me on the evening news collecting my $1000 reward for turning in a couple of hundred thousand bucks. I will be that lucky turd at the Hummer stealership paying cash for a new H1. You gotta give my instincts credit though; I pegged this one on the nose. Later – after some research on the net referencing some of the journal entries that I read, I found out that there is this group of people called Geocachers (www.geocaching.com) that like to hide stuff and then go look for it. They leave a note and a memento while taking a memento and doing the Hokey-Pokey dance in a Hula dress or some stupid crap like that. C’est la vie – but thanks anyways for the two dollar lottery ticket and buck fifty in quarters – it paid for a donut & a soda. That’s the least they could do after making me walk two miles looking for buried treasures and dumped bodies! I guess the moral of the story is that we often take a walk down the path of life looking for a treasure that will make us happy. We do things like – go to school, find a job, get married, start a business, whatever – but more often than we would like to admit, we either struggle or worse…fail at these endeavors…never reaching that treasured outcome that we covet. Stop and smell the roses. Sit back and enjoy the ride. Do what you enjoy and you will never work a day in your life. You have heard it all before, but it has never been truer. Why chase outcomes? Poop happens and happens often. You are not in control of things like you would like to think, so why set yourself up to be disappointed by defining yourself only by a final moment. And let me tell you a little secret, highly successful people don’t purely chase outcomes either. They chase the process. Life, just like success, is a process. Successful people never know how things are going to work out, so they marry the process. Their process is to develop fantastic habits – exercise, attitude, effort, practice, and work, whatever-it-may-be – and they religiously follow this routine. When they fail, they keep doing the process and eventually success in some form follows. This is not true for people that only chase outcomes, when they fail, they quit. But that brings us to the real secret; successful people enjoy doing their processes. They love their highly productive habits & routine. So if you want to be successful, create a process/routine & start with some good basic habits, such as having a positive attitude. Things won’t change overnight, but you CAN do it…start with just one new habit, then two, then three and next thing you know the results – TREASURED OUTCOMES – will magically appear! What have you got to lose? And it’s too easy to not try. And in case you were wondering, I plan on taking a copy of this story and some mementos back to the 'cachers' little box, but I don't think I will be doing any more geocaching anytime soon. © Chris Heifner 2008 Chris chose Citizen Nobody as his geocaching handle. The cache that he backtracked to was most probably the final to this multi-cache. For those that are curious, the address for the original version of this story is at www.zyoose.com. Click on the BLOG tab. I'm not adding a link because of the adult language, situations, and images outlined on the site. Quote Link to comment
+Renegade Knight Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 the guy finds the cache and the first thing he wants to do is take a leak in it? That must be some kind of primal instinct. Evolution at it's best. Chimp, pee on cache. Ape pee on chimp. Man, open cache pee inside. He's right about one thing. Life is the journey. Quote Link to comment
+Snoogans Posted April 18, 2008 Author Share Posted April 18, 2008 (edited) the guy finds the cache and the first thing he wants to do is take a leak in it? That must be some kind of primal instinct. Evolution at it's best. Chimp, pee on cache. Ape pee on chimp. Man, open cache pee inside. He's right about one thing. Life is the journey. Funny thing though.... I've found a few caches that have been urinated in.... I think the important point is that he DIDN'T. Edited April 18, 2008 by Snoogans Quote Link to comment
+Castle Mischief Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 Funny, I don't remember Captain Kangaroo with a beard... Quote Link to comment
TinyMoon & The Pumpkin King Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 He had a moustache and big sideburns, I think they called 'em "muttonchops" back in the Civil War days. Quote Link to comment
+Team Cotati Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 That was a really great story. Quote Link to comment
magellan315 Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 What a great story and a great sense of humor the author has. Quote Link to comment
+JonInNH1 Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 He had a moustache and big sideburns, I think they called 'em "muttonchops" back in the Civil War days. I am surprised someone like that doesn't get into caching. Then again maybe thats a good thing he doesn't, if he wants to fill up caches "that" way. Quote Link to comment
+PyrateWench Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 Snoogans, thanks for editing and reposting that story! I was curious from the last post, but didn't find it until after the links were removed. That was really interesting and a fun read. Quote Link to comment
+NeoAddict Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 What a great story, albeit this guy gets a little too creative in his blogging it seems, lol! I can picture plenty of muggles reacting the same way to caches. Quote Link to comment
+scuba dude Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 Thanks for the story Snoogs! Interesting that I am only a few miles from that area right now. I won't have time to go after any hiking caches, but interesting story for my (temporary) local spot. SD Quote Link to comment
+KerBear Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 since he took th $2.00 lottery ticket-he may have won and got a H1 anyway. might have found the treasure he wanted! Quote Link to comment
citizennobody Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 (edited) I am glad everyone enjoyed my story... ...thanks. First off, I would like to say that any comment poking fun at the geocaching community was just in jest and used as creative license to tell a better story. Second, as far as relieving myself in the cache...I wouldn't do that...just thought about it because I was sooooooo disappointed that I didn't find treasure. Third, its funny...when I first found the cache, I HONESTLY thought that I had found some sort of stash of a deranged lunatic. Schizophrenic? Manic Depressive? Whatever, but it took me a good 30 minutes to figure it out. I was truly nervous and was so worried that disturbing his cache would cause him to cut off his ear or worse. The journal slightly helped, but this site explained everything. Fourth, that blog has had 1500 direct hits (not including referencing sites) and I have received 30 emails asking about caching & getting into it. Fifth, out of fair play...I plan to go put some goodies in the cache in May when I get back in town. And finally, I would like to personally thank Snoogans for taking the time to repost this. At any rate, glad yall enjoyed it... Edited April 18, 2008 by citizennobody Quote Link to comment
+PhxChem Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 (edited) the guy finds the cache and the first thing he wants to do is take a leak in it? I figured that was his writing style (actually a bit like mine, I must admit). Very entertaining. I will agree, if there were more caches with ill-gotten lute from bank heists, Geocaching would really take off! Somehow, McToys don't fill that void.... Do you ever wonder what muggles are thinking when they spot us? And the answer to that question......they think we're psychopathic killers hiding bodies in the desert. Not far from the truth... Edited April 18, 2008 by PhxChem Quote Link to comment
+Super_Nate Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 (edited) I am glad everyone enjoyed my story... ...thanks. First off, I would like to say that any comment poking fun at the geocaching community was just in jest and used as creative license to tell a better story. Second, as far as relieving myself in the cache...I wouldn't do that...just thought about it because I was sooooooo disappointed that I didn't find treasure. Third, its funny...when I first found the cache, I HONESTLY thought that I had found some sort of stash of a deranged lunatic. Schizophrenic? Manic Depressive? Whatever, but it took me a good 30 minutes to figure it out. I was truly nervous and was so worried that disturbing his cache would cause him to cut off his ear or worse. The journal slightly helped, but this site explained everything. Fourth, that blog has had 1500 direct hits (not including referencing sites) and I have received 30 emails asking about caching & getting into it. Fifth, out of fair play...I plan to go put some goodies in the cache in May when I get back in town. And finally, I would like to personally thank Snoogans for taking the time to repost this. At any rate, glad yall enjoyed it... I thought this was an outstanding story. Gives geocaching a different perspective, because I can't tell you the dozens of times I have been signing the log on a cache only to have someone come from out of nowhere and stare be down like I was exchanging illegal drugs or something (I actually got accused of getting dope once, but after showing the guy the childish knick-knacks and various assortments of crap inside the container, I think he understood...as least remotely) This blog entry actually did me a purpose, and that was learning about a new motivational speaker that I have never heard of before. If I ever hear of a time that citizennobody will be in the Southeast Tennessee area, I will be sure to come hear the story. I just have to hear "The Process" told in real life. Edited April 18, 2008 by Super_Nate Quote Link to comment
citizennobody Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 (edited) My suggestion to the geocaching community, which you may have already done, but I am so new that I don't know about... ...would be to create a standard plastic card, similar to those drivers license sized reference cards you find at the checkout, that concisely explain geocaching and how to get started. That way, I wouldn't have been sweating getting accosted by Forrest Gump over touching his "Bawox!" I did notice a sticker on the side of the ammo box, with some geocache info on it, but it didn't look official enough for this muggle. You could throw a bunch of these cards in the cache and invite muggles to take them and join the hunt. Heck, you could even create a collector card series, that could be collected/framed/traded and what not... ...if you want anymore free business tips, I am gonna have to charge!!!!!!! Scratch that, I am starting a geocard printing company tomorrow. Does anyone want to do some design work? Send me your resume. JUST KIDDING, LOL! Edited April 18, 2008 by citizennobody Quote Link to comment
+Super_Nate Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 Most caches have what we call "stashnotes" that are usually placed in the zip lock bag along with the log book (or journal). It explains geocaching in detail for somebody who may stumble across the container. This cache may not have had one, which is a prime example of why EVERY cache should have them. Quote Link to comment
+Snoogans Posted April 18, 2008 Author Share Posted April 18, 2008 Second, as far as relieving myself in the cache...I wouldn't do that...just thought about it because I was sooooooo disappointed that I didn't find treasure. That was the part of the story that made me take notice. There is a faction of outspoken cachers with entitlement issues built up by unrealistic expectations of their fellow cachers and life in general. Rather than take a leak in the caches they find, they come and take a figurative leak on their fellow cachers in the forums. It can get rather entertaining. Your story made me understand that these issues are truly universal. You however, were able to immediately take a step back and see things in a realistic perspective which is a GIANT leap foreword. Thank YOU for your perspective. I doubt a story like yours will come to light very often.... Quote Link to comment
+JABs Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 QUOTEDo you ever wonder what muggles are thinking when they spot us? Think about it they see you pull over on the side of the road run off into the bush then walk back out a couple of minutes later with a smile on your face. Then you drive drive down the road a couple of Kilometers and do it all over again. To me it looks like we all have a weak bladder as we hide behind trees and bushes. Quote Link to comment
citizennobody Posted April 19, 2008 Share Posted April 19, 2008 the guy finds the cache and the first thing he wants to do is take a leak in it? That must be some kind of primal instinct. Evolution at it's best. Chimp, pee on cache. Ape pee on chimp. Man, open cache pee inside. He's right about one thing. Life is the journey. I think this is hilarious... Quote Link to comment
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