Terrified Muggles

[+Hoka13579]

What do I do if I freak a muggle out????

[+wyrdsister]

What do I do if I freak a muggle out????

Smile?

What did you do?

[+Gitchee-Gummee]

Knowing little of what you did to freak him/her out... I would say take the knife away from their throat.

 

Not that? Put the gun away.

 

Not that? Put your shirt on.

 

Not that? Well, then get a haircut and take a shower!

 

Difficult guessing as to what else you could do....

[+T.D.M.22]

...

Not that? Put your shirt on.

....

 

Or take it off...

 

Seriously it depends on what you do to freak them out, and what they do. If they get scared and run away...well I guess you don't ave to do anything. If they ask what you're doing, you can either tell the truth or if you think they may somehow harm the cache you could tell them something like this(Although NEVER lie to a police officer, security, or person who has control of the land-they may know, or if they control the land and don't know they may remove the cache just because you lied)

 

Seeing that this was one of the last caches that we did not get in Redcliff we decided to give it a shot. Team TahoeGR00 set out to GZ just to find nothing… A few months later I notice that azraelsportal had logged that he had figured out what to do and had ordered a tool to help find the cache. So I decided to meet up with azraelsportal & fotowca to have another try at the cache. When the time was right the three of us started our search at GZ. It was a long hard search that was not getting us anywhere. At one point I had pulled my truck along the GZ so that I could stand on the side of the box just to get height to look for the cache.

 

It was about then when the home owner from across the street, the West side, came over to ask “What are you looking for?” Without missing a beat I said “Brick Bugs!!” He looked a little puzzled but continued to ask more questions. So I said “Do you see the little holes in the brick that we are looking at??? Well they were made by Brick Bugs that come out in the evening. They eat at the bricks and over time the bricks will weaken. We are from the Collage and are trying to catch a Brick Bug so that we would be able to study the life cycle and understand their effect on bricks.” Well this just set the guy off and he said “Do you know that just about every house in Redcliff is made of BRICKS!! The Brick Bugs could start to destroy the houses around town!!” I responded that “That is the reason that we are trying to get catch one!!” He then called his wife over and told her our Brick Bug story to her and that he hoped that we would be able to catch one to help save the town and stop the Brick Bugs…..

 

At the end of the day we did not find the cache or a Brick Bug but man I love talking to Muggles!!!

TahoeGR00

 

From here

[+dprovan]

I normally cast a calming spell. "We are not the geocachers you are looking for. Move along."

[+Hoka13579]

Thanks Guys, it has helped heaps.

P.S. The muggle came over and said are ok?

I said yes I'm fine, do I look ok?

He said yes you look fine but what is that in your hand?

I said just my lunch.

He said ok good bye, and looked at me for a long time.

Then I walked away when I was finished.

[teni1]

haha too funny. I will keep my eye out for muggles!

[+lingua-file]

I had a muggling freakout experience.

Finishing a multi, and happened that the gz was in a park backed onto by suburbia. The gz wasn't too close, but in trying to find it at night, I made too much noise. The ninja dog starts barking and keeps barking. I ignore it and search between two pockets of trees (i have a dodgy gps on my phone so the error tends to be around 10-20m rather than 2-4. Anyway, im all over the place, the dog is barking, I have my torch and phone on, trying to find any clue then the dog owner comes out.

They stand at the top of their stairs and watch the torch light. Then, when I notice, I turn the torch light out. Such a stupid move because they had already seen it, but anyway, there I was, in the dark now, dog barking and standing behind a tree so as not to be spotted.

Then the owner pulls out a lazer light and starts strafing the trees with it. There is no way to get past it. I use the shadow caused by the tree to back out, go the long way around and get back to my car. As I log the DNF, the cops pull up and they walk into the park (where I was).

Such for stealth.

Such a freakout too.

[+Gemfyre]

Being a birdwatcher helps me a lot. Just the other day two council workers appeared _just_ as I was extracting a cache from it's hide in the top of the fencepost.

 

I managed to distract them from what I was REALLY up to by pointing out the Rainbow Bee-Eaters flying everywhere (VERY pretty, and migratory down here in Perth). The guys had a little look for the birds, then went about their business and I went about mine.

 

It was also great when Pokemon Go players were EVERYWHERE. Everyone just assumed you were playing that and didn't look twice.

[+DARKSIDEDAN]

I just tell people Im playing Pokémon Go

[Darwin473]

Pokémon Go would have been a great cover story.

 

I'm over 6 foot, so I need to be careful not to worry people. The first cache I went looking for was in a little bit of bush near off to the side of a bicycle path near housing, so I was trying to be careful and not look too dodgy. Not sure if I succeeded though!  

[+Goldenwattle]

It's what could scare people at any time, so try not to act in a way to freak a muggle out.

These can worry some people, so be aware of them. Looking scruffy, dirty, acting weird, being male, more so a large, young male. A group of loud, scruffy males. Some groups of (esp. young) females might scare others too, depending of their behaviour and dress.

What would scare people less; having a female present, clean, even if casually dressed, not shabby, family groups with young children, better spoken, smiling, keeping distance.

[Darwin473]

Good idea, I'll grab some kids from somewhere to drag along when I go crawling in the bush... (I joke, I joke!)

 

It'd be good to get the family involved, but my wife has a bad back and teenage kids are more interested in burying their noses into their phones rather than going outside. If only there was some reason for them to bring their phones along ….  

 

So far, I've tried wearing bright, happy clothes and taking of my sunnies and waving to people when I see them. Fortunately, in Darwin there are lots of people who enjoy the outdoor lifestyle (despite the humidity) so it isn't unusual to see people out and about. Annoyingly, there are lots of muggles out and about to avoid!

[+Calypso62]

The best way to not freak out muggles is to wear a hi-vis vest while searching. I do this for all urban environments. I then go about my business of the search ignoring everyone that passes by. The vast majority of people just think you're a worker inspecting something. Sometimes somebody will ask me what I'm looking for so I tell them I'm not sure but I'll know it when I find it. Mostly, people will just give you a funny look and walk off. If they seem interested, I tell them about geocaching and go from there.

 

One time I was searching along a fenceline of a railway corridor, with my hi-vis vest on. It was across the road from homes. The local council were doing kerb and guttering in the street but had finiished work for the day. A lady came out of one of the houses and called me over. She wanted to tell me what a wonderful job the council were doing. We had a bit of a chat about the work and I thanked her for her kind words. She went inside happy and I continued searching and eventually found the cache.

[+DARKSIDEDAN]

I usually say that I am doing Pokémon Go or doing a treasure hunt. It puts peoples mind at rest