April 16, 2004
Scavenger Hunts
It's Nostalgia night, indulge my whims. When I was 5, or 6, or 7, thereabouts, my sister Belinda turned me on to scavenger hunts. She would have been 12 or so. How I loved them. She and her friends were aficianados of the sport, and constructed them inside the house, at first, then outside. They were MC's, of course, we were the bait. Payoff may have been a Mary Jane, or a Squirrel Nut Zipper, or just a note telling you you were a rat fink.
I don't know what excited me about the games, maybe it was just the thrill of the hunt. Layer in detective work, abstract thinking, deductive reasoning. Not unlike crossword puzzles, or acrostics. The thrill is indeed in the solving of the riddle.
Time wore on. In this case, weeks, I think. The hunts were over. But I swear I've never had such a thrill of excitement, and expectation, and potential treasure, as those stupid scavenger hunts.