Rainy Days And Mondays

… are usually inconsequential to me, but them’s the breaks, no?

A couple of weeks ago, I had some words for those of us who have been doing this for a while. Today, I speak to the newest of us. I have no doubt that I’m talking to the bees here. Then again, maybe we should speak our hopes and intentions into the world?

Yesterday morning, I got a message from another cacher with a handle I didn’t recognize, asking for help with a Mystery Cache I was one of the last people to find. I looked at it (I found it six months before, but I solved it a year or more ago), and it was really simple. The description was blank, but the corrected coordinates were there in white typeface. A simple highlight would reveal the answer. I gave him the hint that everything he would need was in the description.

From that point, he started getting a little aggressive. He said he couldn’t see anything because he hadn’t paid for membership. I told him that only affected higher-level caches and the cache was below that threshold. He insisted it was requesting upgrading to see it. I told him that the description should be fine for him and then pulled up his profile. He had no finds yet. I wondered why he was going for a Mystery for his first cache. I’ve found thousands of caches, and I still have trouble with the puzzles for some Mystery Caches. I can’t imagine someone inexperienced being able to navigate the puzzle and the hide very easily. I suggested that, since he had not found one before, perhaps he should find a few Traditionals first. He responded by sending me images of a different Mystery Cache on the map, grayed out and inaccessible. What more could I really say? He was fixated and didn’t seem interested in anything I had to say. It occurred to me later that maybe he had found some before and never logged them. I know one person who would do that—find caches but not log them. But somehow, I highly doubt that was true in this case.

I guess my point here (and I do have one) is that geocaching requires a little bit of investment. It takes a little bit of time, effort, and humility (you’re not going to find every cache every time, and there’s always going to be someone better than you). I’m all for helping new cachers out. I consider it both my pleasure and, to an extent, my job. But I can’t give everything. You’ve got to put in the work. You’ve got to want it. Go find that first cache. Stumble over the tenth. Agonize over the fiftieth. The hundredth, the hundred and fifth, and the two hundredth will be easier. But whether you’re hardcore or casual, you’ve got to do the work. And though I can only speak for myself, I think there’s one heck of a reward.