Saturday morning, I went out to get another FTF, the other cache placed by the same CO who provided the one I found last week with the girls. I left this one alone then for several reasons: it was in Austin proper (meaning it would be easy to get to), it was close to home, and if nobody had found it (which I considered unlikely), it would be a good candidate for a July FTF. Well, nobody found it. I thought that was surprising, but I also know that a lot of cachers live on the outskirts and don’t want to come close to downtown, and any college-going cachers are probably home for the summer. I headed downtown to the leading edge of East Austin and came to a stop beside a pocket park. A few blocks from Austin‘s oldest cemetery, the neighborhood had been run-down when I was younger, as much of the area just east of I-35 had been. But over the years, young hipsters had moved in for the cheap rents, and when they grew older, they bought the ramshackle houses for cheap and either fixed them up or replaced them entirely. The sagging and decrepit homes I remembered from just a decade ago had become newer and more vibrant, and the lot that sat across the street now formed a little place to sit in green or walk a dog. The dog-walking part was salient to my visit because when I arrived, there were two muggles walking their unleashed dogs, hanging out and chatting. The location of the cache was easy to ascertain, a holey log in the center, so I just decided to sit down and wait them out. I parked myself on a bench, and surreptitiously watched and waited.
And waited.
One of the dogs came up to me, curious about the rando who had at some point entered his park. It approached and began barking at the stranger. I have many flaws, and one of them is that, when approached by a dog, unless they seem especially dangerous, I tend to look them directly in the eyes. This creates one of two reactions: either loud posturing or loud retreat, depending on the dog’s assessment of my danger to them. Usually, retreat is the result, but this one decided to posture. It bared teeth and barked and paced forward, though not close enough to have any contact. Its owner eventually came and took control, apologizing for the disturbance. I waved it off. Dogs will be dogs.
And I waited more.
And then a change in status happened! A third muggle showed up with his dog! The three people began to chat as I began to get annoyed. How long were these folks gonna take? I had expected this to be a quick in-and-out-type deal, and now I was looking at around thirty minutes of sitting, looking at area caches, waiting for everyone to leave. I decided that when there was only one muggle left, I would just go and get the cache anyway. The good news was that the first two left with their dogs within five minutes of my decision. The bad news was that the new and remaining muggle sat down right on the log the cache was in. I can be stealthy, but my abilities have limits. He pulled out his phone and, as his dog pranced around, proceeded to read the entire internet in one sitting.
And I waited even more.
On any other day, with any other cache, I think I might have just abandoned it for another one. Not this time, though. Yes, I wanted the FTF, but at that point, I had so much time invested in waiting that there was no way I was going to leave without it! And finally, after an hour of sitting and waiting for people to leave, the final muggle got up and left the park with his furry friend. I pounced, lest I end up waiting another hour on account of someone else! I went to where the last muggle had just gotten up from and examined the holes in the log, to no avail! Had all my waiting been for naught? As I began to tear at my hair in lamentation (which was really a futile endeavor since I had shaved my head the night before), I looked over and saw another hole in another log with the cache sitting inside undisturbed. I grabbed it from the hole and signed it, the first person to place ink on the log inside the cache inside the log (don’t blame me, the CO made that joke). And then I headed back home. If I had wanted to sit around and fiddle with my phone all morning, I could have done that in my living room with air conditioning!
Geocaching While Black 