Flagitious: A Shamefully Wicked Caching Experience

Flagitious (fla jish’ эs)  shamefully wicked, as persons, actions, times etc.

And so is the opening paragraph that describes each of the caches in the series that I placed earlier this year, along with my most trustworthy caching buddy Globuf.  Sadly, all are not winter-friendly and so ‘twas time to put (many of) this series into hibernation for the season.  This a fond review of the year of Flagitious…

The Flagitious series was a culmination of thoughts and ideas, some original and many others borrowed.  Honestly, I spent long winter evenings dreaming before the fireplace, designing the caches, plotting the series, chuckling and chortling to myself as I envisaged the challenges with which I was about to confront my fellow cachers (and already mentally begging forgiveness).

Flagitious was always intended as a challenge.  I admit, I am as equally caught up in the numbers game as many other cachers; there is nothing that I enjoy more than a “century day”  – a good trek or bike ride along a well-groomed trail with caches lying in wait of my arrival (the “low hanging fruit” so to speak).  But I also appreciate the thought, the imagination and the creativity of a really good hide.  There are times when it is not about the numbers, it’s about your geo-caching acumen – your perseverance and fortitude, that which you are willing to invest to find a level three difficulty, or four, or (OMG) a five!  The sense of accomplishment that comes with finding that particular cache, the one that you have revisited over and over again – and finally found!  That adrenalin rush!  We all know what it is – the greatest sense of achievement – we will not be conquered!!! And, for those of us who are just a little, shall I say “perverse”, there is the joy and absolute pleasure of creating a cache worthy of a five-degree of difficulty rating (5D).

It was not my intent to create a series of “5D” caches; it was my intent to entertain and challenge the caching community.  And so Flagitious was borne.  Some are a “5D” but others are simple but, hopefully, a little different and, thus, entertaining.

The reward of the Cache Owner (CO) is the pleasure from the adventures, antics, trials and tribulations of others.  I have come to look forward to the weekends, when I receive the most logs for the series; many of which have been hilarious.  They have made it all so very worthwhile.  I want to share with you some of the more memorable stories from this series.  But where to begin????

In my series’ description I note that some caches will require “special tools” but that the tools are all hidden at the site; you needn’t bring them yourself.  So, the first person to “find” Magnetic North (B Flagitious) arrives at GZ (and yes, you do have to bushwhack – my revenge for many, many caches, but at least I make you b/w only 30m) and (s)he immediately figures out the challenge.  However, instead of searching for the appropriate tool (hint: it’s arms-length from the cache), this very tall, golf-aficionado, heads all the way back to his/her car to find their own special tool.  Well, after all that much effort how can I not let him/her have the find?

But that has nothing on my next story!  I won a beautiful ammo can at the Come Out and Play contest, fully stocked.  Now an ammo can is not really my style but as I was reflecting upon how I might turn it into something “special” Jim52 suggested that I fill it with keys, one of which would open the log-book.  Well, that was much more devious than anything that I would have dreamt up (and that is why I borrow ideas) but it was also much more work than I was willing to put in, being of a rather lazy nature.  So, instead, I bought one set of keys and chained the ammo can to a tree.  The keys were hidden at GZ but the ammo can was in plain view, so I knew that it would be “the distraction”.  Yep, a day later I reeled in my “first victim”.  A well-known local school teacher had a little time during the day and slipped out to find this one.  Right away he found the cache (not so very hard to do) but after searching fruitlessly for the tool, he brought in reinforcements.  When school let out that day he was joined by one of his good buddies – a locksmith by trade!  Yet another case of someone willing to go to extremes for a cache! (Unfortunately, my beautiful ammo can became the victim of muggles and so this cache had to be archived.)

So, fast-forward to Please Don’t Litter.  Globuf and I hid this cache down an out-of-the-way, dead-end gravel road that goes – no-where.  An interesting hide but not terribly nasty.  Yet it disappears.  I’m out checking on it and a woman comes walking down the road; interestingly, Globuf and I had seen her walking the day that we placed the cache.  We get to chatting and, small-world, she found the cache by mistake!  So she tells me, she doesn’t know what it is but she thinks it must be something dangerous, like a bomb.   Now, I have heard of bomb-squads being called out to “dismantle” geo-caches but this one takes the cake!!!  She PICKED it up and took it HOME!  Yeah, a bomb??? GO FIGURE!!!  Her friend opened the cache, recognized it immediately for what it was and explained it all to her.  So she placed a note of apology in the cache and returned it to its hiding place – albeit 20m away.  Had we not happened upon each other at that very moment, well, chances are that there would be two cache containers within twenty meters of each other!  But that’s only half of this story!  As Globuf and I are making our way down this very narrow, rutted gravel road to place the cache (me driving my cute little sports car) we encounter a big, black SUV coming towards us, driven by a woman wearing a huge grin (not sure what else).  Boy, she is some happy!  A half-minute later, we encounter another black SUV being driven by a well-dressed business-man, looking every which way but at us (boy, is he guilty!).    Figuring that we have read way too much into that chance encounter Globuf and I laugh at our imaginations.  Hah!  One of the first to find this cache, the guy with a drug-sniffing dog, makes note in his log about the “nooner” happening near this cache (same black SUVs).  So maybe it’s not our imagination?  A few weeks later, I decide to place another cache a little further along this same road – and I encounter the same black SUVs – at 9:30 a.m.  Well, a week later  the same cacher goes out at 9:30 a.m. and finds both my cache and those same SUVs.  “A new definition for a nooner” he writes in his log.  Fast forward.  Globuf and I go out a few months later to remove the non-winter friendly caches at 1:30 p.m. and, yep, he’s waiting for her again!  Man, is he getting a lot of action!!!

Now, you can’t choose favourites among your children, but…  I have a special fondness for “Nero” and have enjoyed every last log – particularly those of the repeat visitors.  But the best story belongs to our tall, golf-aficionado caching friend; albeit, it all falls squarely on my shoulders!   I had a “bag full of goodies” as Globuf and I set out one early spring day (remember, I’ve spent the winter planning) so it is a matter of determining where to place what.  We arrive at Nero’s final resting place and I have a couple of ideas in mind.  So, I try them both out and after much deliberation we decide on which cache to place at this location.  A few days later, Globuf is volunteering at an event at the Capitol Theatre with tall golfer’s wife and she is extolling the virtues of this cache and describing how she and “tall golfer” had found it some many meters off co-ords.  Well, that wasn’t possible!  Globuf and I had spent considerable time doing way-point averaging, enough to ensure the accuracy of our coordinates.  “No, no” insists tall-golfer’s wife, “ this was definitely 20m off”.  Globuf, knowing that we could not have made such a drastic mistake, asks her to describe the cache.  Well, you guessed it!  I left both cache containers at that spot!  So, we let them have the FTF, as well as the next cacher to find the REAL cache, while I hastily went and retrieved the “other” cache container!

Urban caching – devious caches are all the more important so that muggles don’t stumble upon them inadvertently.  This was intended to be the case of Poop and Scoop.  A simple, drop-down cache at the end of a dead-end street in Riverview.  Now, it wasn’t easy to find, a rather clever hide I like to think, but it was there, in plain sight.  Imagine how a couple of visiting Nova Scotia cachers , who blow in with the seasons, must have felt to drive up to an urban cache with this name only to discover some real poop – of the BEAR variety.  They didn’t stick around too long!  However, the even funnier tale of this cache is its “disappearance”.  Herr Minnz had been hugely helpful in the maintenance of many of my caches and after a few DNFs on this one, off he set to check it out for me.  He came up empty-handed, as had several of the previous cachers.  So, I temporarily disabled the cache and ordered a new container (source not to be disclosed!).  Once in hand, I replaced the cache and re-enabled the listing.  The next cacher (new on the scene, with less than five hundred finds at the time) goes out and makes a quick find – of BOTH containers!!!   I let him have the original – I figure that when he hides it I will have a leg up on everybody else!

At one of the first events where Cachemporium put in an appearance I bought a rather devious cache container.  My condition of purchase was that it be wrapped discreetly so that no one would know what I was purchasing.  No problemo.  Imagine my dismay when I went to an event last spring, hosted by a guy with big ladders, where he had placed several new caches —  one of which was EXACTLY the same as my new cache container.  Such is life.  I placed mine regardless, coincidentally not far from where he lives.  “Big ladders” went out several times to search for this cache yet came up empty-handed.  He finally contacted me to suggest it was missing, particularly because he knew “exactly what he was looking for”.  So, who am I to question?  He had the same hide, he MUST know.  After a breakfast event, off we went to search for it together – me to disable it for the winter AND to satisfy myself that it must still be there.  It’s not a container that would go missing.  Well, we arrive at GZ and I walk right up to the cache, place my hands on it immediately and ask “what was so hard about that?”  It had not migrated even one centimeter!  “Well,” he says “it’s not the container that I was expecting”.  “Okay” I concede, “but you know that you are going to take a ribbing for this one, don’t you?”

My rule of thumb is to never poke fun at anyone unless you can take it on the chin yourself.  Probably the most devious hide of my entire series is A Flagitious.  Kudos to those that have found it!!!  I cannot count how many times that I have gone to check on it because there have been so many DNFs, even logs questioning the coordinates.  I have no fond recollections of when I spent an hour in a mosquito-infested environment doing waypoint averaging to confirm that the coordinates were accurate (they were).   Alas, at one point there were so many DNFs that I was compelled to go out one more time to confirm that the cache was there – only, I could not find it.  So, it had to be missing.  Home I went, fashioned a new container, back I went, hid it about twenty meters from GZ and just as I was about to post the new coordinates – someone found the original!  Sheepishly, I contacted the guy with a name of an airplane. “Can you help me out?” I ask, “I can’t find my own cache.”  He was ever so helpful, providing a picture of the cache and its location.  “OK” I think to myself, “I’ve got this one.   I won’t post the new coordinates and no-one will be any the wiser that I’ve hidden a second cache.”  It seems to be working, someone finds the original cache, all is well.  Fast forward – this is not winter friendly, time to pull it out for the winter.  Globuf and I head into Mapleton, arrive at GZ and with the picture firmly in my mind, proceed to look for the cache.  Nope, can’t find it.  It isn’t anywhere that it should be!  “Well” I said to Globuf, “let’s at least pull up the second one so that I will have it come spring-time”.  Oops!  Can’t find it either.  Oh dear.  I must be (a) VERY GOOD at hiding caches, or (b) VERY BAD at finding them.  I don’t know what it says when you can’t find your own cache – but to not find two of the same cache?????

I must admit, this series has been a royal pain.  Its maintenance has taken more of my time than I would have expected.  Yet, I have had so much pleasure reading the logs, sharing your frustrations (well, actually, laughing at them if truth be told) that it has made it all worth-while.  So, while Flagitious, most of it anyway, has been put to bed for the winter, it shall return in the spring.  And, don’t forget, the series has only reached Q – the alphabet, last time I checked, goes all the way to Z!!!  See you in the spring.