When I first stumbled upon geocaching almost a year ago, I did not foresee myself becoming such a geo-junkie. But by fifty finds I was definitely hooked, and by a hundred there was no turning back. After a trawl through global geocaching sites I saw a DO NOT FIND cache, and answering YES to some of the questions, I considered signing up for CA (Cacheaholics Anonymous) but the problem is that I DON'T WANT TO STOP!
And neither do you! So, to celebrate my 20th cache placement, and in recognition of officially having a geocaching addiction for the past year, I decided to do this. Hopefully not finding this cache may help others with a geocaching problem. I have recommended this cache is done at night in the attributes to help hide your shame if you should find yourself weak and unable to resist this cache.
Do you have a problem with geocaching? Are You a Number Ho? Only you can answer these questions for yourself. If you've got a problem it's time to admit it and deal with it. Not doing this cache could be your first step.
Answering the following quiz may help to put your relationship with geocaching into perspective for you. If you end up answering "yes" to three or more questions, you may want to take a good look how your life is affected by geocaching.
1. Do you get excited when you find a new park?
2. Do you actually look forward to visiting the inlaws?
3. Is your driveway covered with spray painted cache box silhouettes?
4. Do you get distracted watching movies because you're always scanning the scenery thinking: "That would be a GREAT place for a cache!"
5. Do you spend most of your lunch hours in the $2 shop looking for trades?
6. Does your car have a dashboard cellphone holder, yet has never held a cellphone?
7. Were you ever late to your brothers/sisters wedding because someone hid a new cache in the area?
8. Is your idea of “close by” anything within a hundred mile radius?
9. Is your idea of a good date claiming “first find” on a cache?
10. Does your wedding invitation feature a Difficulty / Terrain rating?
11. Are your family vacations based on cache density?
12. Do you wonder if there are any caches in Heaven?
13. Is your lawn a foot long, your landscaping full of weeds and your back fence falling down because you're ...ahem...a little too busy on weekends?
14. Are you are thinking of moving to a more cache dense environment?
15. If someone asks for directions, would you reply "352 metres northwest plus or minus 4 metres?"
16. Can you read the "additional hints" quite naturally without clicking on the "Decrypt" link?
17. Do you stick your hand into any hole in the ground or any bush with reckless abandon?
18. If a fellow cacher becomes unemployed, are you jealous?
19. When you ask your kids "Wanna go to a new park today?" Do they reply, "Aww Dad, not ANOTHER geocache!"?
20. When you're driving down the road, and all of a sudden your GPS goes, "BEEP BEEP"... Do your kids say at the same time, "ARRIVING AT DESTINATION!"?
21. Does your dog get excited not when you grab car keys, but when she sees you grab your GPS?
22. Are you the only man at a tupperware party?
23. Do you tell your spouse that you're going out to S 37 47.7 E 175 16.2 and he/she knows which outfit to wear?
24. Are you magnetically drawn to the Rubbermaid container selection every time you visit the supermarket?
25. Is your child's lunch box an ammo can?
26. Are the words you long to hear from your significant other: "There's a new cache?"
27. Do your co-workers no longer ask "how was your weekend?" Instead they ask "how many cache's did you find?"
28. Do you always carry a caching repair and retrieval toolkit in the car, but have no idea where the spare tyre and jumper cables are?
29. Does your significant other call you home to dinner through the forums?
30. Have you ever told your other half that you just need to pop out to get some dog biscuits and come back with a FTF?
This cache is here to help. This cache is a test to see how addicted to geocaching you really are. YOUR GOAL IS TO NOT FIND THIS CACHE.
We all know that there are those among us (and you know who you are!) who, when they look at the page showing their 20 nearest caches, see nothing but a perfect page full of finds. Then that new cache comes along and spoils your pristine page. It sits there at the top of the list. Taunting you. Staring at you like a giant unblinking eye. It calls out to you. "Fiiiind meeee..." You comply, even though the sun is barely peeking over the horizon. If you're lucky, you score a First to Find, and then race back to log it in and remove it from your top 20 list. Ahhhhh. All is in order again.
The question is, how strong are you? Can you resist searching out this cache? You have nothing to gain from finding it.
• There is no invigorating hike, no physical challenge whatsoever.
• There are no breathtaking views.
• There is no fascinating history lesson.
• You can park within 3m of the cache.
• There are no FTF prizes or other cool pieces of cache swag to trade for. In fact, the cache contains no more than a logbook. Please bring a pencil.
There is absolutely nothing of interest here. The idea for this cache is not even my own. Even the text is blatantly stolen from several similar ones. The ONLY thing you have to reward yourself from searching out this cache is just adding another find to your total. No glory. Just a number. Just another lame drive-by.
To really test the severity of your addiction, I've hidden this cache on the main drag into town where you will probably be driving past on a regular basis. For those of you who are not strong enough to resist, and have crawled here after beating yourself up about it - help is near at hand. You also get a chance to turn over a new leaf and sign the Cacheaholics Anonymous roll sheet. You must provide an ONLINE essay of at least 30 words as to why you are NOT hooked on caching. If you are a recovering cacheaholic, and can resist the temptation, please log as a DNF and share your success story.
Follow Winston's lead when he kicked his geocaching habit, and show the world how strong you are. You can stop Geocaching anytime you want. Really you can.
"Fiiiind meeee..."
Acknowledgement: This cache idea is not my own. I must give credit to The Cheeseheads, the creator of the original "Do Not Find This Cache" (GC7086), and all of those thereafter who have been innovators on this theme.