In today’s
feature article: Nanos: Nifty Nuance or Nasty Nuisance? A nano
was spotted today in downtown Denville. There is no immediate
danger to the community & authorities are looking into the
alleged sighting. Many citizens are concerned about the problematic
proximity of this potentially painful play piece & are left
wondering, “What are these nano’s anyway &
do they pose a threat? Are they tiny little robots that turn people
into cyborgs? Are they nonsense words made up by hyperactive
comedians in rainbow suspenders?”
This reporter went undercover in the geocaching community to
find out. After inserting myself into their gang, gaining their
trust by going to several “caching” events, as these
geocachers like to call them, & researching their mysterious
terms – (like “Muggle”, a term taken from the
Harry Potter novels to refer to anyone not in the gang or not hip
to their swarthy, geo-lingo) I came to discover that the existence
of these nano’s is more than just an urban legend.
They do, in fact, exisit. They are amoung us, right here in our
very communities, & one could very well be right under your
nose without your even realizing it. Nano’s could potentially
be at your children’s school or at the Post Office or even
where you get your hair cut. It’s true. You may even have
friends or neighbors who are nano-enthusiasts & you
wouldn’t even know it.
So, WHAT are they? It seems that nano’s are tiny
little cache containers which are usually magnetic & therefore
not harmful to most of the population (assuming that you
aren’t made of metal or utilize a gyroscope for equilibrium
or balance – clockwork people should avoid all magnetic
devices at all costs). It seems that these alleged
‘containers’ unscrew & contain tiny scrolls of
paper which are believed to be for the purpose of leaving coded
messages for other members of the gang, using a language of secret
codes like “FTF” & “T4TC”. At the time
this article went to press, this reporter was still trying to
decipher their cryptic lexicon.
So, Are they good? Are they bad? What’s the deal? It seems
as though, even within the seedy underbelly of geocaching circles
there seems to be some debate. Hiders, as they are called, think
that they are nifty & that they are clever. Some seekers, known
as Joeys (This reporter has no idea why they are referred to as
Joeys. During information gathering for this article, I was
conducting surveillance on two of the gang members, searching for
one of these nano’s & distinctly heard one call
out to the other, “Hey, Joey. I got it! It’s over
here.”); think of them as a challenge, others see them as a
nuisance.
Mr. Irving Berlin, an admitted geocacher, from Hummelstown, PA
went on record to say, “These damn nano’s are a pain in
the [expletive deleted for publication]. No good if ya got
arthritis. You need tweezers just to put the darn things back
together & they got no coins or swag or nuthin.” So there
you have it. There IS a nano in downtown Denville. Be on the
lookout. These things have a way of multiplying like pandas.
BEWARE.
-Scoop McGinty Associated Press