The Scarlet Letter
by Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Condensed and reduced for 21st century consumption
Hester's hubby is lost at sea. After awhile, Hester has an affair with an unknown man that results in a child. Hester won’t tell anybody who the baby daddy is. Sex out of wedlock is a big NO-NO with Puritan people. (Puritan, purity, pure…get it?) Hester must sew a big red (scarlet) letter on her dress – “A” for adulterer. An adulterer is someone who has sex with someone other than their spouse. Harlot! Think Tiger Woods, Newt Gingrich, Leann Rimes, Meg Ryan, etc.
So a church representative forces Hester, with her baby, to stand on a platform in front of everyone with her big scarlet A where she is mocked and degraded by all of the men, women and children in attendance. They try to force her to admit who her lover is. Nope, she won’t snitch. But guess who’s in the crowd? Her long lost hubby! What? Not dead? But he’s really ticked off.
Hubby’s name is Chillingworth. He was an old man when he married Hester. When someone very old marries someone very young, there's a chance that the young one might start looking elsewhere. The older spouse just isn't sexy or attractive enough. When a young wife cheats on her much older husband, they call him a cuckold. It's really embarrassing to be considered a cuckold. So, Chillingworth the Cuckolddoesn’t want anyone to know that he was married to a harlot who cheated on him! EventuallyChillingworth the Cuckold figured out who the baby daddy was. It was Dimmesdale, a minister?! Yup, a man of the cloth.
Chillingworth the Cuckold slowly starts to poison Minister Dimmesdale the Hypocrite who already hated himself for what he had done. Leaving Hester to suffer alone further emphasizes his failure and weakness. The dude is totally depressed.
Hester discovers that Chillingworth the Cuckold's poisoning Minister Dimmesdale the Hypocrite and she finally tells him that Chillingworth the Cuckold is the husband who everyone thought was dead.
They plan to run away together, but at church, after giving what everyone thought was the best sermon ever, Minister Dimmesdale the Hypocrite mans up and gets up on stage with Hester and his baby and admits to everyone that he is the baby daddy. Then guess what? Right there on the spot he drops dead!
Chillingworth the Cuckold feels cheated, he wanted to make Minister Dimmesdale the Hypocrite suffer. He died a year later a very disappointed man. He left all of his money to Hester and her daughter. Shortly after, mother and daughter disappear.
This is a letterbox. Please do not remove the stamp or stamp pad from the cache!
A stamp pad is provided if you have your own stamp. If not, you can use the stamp that's located in the cache. You can also simply sign and date the Scarlet Letterbox log.
You're at the posted coordinates, now what?
As one cacher noted, it's the size of a Buick. It shouldn't take long to find.
Final note: The cache contains typical swag, but since it's a letterbox, I put in some postcards for you to mail off if you're from out of town, I even typed up some silly love letters & sonnets/poems by Shakespeare and Robert Burns. Feel free to take one with you.
Please make sure everything is closed up tight and ready for the next cacher.