In attempting to do DrPflug’s Alphanumeric Cache Name Challenge, the only one I was missing was 0 (well, I actually needed 7, too, but S6sputnik has one up north, so I should be good there). I had a 0 for an event cache, but those don’t count. There’s a 0 cache located in Chandler, AZ, 859 miles to the west, but other than that, the pickings are slim. So, here is my effort to help out my fellow cachers. The terrain for this one is fairly level, at least if you go via either of the parking areas nearby (you’ll have to find them yourself; I can’t give everything away!). If you come at this cache from other locations, the terrain rating would be considerably higher.
How many times have you mistaken 0 for O? Depending on the font used, they are almost indistinguishable. Inadvertently putting in 0 for O or O for 0 can cause unnecessary headaches.
(Although, I must compliment Geocaching.com: I tried to fool them by deliberately substituting O for 0 in some GC names, and their search engine apparently auto-corrects. Not everything, however, is so trustworthy.)
In typical speech (at least in English), we make the substitution frequently. If your phone number, address, social security number, passcode, or some other number has a 0 in it, you probably don’t say “zero,” you say “oh,” as when 3502 becomes thirty-five oh-two (that number is neither my phone number, address, social security number, nor passcode in case you were wondering).
I have a theory for this 0-avoidance. We are afraid of 0. 0 represents the end of things. 0 is the end of the countdown: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0... We have many other names that we use for 0, a sure sign that 0 is a taboo word (think of all the other things that we have many words for that we use instead of saying the correct one):
Zero.
Zip.
Zilch.
Nada.
Nil.
None.
Naught.
Nix.
Null.
Diddley-squat.
Goose egg.
Bupkis.
And when we apply 0 to people, it’s even worse:
A person of no consequence, an unimportant person, a person of no account, a nobody, a nonentity, a nonperson.
0 is the absence of anything. The absence of everything.
0 is also the answer to the following riddle:
What is greater than God, more evil than the Devil, the poor have it, the rich need it, and if you eat it you’ll die?
0 is nothing. Nothing is greater than God, nothing is more evil than the Devil, the poor have nothing, the rich need nothing, and if you eat nothing, you’ll die.
O, in contrast, is just O. Oh.
This cache is my dedication to 0. To nothing in particular. To nothing at all.