Do you have a problem with geocaching? Oh! I didn’t think so either
(yea, right!).
Indulge me a moment as I offer an objective method of testing the
extent of your alleged addition to geocaching. Only you can
truthfully answer the following questions about your habits,
feelings and motivations. If you have a ‘problem,’ it is time to
face it, admit it, and deal with it. Based upon the results of the
quiz, NOT finding this cache could be your first step toward
recovery.
ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:
If you say “Yes” to three or more questions, you may want to
reassess your priority you have placed upon geocaching to establish
a better balance in your Life.
Think of each question starting with
Do you …
Have you …
Would you …
Is your …
1. Ever left work early or cut classes or rescheduled
appointments to allow for geocaching?
2. Own two or more GPS units?
3. Justify geocaching because “it helps you relax?”
4. Justify geocaching because “it helps you get exercise?”
5. Planned to go without geocaching for more than two weeks, but
failed?
6. Have geocaching equipment in a dedicated bag or backpack so you
can grab it and go at a moment’s notice?
7. Read the encrypted HINTS about a cache without clicking on
‘decrypt’ or without looking at the ‘key’ to translate?
8. Log in to geocaching.com more than once a day?
9. Email filled with more geocaching-related email than you get
from family or non-geocaching friends?
10. Keep noticing places to put potential hides as you go about
your normal daily routine?
11. Put a geocoin into the office coffee fund jar and then move the
jar out of the line of sight?
12. Prepare for a business trip by researching what geocaches are
nearby the hotel or meeting place?
13. Have strong emotional reactions when you read that certain
local geocachers have already claimed FTF on caches you intended to
find first?
14. Think in terms of where geocache locations are when asked to
give directions?
15. Keep a spare water bottle, flashlight, printouts of caches, and
extra batteries in your car or at work as backup?
16. Plan vacations or holiday outings around a location because of
the geocaches nearby?
17. Have trouble sleeping when you know a newly published cache is
‘out there’?
18. Logged a cache even when you really didn’t find it yourself
just to run up your total count?
19. Get into trouble (questioned by security, parking ticket, shot
at, chased, etc.) because of geocaching?
20. Hire a babysitter so you could take time to go
geocaching?
21. Have large numbers of empty containers (pill bottles, film
cans, plastic coffee cans, breath mint tins, etc) saved up so you
can ‘some day’ use them as hides?
22. Made geocache containers to give away free to other geocachers
to hide so you could find them and thus increase you total cache
count?
23. Have geocaching.com set as your home page on your web
browser?
24. Get anxious about going geocaching more frequently as you get
nearer to significant milestone totals of caches found (100th,
500th, 1,000th, 5,000th, etc.)?
25. Urge to geocache gets proportionally stronger each day you do
NOT go looking for a cache or actually log a find?
If the results of the quiz above show you said “Yes” to more than
three or more questions, then your goal is now to NOT FIND THIS
CACHE! Begin preparing yourself for withdrawal. Seek help when you
see a new cache posting. Avoid staring at the caches listed online
that have no red check next to them. Purge your house, car and
office of those hordes of containers by putting them into the
recycle bin.
But how long can you last? Can you resist searching for this
medium sized Folgers coffee container (being recycled as a geocache
container) filled with swag and exchange items? There will no
longer be invigorating hikes over breath-taking, rocky trails, no
more thrill of FTF after an early morning excursion, and no more
exchanging and tracking unique Travel Bugs and colorful, exotic
geocoins. You must resist this drain on your mind and energy.
Most addicts have setbacks at some point in their path to
recovery. If/when this happens to you, at least go at night so the
darkness and solitude will help hide your shame, your humiliation
at not being able to resist finding and logging it … “just one more
time.”
TO LOG THIS CACHE: (when you backslide)
When you log the find for this cache, I think it would be fun for
you to tell me how many of the 25 questions or to what % you
admitted to saying “Yes," and/or I would request that you also log
a statement why you think you are NOT addicted to geocaching, even
though you took (failed?) the quiz and still went out and found and
logged a cache specifically designed to deter addiction to
geocaching. Of course you can also just log as you normally would
but what fun would that be? Here is your opportunity to be
creative, to "tell us a story" about your geocaching habits. ;)
Attribution
Special thanks for the owners of these other variations of this
“Are You Addicted to Geocaching” theme caches after which I modeled
this one. Similar caches are from England: GC1F7RT, GCXG0G, and
GC1W411; from France: GC1VV57; and, from Washington state in the
USA: GC1N3GM. If you are fortunate enough to travel to the areas in
which these caches are located, stop by and find them.
