Yesterday was my last day off before I had to head back to work, so I decided to make the most of it by doing a relaxing afternoon of geocaching. First one I found was at a park where I once worked as a camp counselor, bringing back fond memories of getting jumped and beaten by a bunch of 10 year old snotheads 5 days a week. Ah yes, memories.

The next one was hidden in a what used to be a creek, long since dried up. The area was now a public plot of land that cut through an entire neighborhood and eventually ended at the grounds of a local high school. After checking the coordinates and looking around for a few minutes, I finally located the hidden cache at the guardrail that separated the park from one of the streets. It was a perfect day, the sun shining and warm enough that no jacket was needed. I felt myself relaxing and enjoying the good weather as I opened up the cache to sign the logbook.

Suddenly, a whale mountain of a hag beast Dede Scozzafava lookalike materializes out of nowhere.

“EXCUSE ME, DO YOU WORK FOR THE TOWN?

“Me? No, just taking a walk here, enjoying the weather.”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, ARE YOU SCOPING OUT MY HOUSE?? WHAT DID YOU PUT IN THAT GUARDRAIL???”

“Um, no, I’m not scoping anything. Don’t worry about this either, it’s just a geocache.”

“A WHAT? WHAT IS THAT?”

I cheerily explained the concept of geocaching to her. “It’s like a box that contains little trinkets and a logbook. People hide them all over the world, post the coordinates to them online, and then you use a GPS to find it. Sort of like a hi-tech treasure hunt. It’s really fun.”

She didn’t say anything much after that, and went back into a house nearby, so I thought that was pretty much the end of that. I signed the log and went to return the cache.

Then the land whale materializes again.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE??”

I tried to explain geocaching again a few more times, including how you use a GPS device to find caches.

“I DON’T WANT THAT THING HERE. TAKE IT WITH YOU NOW.”

“I don’t think I’m allowed to take it, but I can let the owner know if you feel really uncomfortable about it…”

“THEY’RE SPYING ON US, ELLE!!!” She yelled out to someone apparently standing at the door of the house nearby.

“WHO DO YOU WORK FOR???” The lady apparently named Elle yelled out to me.

I explained who I worked for, which in hindsight I’m thinking was probably a mistake. Because when you combine GPS, satellites, and then the revelation that you work for a government agency, that’s not really a good combo to have when trying to explain a harmless pastime to someone, who for all attempts and purposes was acting like a paranoid schizophrenic.

“Look I have an ID here if you’re that concerned, but I really think you’re overre…”

“IDs CAN BE FALSIFIED. I CAN MAKE A FAKE ID TOO WITH MY PRINTER! I WANT THAT OUT OF HERE NOW!!”

“YOU PUT THAT THERE DIDN’T YOU!? ISN’T THAT A TRACKER??”

“Err no, it’s just a simple keyholder with a logbook inside.” I showed it to her.

Soon another neighbor walking her dog passed by and stopped to see what the commotion was about. It wasn’t 30 seconds before she started glaring at me as well like I was Ted Bundy reincarnated.

“Should we call the police?” She casually suggested. “It looks like he’s littering so they could arrest him for that.”

“I am not littering. And I don’t think I’m on private property either. This area here is a public area right?

“IT DOESN’T MATTER, I CAN SEE YOU FROM MY HOUSE!”

“YOU TAKE THAT THING WITH YOU, AND I DON’T EVER WANT TO SEE YOUR FACE AGAIN, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?? I SWEAR IF I SEE YOU HERE AGAIN I WILL GET MY SHOTGUN AND BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF! GET THE #%^$ OUT OF HERE NOW!”

“Ok, can I still take a walk in the pa– you know I think I’ll just leave now.”

I quickly walked back to my car, looking over my shoulder every now and then to see if she was in fact going to go back into the house to get her shotgun. Suddenly there were neighbors everywhere, all murmuring and staring at me like I had just landed here from Mars. They continued to glare at me with steely eyes of raging, foaming hatred. I had never seen anything quite like it.

I still had the cache with me, but no way was I putting it back now. I got out of there fast. Afterwards, I pulled into another section of the park area far away from Miss Nightmare on Elm Street, and hid the cache in a guardrail there.

Once upon a time I had gone to school here (not by choice), and I had always known something was just a little “off” with the locals, which is why I minimized any contact with them. They just weren’t… rational, ya know? But I never realized just how bad it really was until now. To be treated like a criminal and have my life threatened, this despite the fact that I was in a PUBLIC park and was parked legally, and so, what, I’m a threat because she saw me from her house from 50 yards away? Seriously? And then to talk about calling the police and working out how they can get me arrested WHILE I’M STANDING RIGHT THERE?

You know, even now I still have a naivete when it comes to befriending people in real life. I always think once I explain things and show I’m not a threat to them, they learn to relax around me. You would think logic and common sense would prevail in the end, right? Well…

The irony of it is that I when I had gone geocaching in Pennsylvania, people had warned of a similar scenario about a cache hidden at another local park there, and how if you parked on the street, one of the neighbors would have a fit and tell you off for parking in front of his house.

But see, that actually makes sense in a way. Here, I’m not merely parking in front of a house to the chagrin of the homeowner. No, I’m actually an agent for the government looking to place a tracking bug in a guardrail so the aliens can come later to murder you in your sleep. Because see, that just makes so much more sense.

Honestly, the more I travel, the more I realize just how badly growing up here had adversely affected the way I see people. I notice everyone around me is batty cracknuts out of their minds, and I assume that’s just how it is everywhere. People are paranoid, hostile, and will spit in your face just for daring to pollute their existence. They will be friendly one day and then come after you with knives the very next. In fact, I’m pretty certain that if I came back to that same place this weekend, they would all be quite friendly to me. Although, I think I’ll refrain from putting that theory to the test.

I should have paid attention when I took psychology at one of the local colleges here, and the professor mentioned that we had one of the highest ratio of mental hospitals than anywhere else in the country.

Now I know why.

Tags: camp counselor, geocache, geocaching, gps, neighbor, neighbors, parked, parking, Pennsylvania, world
Categories: Lincoln's Personal Log
 
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