Fun Friday – The Scavenger Hunt

Hide-and-seek is a childhood game that delivered continuous laughter and jovial times for me and continued through to my children. I believe this type game begins in stages. As babies it begins as Peek-a-boo, later it becomes hide-and-seek, as kids age out of that, we call it a Scavenger Hunt.

My kids, who are no longer kids, have taken the Scavenger Hunt to the next level. They turned the tables, flipped the scrip, and just threw me into a scavenger hunt that I didn’t want to play. A tag on the blouse I was wearing, was scratching my neck. I walked to the drawer where I keep my good scissors. You know, the ones that are only used for certain things.

No scissors in sight. As I age I sometimes suffer from CRS (Can’t Remember Stuff). I stood there thinking, did I move those scissors. I rifled through another drawer with one hand as I held the scratchy tag away from my neck with the other hand. Then it dawned on me that my son had entered my room in the middle of the night and asked where the scissors were located.

Scavenger hunt number one was under way. Storage bin lids were lifted, kitchen drawers opened, and bedrooms searched. Those Fiskars scissors with the Orange handles would not appear. I waved my white flag of surrender and gave up. It was at that moment that my son quietly entered the room and said, “found the scissors…um, they were in my room.”

Game over…for the moment. Until…

The next morning my day began with a round of peek-a-boo. As my alarm chimed I opened one eye then closed it and repeated with the other eye. It was another few minutes before the rest of my body joined the game. An arm then a leg exposed itself for it’s hiding place beneath the covers. Finally, my feet made contact with the floor.

I shuffled my way to the bathroom in the dark room. It was a path I took every morning, so it was basically like sleep walking. Everything was in its place. Everything except the toothpaste. My hand felt around for the toothpaste in the drawer it should be in. The only things my had brushed across were dental floss, bobby pins, and a variety of hair clips. If I were at a babu shower I could have won a prize for the most random items in one spot.

Once again I was on the prowl for an item that one of my dear offspring had relocated. The game quickly ended this time. I knew exactly where to find my toothpaste. It was in my sons’ bathroom, in plain sight, with the cap off. I stormed from their bathroom with my toothpaste and hid it. Let them plot out a course and go on a scavenger hunt next time…but they won’t. They’ll just yell, “Ma where is the toothpaste?”

What things have you had to hunt for around your house?