Geocaching
One of the perks of working in the journalism industry is covering the random, wacky and strange—and learning enough to spark a new interest or curiosity. Like Veronica Corningstone covering the cat fashion show in Anchor Man. Kind of.
Not gonna lie, when I was trudging through the uncharted woods of the arboretum on my school’s campus (yeah, we had an arboretum—or a ‘garden of trees’) looking for a small, unmarked box, I was more irritated than intrigued. As a low-level sophomore at the school paper, I was assigned to cover geocaching on campus. I was walking with some member of the geocaching club following blips from a GPS device hunting for something we couldn’t keep. What the hell’s the point?
I wrote the story, turned it in, and promptly put the experience out of mind, until the other night. Some car commercial showed a young couple driving around and geocaching.
“See that? I didn’t even know that existed!” B said.
What is it with car commercials and portraying adventure? Let’s be honest, we really only use ‘em to get to and from work. It’s like fast food commercials that show ‘the cool kid’ arriving at a party with a 50-piece chicken nugget box from McDonalds. NO ONE BRINGS FAST FOOD TO A HOUSE PARTY.
Anyway, I told B that in fact I DID know about geocaching. And like a cartoon light bulb, suddenly it seemed like just the fix to my snow-covered social life—wandering around uncharted land, just the two of us and a GPS device, looking for a small, unmarked box. Geocaching is totally sociable.
Off to hunt… stay tuned.
Not gonna lie, when I was trudging through the uncharted woods of the arboretum on my school’s campus (yeah, we had an arboretum—or a ‘garden of trees’) looking for a small, unmarked box, I was more irritated than intrigued. As a low-level sophomore at the school paper, I was assigned to cover geocaching on campus. I was walking with some member of the geocaching club following blips from a GPS device hunting for something we couldn’t keep. What the hell’s the point?
I wrote the story, turned it in, and promptly put the experience out of mind, until the other night. Some car commercial showed a young couple driving around and geocaching.
“See that? I didn’t even know that existed!” B said.
What is it with car commercials and portraying adventure? Let’s be honest, we really only use ‘em to get to and from work. It’s like fast food commercials that show ‘the cool kid’ arriving at a party with a 50-piece chicken nugget box from McDonalds. NO ONE BRINGS FAST FOOD TO A HOUSE PARTY.
Anyway, I told B that in fact I DID know about geocaching. And like a cartoon light bulb, suddenly it seemed like just the fix to my snow-covered social life—wandering around uncharted land, just the two of us and a GPS device, looking for a small, unmarked box. Geocaching is totally sociable.
Off to hunt… stay tuned.