As I approached the Goodwill truck with several bags of old
clothes I intended to donate, I noticed the clerk, a rather
ancient-looking black man. Despite his age he was listening to an
iPod and tapping his toes in a lively fashion. He must have been
hard of hearing as the volume was cranked up so loud I could hear
the buzzing from his earbuds even from several feet away. He
greeted me warmly and removed his earbuds as I plopped the bags on
the counter, but as he began to pull out my old cast-offs he looked
somewhat disapprovingly. This was Los Altos, after all, and they
were more interested in designer dresses worn once than the cheap,
worn-out stuff I was offering. As he was examining the bags I asked
for a tax receipt.
"You're going to take a charitable deduction for THIS?" he said,
holding up a tattered T-shirt I got as a souvenir on a trip to New
York. The picture on the front was a photo of the old Ziegfeld
Theater from the 1950s. "That was a great musical, though," he
offered, pointing to the name on the marquee. "I saw that after I
got out of the army."
"You're a fan of the theater, then?" I replied, trying to keep
the surprise out of my voice.
"The theater, movies, music of all kinds, dance, opera, even the
circus," he answered. "I'm something of a cognoscente of all the
performing arts."
"Well I know my old clothes are more suitable for washing cars
than being resold, but I still need my receipt," I declared,
impatient to get going.
He obviously pegged me for the cheapskate I am, more interested
in the tax deduction that helping out the Goodwill. "I tell you
what," he said, holding up that T-shirt. "Let's play word
association. I'll say a word, or the beginning of a word, and you
guess the second part to complete the word or phrase I'm thinking
of. If you can get fifteen right, I'll give you your receipt. I'll
make the first one easy."
I had no choice so I went along. The first few were easy enough,
but then I got stuck. After a bit of quiet contemplation, though, I
finally realized what was going through his head. I needed a lot of
extra guesses here and there, but he let me guess as often as
necessary on the harder ones, and I eventually got them all. As he
handed me the receipt, he nodded his head respectfully and said, "I
guess you're something of a cognoscente, too. Maybe I'm a bit
prejudiced, but I didn't take you for someone who would know
those."
After I got home and did a little research I realized that the
answers led to a perfect geocache hiding location, so I placed one
there. If you want to play the same game, you can by clicking the
link below.
Word Association
Type your answer in the right-hand box and click the Try button.
You will know if you got it right. The answers are not
case-sensitive.
[I believe that if you solve it, you will know your solution is
correct, so I'm not putting a coordinate checker up yet, but if I
find that people are getting alternate solutions without any
mistakes in their method, I will do so later. At least until the
first few finds, I will not be confirming coordinates.]