On a rainy spring evening in May, my telephone rang at an hour when
most of the rational world is already asleep. 4damFam had been on
geocaching.com and saw that a new cache had been placed only 12
miles away, and no one had found it yet. "Want to try for the FTF?"
Assuming that the question was rhetorical, I answered by asking
if he was driving. He told me that he would be over in five
minutes. We arrived at the now-archived cache, "Light of the
Oracle," GCP2Q9, which was near the Pyramids on the northwest side
of Indy.
Since neither of us is very competitive, it wasn't important who
actually found the cache first--as long as we could both log the
find. To show his goodwill, 4damFam identified the light post where
the coords seemed to be pointing, and he parked so that his
door was much closer to the cache. He jumped out of the car while I
was still struggling to unlock the passenger side door.
Unfamiliar with the electronic makeup of his cachemobile, I
frantically hit every switch, button, and lever that I could find
while groping at the door in the dark. I heard the "click" of the
door unlocking, and I rushed out to grab the cache. 4damFam
targeted the wrong light post, and I ended up with my hands on the
cache first. A few good-natured moments of ribbing ended when we
realized that 4dam left his keys in the car with the engine
running. The "click" I heard actually locked the doors.
So who was at fault? I will let the caching community decide.
But I would never leave my engine running while I went running to a
cache.
4damFam called his wife for some instruction on how to handle
the situation. She told him to drop dead. I called my wife, who
laughed at our predicament. Finally, 4dam called AAA, who assured
us that they would be out as soon as they could figure out where
they left the keys to their truck. That it was beginning to rain
and that the engine was running guaranteed nothing, though we were
told that it would increase our priority. Ninety minutes later, we
were approached by a young AAA driver who couldn't figure out how
to open the car door, either.
Frankly, I was surprised that someone with as many cache finds
as 4dam would be driving around without a hide-a-key container
somewhere on his car.
The AAA dude eventually unlocked the car, and we finally made it
home. A thirty-minute trip turned into a two-hour adventure. So, I
decided to place this cache to honor the rite of passage that we
went through that night.
Because of its proximity to Village Pantry gas, Sam's club gas,
and Taco Bell, the location seemed appropriate for the name.
Good luck, and don't leave the engine running.