Clueless

Mark and I are often bored, with hours and hours of free time on our hands and nothing, just nothing, to fill them.

Perhaps this delusional thought was what spurred us to plan a treasure hunt birthday party for our newly-minted 8 year old.

Either that or we were trying to come up with something . . . anything . . . to rival best friend Max’s Star Wars birthday party a few weeks ago.

At any rate, all of these factors, combined with recent heated discussion about the DaVinci Code led us to create 5 clues for the gang to solve in order to discover a big box filled with treasure (in actual fact, mostly cheap toys that will clutter my house for years to come).

My job was to acquire the treasure; Mark’s job was to write the clues. All was well until I got ready to print the clues out and realized I had no idea how to even begin solving any of them.

Not one.

Now, please know that the division of labor in our house is carefully arranged . . . Mark does things like write the clues for treasure hunt birthday parties because he’s good at that sort of thing. I fully admit writing or solving puzzles is not my forte. However, am I completely out of line to assume I might at least have some idea about the answers to riddles for an 8-year old treasure hunt?

Mark scoffed at my concern. They’d get them, he told me . . . I would see. I shook my head in disbelief but went on with the plan (primarily because the party was about to start).

Turns out Mark was right (hmmm, very unusual!). The kids needed a little bit of help, but for the most part they were successful.

I still think the clues were ridiculously hard, but Mark’s clues provided the better part of one hour of intense activity allowing the parental units to sit on the porch and recover.

See if I’m completely crazy or if you are as clueless as I was:

On this hunt, which stop should come first?

Very simple you’d think the first stop should be, but

Especially after spending your time on these lines,

No doubt you’ll be miffed at its simplicity.

Well done all, you’ve solved your first clue,

But don’t you worry, the next bar will be higher.

So scrub off your brains and get ready to think,

You can look all you want, but you’ll be warm by a sink.

Is it music or art that’s food for the soul?

I guess in this case you won’t really care.

For it’s a big source of food unfit for a person