My friend Amber called with an irresistible invitation. They were going to the annual Herald Hunt and she wanted to know if I wanted in.
I always want in. Amber is one of the greatest human beings alive and the thought of hunting for Herald haunted me as I began to traipse thru my closet in search of Herald-hunting wear. Eventually, I unearthed a pair of jeans and a large heather grey tee. I would wear these clothes in hopes that the ever-hunted Herald might be soothed and reassured that his dark-haired rescuer was kind and harmless.
I *so* did not know what a mind boggler the Herald Hunt was and I would soon come to regret my choice of clothing.
The Herald Hunt is, as described on www.heraldhunt.com, is “a unique urban adventure where players attempt to solve a series of bizarre clues sprinkled around South Beach.” These people lie. The Herald Hunt is four HOT hours of misery and confusion. The clues are simple yet difficult. Very tricky. Everything is a number and if you have to ask you probably can’t afford to waste valuable brain cells on it.
Unique and bizarre doesn’t even begin to describe our vagabondage. Try torturous, treacherous and twisted.
First, we gather at Amber’s house. Amber and Austin are married so once I arrived, we had 75% of our group accounted for. I was early. I was early because well, I spent the last five years being ridiculously late for every single event, and in 2007, I swore on my maltese, Mr. Luck E. Persaud, that my days of strolling in fifteen minutes before the end, were over. So I sit in Amber’s parking lot and I make phone calls and chit-chat with the commonfolk for about forty-five minutes.
Greg shows up. He parks in back. I dont know what’s up with that, but he’s parked in the back. At some point, I spot him lurking about and I jump out of the SUV (hereafter referred to as “the soove”) with a 10 pound bag of supplies on my back.
I *so* did not know what a test of endurance the Herald Hunt was and I would soon come to regret choosing to carry a ten-pound sack of bricks on my back.
I know this is Miami, but I wasn’t really carrying bricks. It was a hot Saturday afternoon on South Beach. Cops were everywhere trying to keep car-toting residents and tourists from mowing down Hunters. This was not the time to unload fifty bags of heroin. Everyone knows that what you do in Downtown Miami on a Friday night. Anyhoo, I was loaded down with a 20oz bottle of Sam’s Choice water, an Oprah magazine, two pens, one mechanical pencil, a compass, a sundial, a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica, a purse full of whatever crap women are encouraged to carry on their shoulders, a hat, sunglasses, and a cell phone.
We all meet in the center of the parking lot and pull out our Herald inserts. The other three members of our group talk about the five opening questions and compare answers. We all mark our maps. I volunteer to drive and off we go into the scorching Miami sun. I must admit, this was odd. I was accustomed to driving to The Beach with a good friend or a hot guy, scantily clad with a large towel and a bottle of Patron.
These people didn’t have Patron or Kettel One and I was really starting to wonder if I was going to need that jar of pimento olives I threw into my backbag. Apparently not. This was a dry run.
We jump on the Florida Turnpike and we are at The Beach in about 35 minutes. We get great underground parking for a flat $8 fee and head towards the Jackie Gleason theatre.
It was like walking through warm split-pea soup and when I bumped into the Ham onstage singing our Anthem, I was tempted to pull the pepper grinder out of my bag.
“It’s our first clue,” said Amber as she furiously scribbled onto her paper. “He keeps saying that he isnt doing anything and that he has nothing to do. What do you think it means?”
I wonder if he wants me to hand him a cheddar biscuit, you know, to go with the split pea weather and his ham.
With my outside voice I say, “Francis Scott Key. The author of the Star Spangled Banner is Francis Scott Key.” We all write this down and decide it’s time to hit our primary cooridinates. On the way to those coordinates, we get distracted by the hundreds of Hunters heading to the beach. We join them in watching a volleyball game. An odd game where inflatable numbered zoo animals are used as a ball. We write the numbers down.
Amber and I both regret wearing jeans. I regret toting the supersack which now contained all of my team’s handheld stuff.
We see a few items that were well-placed in the sand. A slide, a house, a boat, a girlchild playing. We count the number of umbrellas as we wonder if any of it bears any significance on the Hunt for Red Heraldo.
We leave the beach and head to our chosen coordinates. Here we find six people in blonde wigs, and hideous beachwear. Each wears a sash stating, “Count on the Red Stripe girl.” We count them. One is passing out red-striped candy canes. I pass. No candy canes for me. I am so locating my abs so I too can frequent the beach wearing a blonde wig and a red sash. Besides, if I put one more item into my bag, I would be the Hunchback of Notre Dame de Miami for Halloween. Nosiree, I wasnt about to add back hump to my ever-growing list of body flaws.
Confident in our interpretation, we move to the next coordinate. We are handed a white golf tee with FORE printed on it. We decide the answer is forty and keep it moving. As we move, we discover the four sandwich board people are circling Lincoln Road like a hungry cat near Sushi Samba’s back door. Quickly, we make out a key, a chain link, an ice cream cone and a picture of a white hair, white moustached man–we think its Albert Einstein.
We notice that other Hunters went to the end of the block and came back with purple flags with white flower petals printed on it. We write that down and thank all the split peas in the world that we dont actually have to walk to get that clue. It was then that we saw the picture of the man and realized it was Mark Twain.
Slowly, but quietly like a fog rolling down a hill, Greg says, “It’s Link Cone Mark Key.”
We look at him and in unison rush towards the Lincoln Theatre like a quartet of pigeons who smell yeast in the air and hope that bread will fall from the moist sky. We look at the marquis. “In the tre,” were the only lights lit. We check the trees. Nothing. We sit. We dripped our salts and nutrients onto the disapproving sidewalk. We decide we need to get food and talk. As we head to the nearby Burger King, I unscramble “In the tre.”
The team is hopeful. Hungry, but hopeful. Hope faded into dispair as we discussed the clues. Something wasnt clicking. We were hopeless. Helplessly conned and cornered by Dave Barry and Tom Shroder. We threw our Whoppers down in disgust. We weren’t going on the Caribbean Cruise for four. At this rate, we probably weren’t welcome at Little Haiti or Little Havana.
We simmered in our sweat as we walked back to the Jackie Gleason theatre. They gave a few more clues, but they were useless to us. We booed as the answers were revealed. Sore-footed losers, we left before the winners were presented with our prize. We crip walked back to the soove. It was a bloodbath this time, but we’d come back next year and try again.
My friends rock!
[Author’s note: You want to turn into Sam Spade, surround yourself with a few thousand strange characters and be pleasantly annoyed by the sick puppies that are Dave Barry and Tom Shroder? Do you want the answers to the 2007 Hunt? Do you want to see the map? Go to http://www.vwtech.com/tropichunt/ Have kids you want to torture in revenge for their acts against adultkind keep occupied? There is a Kid Hunt as well. Check out the rules and regulations at www.heraldhunt.com and see you next year.]
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