where's wal⋅do [wawl-doh]

The evening of November 5th is an evening I have been anticipating for the past few weeks. Because on this evening Livingstones Youth Group hosted its 2nd annual city-wide "Where's Waldo" Scavenger Hunt. This was my first time experiencing the collosal event but I was eager to participate from hearing abot all the mayhem that went down the previous year.

It's still vivid in my memory Taylor Peters explaining the endevour to me one year ago. He explained to me that how the scavenger hunt works is everyone splits up into groups of 5 or 6 and you take off in a tempered rush to finish as many tasks as possible. Each group is given a booklet packed full of tasks, each task rewarding you with a specific amount of points for accomplishing it.

Taylor went on to tell about a portion of his own experience. His team was at the downtown McDonald's picking off tasks one-by-one. But Taylor got a brilliant idea to do two tasks at once, a double-wammy! Taylor would attempt to complete 1."Get a free Big Mac from McDonald's" and 2."Propose to a team member in a public place" all at once. So Taylor approached the counter and explained to the employee how he was going to propose to his girlfriends by using a Big Mac as a ring box. But the problem was that he had no money for the burger. Sadly, the employee told Taylor he could not give him the free burger. But a customer in line overheard this convorsation and out of the kindness of his heart bought Taylor the burger. When the burger was ready, Taylor quickly slipped the ring inside and walked over to the table where his "girlfriend" was waiting. He got down on one knee, took out the burger, and opened up the burger just like a ring box. Romantically, he asked the question, "Will you marry me?" Obviously, she accepted and all the customers throughout the restaurant shared a round of applause for the happy couple. Taylor's plan had succeeded, and racked up a double set of points.

Taylor also explained that the reason why its called "Where's Waldo" is because someone dressed up as Waldo was hiding at a specific place in the city, and each team is given minimal clues as to where his location is. If you find Waldo, its worth big time points.

So now you can understand why I have been anticipating this day for a while now, because its freaking awesome! This year our team consisted of me, Morgan, Phil, Taylor Peters, his girlfriend Katie, and Morgan's mom playing the role of schaffer/photographer. (You needed photographic evidence of your team doing each task.) Here is a few of the photos from the night. Use that big 'ol brain of yours to fill in the blanks and figure out what's going on in each picture. Below is an almost full list of some of the tasks we accomplished.

-HELP OUT A BUISNESS: We first hit up McD's and quickly mopped some floor.
-GET A PHOTO IN THE BACK OF A BUISNESS: Me and Taylor working Mc's deep fryer.
-PROPOSE IN PUBLIC: Right in line. I asked Morgan, she said yes.
-DO SOMETHING NICE FOR YOUR DRIVER: Bought Katherine a diet pepsi.
-PHOTOS WITH STATUES AROUND RED DEER: 2000 pts a statue. We got four.
-TAKE OUT "WHERE'S WALDO" AT YOUR LIBRARY: Why is that even in a library? There's no reading invloved.
-DO SOMETHING NICE FOR A POLICE OFFICER/FIRE FIGHTER: We went to the RCMP station to give a cop a cup of water, but the doors were locked so we left the water at the door. That counts!!
-PHOTO WITH A 150 YARD MARK AT A GOLF CORSE DRIVING RANGE: Went a bit out of our way, but was worth 16,000 pts!
-5 BRIDGE PHOTOS: We got 0 points for this because we only managed to get photos on 3 bridges.
-GET YOUR TEAM'S PORTRAIT DONE AT WALMART'S PHOTO CENTER: The Christmas backdrop was classy. The lady actually took our photo and we'll get the picture in 2-4 weeks.
-GET SOME HAIR CURLED AT A HAIR SALON: I got mine done at the Green Apple in Parkland Mall.
-DOUBLE WAMMY! DO A DANCE IN A PUBLIC PLACE/SING A CHRISTMAS CAROL IN A MALL FOODCOURT: We serenated the mall janitors with the chicken dance mixed with "We Wish You A Merry Christmas."
-DO AN IMPROVE SKIT IN A PUBLIC PLACE: We did a party house skit in the foodcourt. It went horrible. But still counts! Bonus points for audience participation. Thanks random dude.
-GET A GUY ON THE TEAM TO SHAVE HIS LEG UP TO HIS KNEE: I did the honours.
-GET A TEAM MEMBER'S MOM TO MAKE A DOZEN COOKIES TO BRING BACK TO YOUTH: Thank you Mrs Peters.
-TRICK OR TREAT 5 HOUSES AND GET CANDY FROM EACH ONE: I was suprised that 5 houses back-to-back had candy left over! Except for the first house we tried. They said to leave because that it wasn't a good time. There was apparently a fire in the house!

With only 25 minutes to get back to the youth warehouse, we went on our search to find Waldo (played by Mosa Sayyad). Sadly, the clues threw us off track and we went searching around for him at the Enmax Centrium Stadium (or as Phil called it, "The Colleseum"). With only minutes to spare, we realized that our whole team is stupid and Waldo was at the Collicut Rec Center. But by then it was too late. At that time we had to return to the youth group warehouse to hand in our score.


The scores haven't been officially tallied, so we still don't know which team won. But when the winner is annouced this Wednesday, I will also upload all the photos. I hope we win!!

Stay in touch. /jor⋅dan/[jawr-dn].