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Working doesn't sound like fun.....but....it's worth it for the points, right?

Living the Life of Holly
By Holly Winter
© 2005
Scavengers by Choice

“I’m not in the mood to propose marriage to a stranger.” I refused. “Um. What if he says yes?”

“Come on, Holly.” Teresa insisted. “We need the points and it’s your turn.” She pointed to a handsome man passing by. “Ask him.”

Another member of our team, Flippy-brown-hair, stepped forward. “I’ll do it.” She approached a woman on the Sixteenth Street Mall who was window shopping with her eight-year-old son. “May I propose to your son for our photo scavenger hunt?”

The woman laughed her yes as her son hid behind her back.

Flippy-brown-hair wouldn’t be deterred from banking the ten points proposing was worth. She got down on one knee and smiled at the little boy who was trying desperately to burrow under his mother’s shirt. “We’re doing a photo scavenger hunt. Please?” She took off her ring and held it out to him. “Just pretend you’re taking the ring from me, ok?”

It was Organizer’s idea. Ten teams of seven people met to do the most ridiculous activities. The turf was downtown Denver. The point sheet was four pages long. Most of us were strangers. What bonded us was we all knew Organizer, sometimes by several people removed, and that we were vying for first prize: free appetizers and drinks for the highest scoring team.

The little boy stepped away from his mother, and smiling the smallest smile he could manage, reached tentatively for the ring.

Click. “Got it.” Camera-girl called as she snapped the photo.

“Hey, Holly.” Flippy-hair spun around after winking a thank you to the boy. “Stop that fire truck. We need a photo with our team on the truck.”

Teresa and I raced to the curb, waving our arms over our heads.

“They’re going to think there’s a fire.”

“No. They’re going to think we want a date.”

The firemen beeped and waved as the truck sped by.

“They didn’t stop.” I shook my head. “What if there was a fire?”

Not willing to waste a moment, Flippy-hair tapped my shoulder. “We need someone to work in a fast food restaurant.”

Work didn’t sound fun.

“There.” Ron pointed. “Go make crepes.”

“Crepes?” I hedged as I took a baby step in that direction.

Two men manned the creperie booth on Writer’s Square. Ron gently pushed me towards the door where I put on a persuasive smile. “May I work here, just for a moment?”

They looked at each other, then at me.

“It’s for a photo scavenger hunt.”

“You want to work in this heat?” Older asked.

Younger backed out of the shack and Older motioned for me to enter.

I stood in front of the burners. Thank God there weren’t any customers. For effect I waved the spatula in the air as I turned towards the camera.

“I’m ready.” I called. “Click?”

There seemed to be a problem with the camera.

“Will we earn extra points if I melt on camera?” Really. These workers must have been bad in a past life to be stuck in sweltering heat day after day.

Teresa looked up from the point sheet. “It’s an extra twenty points if you wear a hat.”

Yeah. Tattered by grease. Fraying around the edges. I held my breath as I slipped on the polluted, black cap. Maybe the odor wouldn’t waft onto my hair.

Click.

Younger clapped from outside the booth. “I’d never wear that thing on my head. What’d you gonna win?”

“Free drinks.” I thanked them and the team rushed over to a dress shop on Larimer Square. We needed a fast photo of our token male wearing a dress.

“We have ten minutes till check in.” Teresa reminded us.

Ron backed slowly towards the dress shop exit. “Nobody said anything about a wedding dress.”

Flippy-hair and Tall-girl schmoosed the owners while Teresa and I searched for the right dress that we could fit onto our skinny man’s body for twenty points.

“Here’s a ten.”

“Too small. I have a twelve.”

“Make him take off his clothes, it’ll fit better.” Camera-girl insisted.

“No.” Ron squawked. “Let him KEEP his clothes on.”

Tall-girl and I set the creamy wedding dress over his head, slowly.

“Too small.” Teresa said, trying to pull the dress over his shoulders.

The wedding dress was exchanged for a size fourteen evening gown.

Ron breathed in little shallow breaths like a child on the verge of a screaming cry. We carefully lifted the dress over his head. He was able to get his arms into the holes and the dress over his hips, but we couldn’t zip it. He even stepped onto, into wouldn’t have worked with his size twelve foot, a pair of pink spiked heels for the additional ten points.

“Take the picture, now.” He demanded, with one arm on his hip.

Click.

Teresa checked her watch. “We have to get to the lower level Writer’s Square Parking Garage in the next four minutes if we want the check in points.”

Slow trot. Where’s the entrance? This way. Which is the door? Here. Go in. Elevator. Oh. God. We don’t have much time. Down. Where? The bottom? Ok. Down. Down. Down. Down.

Organizer was leaning against the trunk of her car. She dramatically lifted her arm to check the time. “YOU’RE LATE.”

We slowed, letting our adrenalin precede us.

“Ok.” She laughed. “I’ll give you the points. But. You’ll have to swig this cheap orange vodka straight from the bottle.”

Tall-girl lifted the bottle to her lips and sipped. She crinkled up her face and waved her hand in front of her mouth as if she were trying to increase her oxygen supply.

“Oh, yeah.” Organizer laughed. “Had you been on time, you would have gotten a mixer with that.”

Ron sputtered down his drink. “You kidding? I wouldn’t waste a mixer on this.”

We accepted our poison as gracefully as we could, ignoring the man in the minivan who was snapping our photos. Was it illegal to drink cheap vodka in a parking garage? Was it legal to photograph people drinking cheap vodka in a parking garage?

We stumbled back into the falling twilight that was blanketing the city like chocolate syrup on an ice-cream Sunday.

“We’ll get an extra twenty points…” Camera-girl called from the point sheet. “For every member of our team who will step into a porta potty….barefoot.”

Teresa turned to me. “Let’s lose.”

“Yeah.” Tall-girl agreed. “I’m not going there.”

“Yeah, but.” Flippy-brown-hair said. “Let’s have some fun. I’ve always wanted to get frisked by a cop.”

And. So. Fully accepting of our uncompetitive agreement, we became scavengers by choice. Standing in a fountain. Click. A strip club. Click. In a limo. Click. The statue in front of the Buell Theater. Click. Frisked by a wary policeman. Click. With street musicians. Click.

A fire truck stopped at a red light in front of us. Tall-girl ran towards the truck, waving her arms in the air and shouting, “Hey. Guys. Can you wait a second?”

She got a series of hoots and long beeps as the truck sped off into the night.

Ron put his arm around dejected Tall-girl as she returned, empty handed, to the group.

“Let the fire truck go.” He joked. “This hunt isn’t real.”

Without any discussion, the team turned towards the end of the hunt tavern. Sure. We’d be paying for our alcohol and watching as the winning team, who got eight barefoot people in a porta potty, become thirsty fish as they boasted and bragged about their win.

Camera-girl folded the point sheet into her purse. “Let’s not rub feet for the next six months with any of those winning losers.”

Yeah. And. That became our first toast.

Wanna try another column? How about #221: First Date Test, which is about trying make the date into a testing ground...

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