Chapter 66: Treasure Hunt

Today at work we had a meeting and then a team building activity. It was suppose to be a reward for all the hard work we put in while we opened a new store. Training was on overload for a couple of months because of it. I don’t know why I had decided to go to the meeting, I mean, I didn’t need to be there, and yet I sat there and took notes. When I came to sit down TDH smiled and told me that he meant to buy me a blueberry fritter that morning. I smiled back trying to figure out if I was missing out on an inside joke between us but I couldn’t remember. I just told him I don’t eat blueberry fritters and he said I would have tried it for him. Then he told me that he was going to print off our team photo and sign it for me, but he didn’t. His excuse was that his printer was only printing off in purple. I told him I expected to get that picture some time. Later in the meeting Big Red was having trouble putting up a flip chart and TDH asked her if she needed help. I looked over at him and asked, “Why? So you can say you were going to help but didn’t?” He got the reference and knew I was just joking around.
Before the meeting started we went around the room to introduce ourselves because there were a lot of new people to the team. When they got to me I just said my name and my manager’s manager looked at me and said, “and?” so I just smiled back at her for a little bit and finally said, “and today is my last official day.” I train tomorrow as well, but today was the last day working with anyone. Then they went down the line, Twitch, TDH, new guy…when New Guy introduced himself he also announced that he had just accepted the full time position to train for my stores. Awkward! It was so final. I hadn’t known that he was replacing me, it was news to me just like I assume it was news to most everyone else. I know it shouldn’t have upset me, but in a way it did and I almost wanted to take it all back. What if I don’t like this new job? What if they don’t like me? I was so certain that I didn’t want the job I have now anymore, but now that it’s quickly winding down I don’t know if I want to let it go. I mean, regardless I will, it’s too late to take it back. Though someone else mentioned to me today that I should stay on and just work Saturdays as a promotional trainer…interesting because TDH had just mentioned it earlier this week. It just came up faster than I thought it would.
After our meetings (because we had two on our fun day) we went to lunch…at a Mexican restaurant. I don’t know if I have ever mentioned this but I am extremely picky. So I was filled with dread when I found out where we were going. I carpooled with TDH, Twitch, and New Guy…this is the way I like life, chilling with the boys. TDH drove and Twitch had called shotgun but when we got to the car he said that I was taller so I should sit shot gun. I thanked him, but then looked into TDH’s car, it was a mess! There was trash all over and a case of bottled water in the back. SO we all pitched in to clean up quickly. I just made some smart remarks about it that I wish I could remember right now. When we walked into the restaurant I wasn’t sure where to sit, it’s always awkward when you want someone to sit by you and you know you can’t force them to, but you want it to look like just chance that you happened to sit next to each other. So I just decided to sit down, and without thinking about it I sat in the middle seat of three chairs, there were chairs on the other side though, so I didn’t feel like I was forcing TDH to sit by me. He could have gone on the other side and sat by Twitch or by New Guy, but he sat down by me. Which of course made me happy. There wasn’t much to talk about if we wanted to avoid talking about work, so we all took note of the 10 or so televisions that all were tuned in to the same station. It was a soap opera and I leaned over to TDH and said, “I bet you were worried you were going to miss this one.” He just laughed. Later though I happened to look up and see that this blonde lady was in a conversation with a man who had an obvious fake mustache. I mentioned to TDH and Twitch that the guy looked like he had time traveled from the 1920’s and forgot to try to look like he fit in. The sad thing about soap operas is that his character could have been a time traveler. We went back to talking about something else, anything else. Then later I looked up and the blonde was kissing the time traveler! I threw my hand up over my eyes and said that I couldn’t watch it! Then we joked that the mustache (which looked incredibly fake) might have accidentally come off on the blonde. The waitress finally brought us our food, which by the way I got a chicken Caesar wrap…not something I would normally get. So I started to get it with a fork, I’m not going to bite right in, it doesn’t give me the chance to eat the proportions that I want. TDH laughs and I look over at him and ask what, he just shook his head and finally said, “eating a wrap…with a fork?” I told him that some of us just like to be careful and make sure that we don’t got food all over ourselves. Twitch and TDH seemed to use the buddy system to go to the bathroom and while they were gone New Guy and I made up an elaborate plot for the silent soap opera surrounding us. It was pretty intense and the other female trainer on our team told me that I shouldn’t watch the stuff, I should write it. I just shrugged my shoulders, anyone could have thought of a priest forcing a pretty blonde woman into the nunnery with her son watching on, all the while the priest is her half brother and the father of her child. But the father of her other child stormed the church to try and stop her from taking a vow of celibacy, and of course silently we watched as she ripped off her nunnery clothes (a hobbit? Heck if I know what they are called) and her younger son and half-brother watched in dismay as she ran off to her life of sin with her former boyfriend and his mustache.
Anyway, so then the people came to lead us in our team building activity, a treasure hunt through Richmond. Before we embarked they gave us a few moments for a bio break (using the little girl’s room). I got up to go and so did two other women but they had their purses with them and I had left mine where I had sat it down, so I nudged TDH and told him my purse was on the ground and he should let anything happen to it. Then I went off to use the bathroom. When I came back I got to walk on to the most adorable scene, TDH was standing with his back faced towards me and what did I see dangling from his hand? My purse. I walked up with a slight chuckle and told him how I wish I had had my camera ready for that picture. He just smiled and handed it back to me.
TDH, Red, our scheduler, and a guy from the food service team, and I were all on the same team. Twitch and New Guy were on different teams as we split up to go on a treasure hunt. So we started out and went to our first place and found our clues. I was able to figure out the first one and decipher the message and that was pretty fun. It was a lot of fun at first. So then we went to our second clue and started to work on the clues there. We found the cannon and started looking around from what we were supposed to see. Suddenly TDH sees a golden coin (there were 2 golden coins throughout the hunt and if you found one it knocked 20 minutes off of your final time). So needless to say TDH was pretty excited and he bucked at the tree and said, “what now?” which…was pretty interesting. Then he starts saying how he ruled at Easter time because he always found the biggest brightest egg…like it was a natural talent or something. We then went to stop three of four and that’s when it began to get frustrating. We were making it harder than we had to and spent too much time there. We ended up giving up and going to our last place to get a clue. That was when it became really annoying and I wanted to throw up. We quite possibly spent the longest amount of time here, looking for a clue that the riddle said would be easy to see for those who looked and some crap about a whisper waiting to sing. Finally the guy from the other training group found a sticker on the back of a sign and we called the number on there and they told us the answer. So we then went back to the museum to try to find the clue we had given up on. We figured that we had the answer but we hadn’t found one piece they told us we needed but we gave up and went back to where we started. It was kind of depressing. Our feet hurt, we were tired, and we didn’t have the energy to go looking for the missing piece. The people in charge simply opened the treasure box and gave us our last clue. We quickly figured out the answer and I ran up to tell the lady the answer. Even though we were the last group back our gold coin brought us in at second place.
Once the results were announced and we got our trophies we headed out. We got back to the main office and all of us had decided not to go back in and then we were all walking through the door together, all with our different reasons to go in. We waited for Red to get back, even though she was in a car that left before us (we figured they got lost). In the meantime Twitch and I talked, he was trying to attach some pictures to an e-mail and I was talking to him about how I already had those pictures. He laughed and closed the e-mail and said it wasn’t worth it, then he admitted that he was going to download a bunch of pictures and e-mail them to me. He is always pulling pranks. He informed me of several ideas that he had for pranks for me. Then he verified my cell phone number and I told him to never call me at 4 in the morning. We were also talking about something else and I said something about him being an alchy (don’t know the spelling) and he said, “Recreational” and I asked, “You’re a recreational alchy?” In fact this is where the don’t call me at 4am comment came in. He said he would call me at 3 am then and I told him I would call him at 8 or 9 am when he was sure to be sleeping and yell loudly as I spoke to him, “What?! Am I talking too loud? Oh do you have a hangover? I’m sorry!” He thought that was funny.
Twitch left first, asking if I was coming at the same time but I told him I wanted to go talk to Red first. So he left and I talked to Red and what to do with my stuff when I finish up tomorrow. Then we both walked back to join New Guy and TDH as they tried to print something off. I asked TDH what he was working on and he said he was printing the leader’s guide for Part 1 for New Guy. I looked at New Guy and said, “If you really want to do a good job at it you should just take my notes because I do it better than TDH.” Everyone started laughing and Red said, “She’s humble too”. I told them that I just take a compliment and run with it. I also told Red that I may be calling her every once in a while to get a compliment in case my new job didn’t like me. If I just get a compliment then I could be good for a couple of weeks. Then we all got ready to go and Red and New Guy went to talk, surely about what he needs to be ready to do next week and TDH and I left the building.
We had parked at opposite ends of the parking lot, so we got down to about where our cars were and then we stopped and talked like Tuesday night. People kept driving by this time though because we weren’t in an empty parking lot. Red finally came out and she mentioned one last time that she was sorry to see me go. I really believe her too, so it’s nice. I’m glad I decided to get her a goodbye/thank you gift (A Dilbert wall calendar, she loves Dilbert). Then TDH and I kept talking. I told him how I had really felt when I did Part 1, like adrenaline was pushing me forward and I had no idea what I was saying. I told him how it was too easy and that’s why I kept checking to see if I forgot anything. He told me that I had done Part 1 perfectly…he really used that wording. It made me feel good, like maybe I should have kissed him. This time our conversation was interrupted by Twitch who was calling TDH to hang out. So he had to get going. I told him that if he and Twitch ever get bored they should give me a call so we could all hang out. When I got to my car I realized that we had been out there for 45 minutes. Why is it now that he suddenly stops and talks to me for long periods of time? Not that I mind, but it’s just that this was probably the last time.
I checked my phone and saw that I had missed a call from my mom so I called her back and she invited me to dinner. I was calling back a little late and asked if they had already eating but she just told me to come. Luckily they were eating near where I was so I just headed in that direction. As I took the turn on to the street by the restaurant I looked at the window to see if they were sitting in their usual spot (I know this sounds sad, but they have a usual spot there) and I saw my mom and then the other face I saw was G.I. Joe. I was bad and let some profanities slip by. All I could think was, “Shit, she tricked me,” and it wasn’t so much thought, but thinking aloud to myself. I was ticked off almost instantly. How quickly my mom deflated my good feeling produced by TDH. Luckily my dad was there too, but suddenly it was like being on a double date with my parents. Talk about awkward. It was almost painful, but considering some of the things I’ve been through in the last week not as painful as having to sit next to Mr. Collins on Sunday. With that in mind I did invited G.I. Joe to come to church on Sunday. I hope he doesn’t think that this means anything, because it doesn’t, I’m simply choosing the lesser of two evils.
Why does dating have to be so much like the treasure hunt through the city today? Fun at first, even a little exciting, then you slowly start to get frustrated and can’t seem to see the clues that are right in front of you because you feel like it’s supposed to be deeper than it really is. Then of course in the end you walk back to the starting point, defeated and your feet in pain.