#really old items

30.  SHAT.  Where "SHAT" is short for "ScavHunt Authority for Transit."  Your public rickshaw service has two lines: The 1, which runs between 3h75 and 6h25 from Cobb to Kent and the 2, which runs during the same hours from BioMall to Harper.  Runs should be at least semi-hourly during weekdays.  [171 points.  35 bonus points if you notice that the acronym should be "SHAfT", and, as such, deck out your 'shaw accordingly.  10 bonus points if, on top of that, you have a Rick James shaw.  10 bonus points if your 'shaw also doubles as a Thurn und Taxi]

thanks to this item, the first two days of my 2003 Scav Hunt involved a lot of walking and pushing.  they were clearly some ad hoc rickshaws...Palevsky apparently had a vaguely classy ride, but Shoreland's were made out of whatever we had on hand.  i remember at least some were made of shopping cards; i think others were made of luggage carts as well.  i was one of the rickshaw drivers (pushers?!) running the 2.

you know what's a haul?  the BSLC to Harper, when you're pushing random students around.

however, i really wish i had gotten the "Thurn und Taxi" reference back then.  Thurn und Taxis is one of my favourite board games nowadays, and it's all about mail routes -- a reference to the Thurn und Taxis family who was so involved in European postal services several centuries ago.  doing a clandestine mail service would have been great.

149.  A Metra uniform, complete with jacket, button, hat, and hole puncher.  [42 points]

this is one of the few items from the 2001 Scav Hunt (my first) that i remember super clearly.  in 2001, i lived in a very non-scav house...so much that on Saturday, our house trip to Six Flags was that day, and i missed all of Saturday (except for the very late night) as a result.  needless to say...after the fun i had on my first Hunt, i never made the mistake of working, going to class, or going on a house trip during Scav ever again.

anyway, i know for a fact that i went back and scavved after the trip to Six Flags, because this was an item i attempted.  it was late, and i ran from Woodward to the 59th Street Metra stop in order to catch the last Metra Electric train going south.  i'm sure the conductor thought i was absolutely crazy -- i informed him i was doing a scavenger hunt, and asked him if there was any way he could give me his uniform, or parts of it.  i didn't have any kind of ruse, since i realised that "this is for a scavenger hunt" would leave me with less chance of getting arrested (or just decked upside the head) than any other explanation for why i was asking a Metra conductor to doff his duds.

needless to say, he declined.  i asked if he could possibly come to judgment the next morning instead, and he gave me some wiffly-waffly "maybe", though we both knew that was just a polite way for him to say no, get me out of his way, and go on with his night.

34.  At 20h00 at Hutch Commons on Thursday, the Scavenger Hunt Talent Show will delight parents of all ages.  After all, where else but at the talent show can a parent gush to all around him, "my Billy?  He's been able to play the hand-flute since he was seven!"  In any event, this time around, each team will have to perform "The Devil Went Down on Georgia," with a genre and special object, which the Captains draw from caps during the Captains' Meeting.  [200 points]

i remember...most of this item.  i don't remember what item Woodward Court drew.  however, i do remember the genre we drew: Gregorian Chant.  seriously, it wasn't even fair once we drew that genre; we had it in the bag as long as we provided something entertaining, since a chant-style song laden with fellatio references was guaranteed to be absurd and hilarious.

however, we brought the insane.  a bunch of us rank-and-file (including yours truly) grabbed bedsheets and books, and were chanting the lyrics in an appropriately Gregorian manner.  one of our teammates who could play the fiddle was surely playing it hot.  and, one of our other teammates put her fire-eating skill to good use by...well, by eating fire during the fiddle solo in the middle of the song.  it was ridiculous to behold, even from the perspective of the one who was part of the show.

i wish i had the full lyrics; unfortunately, my copy of the lyric sheet got lost in the chaos of scav, and didn't even survive the weekend.  however, i remember the first few lines:

the devil went down on Georgia

he was looking for a piece

it had been since fall

now he had blue balls

and he needed a release

unfortunately, that's as much as i remember.  however, delivering a line about blue balls with a sheet over my head, a Bible in my hand, and a straight face was quite the achievement for an easily amused soul like me.  in fact, given that this event was Thursday night and i (GASP!) went to class during the days of my first Scav, it may have been my first real Scav achievement.

267.  SCSI vibrator, or similarly-themed device, and appropriate software and hardware.  [96 points.  128 bonus points if the software includes a GUI.  64 bonus points if the vibrator is the "Rabbit."  32 extra bonus points if you get Charlotte to shout "It's a vibrator, it's not like it's crack!" when Carrie confiscates the "Rabbit."  64 extra bonus points if the confiscated "Rabbit" is then used in the same way it was used that time we saw it on channel 19.  15 bonus points if the device can be controlled with a "joystick," "plugged into" the "game port."  68 bonus points if the SCSI vibrator is HPDB68, that is, Ultra Wide Male.]

i did not do this item, but my (far more computer-adept) friend across the hall did, which led to me making a complete arse of myself.

this is yet another item from the 2001 list -- 2001 being quite squarely pre-Prohibition, with respect to the Friday night party.  the party was tropical-themed...grass skirts, liquor-filled watermelons, round picnic benches covered in papier mache and painted like volcanoes, the whole nine yards.  the watermelons were bad news...since i noticed that it was only guys who were taking swigs out of them, i decided to strike one for my gender, go drink for drink with the men, and as a result get completely stupid.  i put on a grass skirt, danced (poorly and drunkenly) in the volcano with whoever else happened to be in it, and eventually passed out in a sandbox.  oopsy.  my RA found me there, and had a far more sober person (if i recall correctly, the same scavvie who ended up being my partner for the cottage cheese race the following Sunday morning) get me back to the dorm.

once safely back at the dorm, all i had to do was get ready for bed, and call it a night.  when headed to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth, i started talking to my friend Seamus, who was working on that item.  i went on a diatribe about how i needed to go wash my face, how important it was that i wash the blue lipstick (which i wore every day, at the time...) off my face.  then, i started talking to the vibrator he was working on.

i held it up like it was a microphone, and started musing, "be a good SCSI dildo.  be a good SCSI dildo."

92.  Pimp-couch.  A couch, at least 3 arshin in length.  Integrate an audio system, animal-print upholstery, and bad-ass (functional) low-rider hydraulics.  Since this device will be involved in a bad-assness turf war, it should also be underlit in neo and include a fly hood ornament.  [333 points.  33 bonus points if the audio system is a Pioneer and is bumping along to some Southernplayalistic.]

this is another item i remember from my very first Hunt, back in 2001.  i was not involved in building it, but i know they were looking for people to play "hoes" for the pimp couch, and in my eighteen-year-old folly i had this really short, skimpy, studded black plastic dress that made me perfect for the role.  there was one other scavvie in a skimpy (though signficantly less made-of-plastic) dress, and then a guy who had a cape and a pimp hat.

i know we had the bumping sound system and the animal-print upholstery, though i know our "hydraulics" were basically "let's put this couch up on springs".  i don't remember any details about the turf war, unless the turf war was defined as "which team could blast music louder than the other teams". 

157.  You wash a Wash U student, a Wash U student washes you, we watch.  [24 points]

talk about an item that came way, way, way too early for me to be of any use whatsoever.  i'm not sure that item even made sense to me back in 2001, and i have no idea if my team got the item or not.

however, if it had been on the list in '06, '07, or '08, i'd have been all up on it, given that i was a Wash U student during that time.  well...at least '08.  '06 or '07 i'd have had to participate remotely, since i was stuck in St. Louis during the Hunt for both of those years.  '08, i was still officially a Wash U student (since graduation was a week after Scav that year), and i was actually in Chicago for GASH's first hunt.

5.  This is for y'all who wear fanny packs.  You find your friend, a cheese-guzzling pig, and now the both of you have your chance to shine.  Sure, we know that the highlight of cheese-guzzling was downing that bucket of nacho cheese at the cafeteria your sophmore year like it was a bucket of cole slaw.  This, though, could beat it.  The first teammember has to tie a fanny pack around his or her waist, with the pack up front.  Now, into this pack, empty out 16 ounces of cottage cheese.  Not that we're experts, but we suggest small curd.  Race the other cheese-guzzling pigs on the other teams.  You can only use the tools your mouth has namely teeth, tongue, and fearsome sucking action.  The person wearing the fanny pack can only use their hands as it pertains to running their fingers through the other person's hair.  [50 points for first place, 25 for second, 15 for third.  15 bonus points if you finish the deed off with two tablespoons of vegemite.]

this is an item from Scav Olympics during my first Scav Hunt, way back in 2001.  it's the first and last time i've ever eaten cottage cheese -- but i'll be darned if i didn't win this race!  i'm not aware of any pictures of this happening; this was before the days of digital cameras and social networking sites being all that common, so everything i remember from these first few Scav Hunts of mine still resides between my ears.  i can only imagine it was a ridiculous site for anyone walking near the Midway while it was going on, though.

most Scav Olympics items these days happened on the Midway -- my first few Hunts, the Scav Olympics were Sunday morning before judgment, so it made sense to have Scav Olympics as close to Ida Noyes as possible.

this is the first of quite a few examples over the years of me doing ridiculous eating items for Scav Hunt.  i'm such a picky eater day in and day out, but for Scav Hunt, i'll eat anything once.  i don't remember cottage cheese itself being that nasty...i'm not quite sure why i haven't eaten it again.  maybe the texture?  i say cottage cheese itself...because sucking down a fanny pack of it outdoors on a hot May day definitely did not do anything to make the stuff taste better.  the circumstances didn't help the taste of the cottage cheese, that's for sure.

however, Woodward didn't have any Vegemite that year.  i've still never had Vegemite, but i'd have been adventurous enough to try it for fifteen points...yes, even fifteen points back in those days of rampant, rampant point inflation.

109.  Chronicle your road trip team's half-hour of fun at the City Museum, using the grainy film stock of NFL films.  Also include the Voice of God providing narration.  [44 points].

i guess it's inevitable that cities will repeat on the road trip, given the 1000 mile limitation, but what i'm surprised to see here is a repeat of a location *within* a city. 

this year's Road Trip went to City Museum; other than the Toynbee Tile happening to be there, it was the only Road Trip item in St. Louis.  i had no idea that Road Trip had gone to City Museum in the past, but here this was, in the 2001 Scav Hunt list.  i'd say it's forgivable, though.  having lived in St. Louis for three years, there's nothing else i remember from there that would really make a good road trip item.  City Museum is one of only two venues in St. Louis that i truly miss...the other being Novak's Bar, but St. Louis is so close to Chicago that there would have to be a TON of intervening stops inside Illinois in order to send a road trip team there for a karaoke-singing item.