The peculiar adventures of an secret super...

It is always hard to find a nice quiet place to curl up and read a book. So I decided to go to the extreme and hide on the roof of house to read. 

On our roof there is outcroppings that I could lean against and it also created shade to sit in. When I first went up there I purely intended to read, but I took a while to first admire the view... A person can feel so tiny when you view the imminence expanse surrounding you.

When I was done appreciating the view I expanded my world more by diving into the book I brought along. I made quite a dent in the remaining chapter before I started to get uncomfortable. The roof tiles is not really designed with comfort in mind. So purely because of my sore backside I reluctantly moved away from my makeshift sanctuary.

My parents recently made a large new group of friends, and of course it wasn't long till they were invited to dinner at our house. Some of my mom’s friends brought their kids. There was one adorable little girl who came with her parents. She was only four years old and extremely shy. 

She clung to her parents but I was determined to win her over, so I dove into my youngest sister toys and extracted a purple unicorn. The little girl knew the show where the toy stems from and immediately loved it. Taking her hand I led her to my sisters room to play with the toys (and she has a lot of them). 

We fixed up the castle toy sets and gathered the accessories. When we were satisfied with our work we started to brush and braid the toys’ hair. She spent the entire time in the room playing, even when we ate. I also read to her from a few children books we had lying around since I really feel saddened by the fact that kids don’t read anymore. 

I kept trying to make sure she will be okay, but I couldn’t really give her any treats or soft-drinks since she couldn’t take in any sugar. This made me needlessly worry about her, but she was fine. The only time she complained and threw a fit is when they had to leave, so I will take that our time spent together as success. 

Extracted concept:

I like to try new things, but I really like it when I can try things with my friends. So while visiting my friend I asked her to introduce me to some of their hobbies. That is where I first witnessed and played backgammon...

It is a very interesting game, at first the rules confused me and I opted in watching my friend’s mom and aunt play so I can see the game in action. The next game my friend played against her aunt and I somewhat assisted the aunt.

After that I attempted to play on my own, literally at my first turn I drew a blank. I suddenly felt an imminence amount  of pressure (for no reason). I think I thought about my first move for 5 minutes.

After a while I got a hang of the game, and I enjoyed it. Backgammon is a weird mix of skill and chance, you can play aggressively or passively. Before I packed of my pieces I strategically placed I knocked of one of friend pieces and since I occupied all the spaces they have to enter in, they were stuck. In the end I won my first game of backgammon and I enjoyed it enough to play it again.

The extracted concept is:

It is actually very easy to spend a day (and more) without electricity, but I guess that’s because we had to entertain ourselves during load-shedding. To incorporate the concept, I decided to spend the evening swimming with my friend.

We left our phones in our room and set out to the swimming pool. We had a great time, we attempted to play hide and seek in the water (which failed but it was hilarious). We also made a small stream by swimming in a contentious circle and fished out beetles since the filter was off.

We both made it without any electricity to entertain us and we both had a fantastic time. So far it was the easiest Mission I have done so far.

Extracted concept:

We have large dogs, which means there is a Lot of dog to wash. And like young children, they hate being washed but it needs to be done. 

So with promises of treats I finally managed to get our Labrador into the tub. It was extremely uncomfortable. To keep the dog from bolting, I had to weirdly straddle the tub and dog. My pants got all wet and the shed hair stuck to my skin, making me itch. 

When the Labrador was done and dried I moved on to the Great Dane. He was actually much calmer, but you feel so bad every time you rinse them because they look so betrayed. 

The Yorkie and miniature schnauzer was the easiest since they are more used to it, but the Yorkie still takes his chances to bolt. My cat gave me a single look and I knew that my pet washing day is (finally) over. 

My reward for the day was a stuffy noes, leaking eyes, itchy skin, soaked clothes, miffed dogs, wet dog smells and I was utterly and thoroughly wet. It also didn’t help that the dogs went to roll around in the grass immediately after their bath.  

My concept for the next task will be:

This is a very simple mission, but yet again I need to make things difficult for myself. To incorporate the concept DRY, I am going on a 5 km run, without taking any liquids during the whole exercise.

I took of at 6 in the morning, since it will be safer that running in the night where I live. Our dogs joined me on this journey, since I swear they get withdrawal symptoms if any household member leaves for a while. 

I believe that I may be more fit than our dogs, which is weird since we take them for regular walks and we have a very large yard for them to play in. The route we took has a lot of fresh water sources for the animals, but I was adamant about not consuming a single drop. It wasn’t bad though, I did feel slightly parched near the end, but I rewarded myself with a nice cool glass of coka-cola.

Next concept:

I believe that I can be a very patient person (sometimes) and I know I don’t bore easily. So first I need to get something that is unnecessarily boring. Thanks to a prompt in a show, I decided that I will watch paint dry.

Since I made paintings before, I had leftover paint and a ruined canvas, so I decided I might as well use it. Using left-over Yellow oil-pant (since it dries slower) I covered the canvas in Yellow. Then the waiting began.

Staring at a boring all yellow surface was, well, boring. I didn’t do anything else, I simply watched paint dry. It was ridiculous now that i think about it but yes, it was boring.

The concept I extracted is:

On a camping trip, my little brother and I went to a somewhat secluded play park in the Rhino Park Airfield. There was the usual see-saw, swings and merry-go-round, but there was also a giant, blow-up, jumping mat thing. The thing is I once visited this very park a LONG time ago. I think I was nine or younger and I distinctly remembered planting myself in the ground after miscalculating my jump. I had to throw out my ripped beyond repair pants after that.

This time I was going to jump without falling. After waiting for the other kids to tire themselves out and leave, I ascended the sloped surface and started to jump. At first my feet started to burn since it’s a large nylon surface that’s been baking in the sun all day. It was safer to jump on the yellow part since it wasn’t as hot. 

The heat kept me bouncing and me and my brother had a blast. It wasn’t long till the younger kids came back and I thought my time was over. I was wrong and got roped into their games. In the end I, was, exhausted... But it was fun to release my inner child again.

The extracted concept this time is:

Since I “racked up” the cash in the previous mission I was feeling overly generous. So I decided to give away a 50 cent everyday for 2 weeks. 

Every day if I went to a shop, I would drop a 50 cent in the donation boxes at the tills. If I drove home and knew that I wouldn’t go out again I would give a coin to to the street vendors. My little brother was also on the receiving end on multiple occasions, being 6 he felt like a millionaire.

If i could give more I would, yet it feels kinda weird to always just give for no reason. I support generosity wholeheartedly, but not unnecessarily. I saw it in my little brother since he started to expect to be given something witch is not really good.

The concept I have extracted from this mission is:

From my previous mission, I picked a LOT of avocados and since its already picked and avocados spoil easily I decided to “sell” most of them. I knew I had a market since a lot of friends and family asked to get some avocados when they are ready.

So I started with my marketing. I called the people I knew were interested and notified them. It wasn’t long till all the avocados I had were spoken for. Since I got the avocados with almost no labor I sold them very cheaply, Like 50 cents for a bag... I got richer by R3.50.

It was really fun, although it was kinda weird at first when I stated that i was expecting money for it. Everyone who participated played along which I was really grateful for.

The concept from this mission is: 

At home we have this really awesome Avocado tree. It resembles a slingshot since it splits before it branches out. This split is the perfect place to sit, so I decided to push it and have a picnic in it. 

In the split I added a blanket and I hooked the cooler bag on a branch. It was really comfortable, the split created a very low back-rest for me to lean on and there was a soft breeze rustling the leaves above me. The shade along with the breeze was amazing. 

It was kinda hard to hold a picnic in the end, sometimes I felt like I was going to fall out when I leaned to reach into the bag. At least when I got to my mini feast it got so much better. There was weirdly not a lot of birds in my tree, I did sit as still as possible to let birds come, but they only sat in branches from other trees.

It’s been a long time since I have been to the zoo, witch I feel kinda bad about since I love animals and learning about them. We decided to go with a few family friends since it could be a fun way to spend time together. This time we also planned ahead and packed a picnic basket because usually things can turn out to be pretty expensive at zoo’s. I was going to annoy everyone by constantly applying sun screen, on everyone...

At first it was easy, everyone was on board with the idea of sunscreen and didn't fuss when I applied it. When we got to the first turn near the elephants I insisted that we should reapply. I was met with a lot of protest but after asking really nicely we applied again... When we got to the gorillas I insisted again everyone refused, then it turned into war. I wanted to at least mark everyone with a blob of sunscreen, the children ran and the adults cowered,I came out mostly victorious. We had so much fun running around with sun screen that we missed the bears... 

We held our little picnic in the petting zoo area by the river. Since we finally sat down I realized that the zoo is starting to get more dilapidated, and it saddened me... I know there is a controversy surrounding the captivity of wild animals, but i also know that all the animals in the zoo was bred in captivity so they won’t survive in the wild. I also supports Zoo’s in the way they are protecting all these creatures I just wish that they gained more support so they can keep the animals happy and healthy.

The concept I have extracted from this experience is:

At first I thought that this is going to be easiest mission yet, alas I was wrong... How do you do nothing? I mean you can just sit around, but aren't you sitting then? I decided that I may be overthinking the preparation part, and I just need to start. For the concept I thought I could just grab a crispy packet of Lay’s chips to munch on, but that posed a problem, I can’t eat because then I will be doing something... Maybe I can use it to time “the as long as possible” for how long I can hold out of not eating it.

I grabbed a camping chair and made myself comfortable outside. All potential distractions have been removed (cellphone etc.) and the Lay’s have been placed. I then tried to make my mind blank, I had to do nothing after all. To do this I assumed it would be best if I tried to fall asleep, yet my mind kept drifting. After a while I concluded that if I sleep, I will be doing something...  I tried yet again to space out. 

The packet of Lay’s failed as temptation, since I don’t really enjoy chips as I used to, but I did manege to achieve the concept. As it turns out. it’s somewhat dangerous to try and do nothing outside, because I got a major sun burn... My arms and face stung so bad, but I found it hilarious since I was the one who got burnt to a crisp, hence I was crispy... 

Unfortunately for those who lives in a house with multiple siblings, means that there is never anything good to eat laying around. It also poses as a problem when your best-friend arrives for a surprise sleep-over, and you have no food to give them. So I decided that I will cook with whatever we had at the moment, this included: a loaf of garlic bread, rump steak, cucumber, giant tomatoes, cheddar cheese, lettuce and peppadews. 

Another problem was that there was barely enough items to create a almost decent meal for only me and my friend, so getting caught by any member of my household was not an option. My little brother had to be the first to go, he always want’s to hang around when my friend is over. So I managed to get the attention of the neighbors’  kids and left them playing with each other. My sister was doing a art project, so I generously told her were I hid my personal art supplies and told her she can only borrow it with specific conditions (like only use them in this room, away from the main house, and how it dries quickly if it comes in contact with natural air, so all the windows and doors needed to be closed) you know all “totally legit” art supply reasons. 

My final sibling posed no problem, if you plan to hide yourself in your room and play X-box, you make my job easier. Besides she can really immerse herself in her games, so seeing her will be like meeting a unicorn. My parents weren't home so no need for planning there.

Now the reason this is intimidating for me is because all this ingredients i have only means one thing, ‘braai’ . Yes I love a good  braai  every now-and-again but the most I do during these occasions is setting the table, pouring drinks and making salad... I never actually  braai-ed  before, and I never truly paid attention when my father or anyone else did . The meat is also a really nice cut, being rump and all so I really didn't want to waste it (and it’s expensive). Also fire... I was a good kid, and didn’t play with lighters or matches, and now I had to intentionally start a fire, and maintain it... 

After I resigned myself to my fate I started, I made a fire with the wood we had stockpiled and some pine-cones and ‘blitz’ for getting it going. While I was waiting for the coals to form, made a very strange salad, with the mish-mash of supplies we had, using cheddar cheese to replace the usual feta. I popped the garlic-bread into the oven while the fire was getting ready, since I wan’t to be done quickly, but I also want the bread to be crispy. 

 Checking the bread every now and again, I remembered something... smell.  braai-ing has a very distinct (very delicious) smell and my family are blood hounds. So I decided to burn some incense in the house, the smell usually gives me a giant headache but it’s a price that had to be paid. 

Soon the coals were ready and I placed the meat, and also fetched the bread out of the oven to heat it further over the coals, this allowed me to keep an eye on it since I’m aware it burns quite easily. Rotating  the bread every few seconds (it’s still wrapped in it’s foil because i’m not a complete dunce) I managed to successfully cook a decent meal. With spices I used our regular braai -salt, and surprisingly it came out perfect. 

The meat was tender but well-done and best off all not dry. The bread was crispy and the pre-placed butter melted away into the crust, leaving no awkward clumps and the cheddar in the peppadew salad was an amazing balance. And best of all, me and my friend didn't have to share a single bite...

For my next mission my concept will be....