YOB: Letterbox Retrieval
Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 7:00AM MAD21 By Beth
You will recall that the very first thing we did in the Year of the Birthday was to plant a letterbox in Susquehana State Park on January 1st. The plan was to pick this letterbox up on December 31st but knee surgery, kidney stones and mountains of snow prevented us from doing so. Since I was visiting Lara this past weekend for a tatoo party and the weather was decent we made our way to the park to, finally, pick up the letterbox. Our happy jaunt into the world soon took a sinister turn though.
The park was much more crowded this time around, the small lot where we parked was nearly full. The path was also much narrower due to an increase in vegetation since January. We started down the path, eager to see who had found our letterbox over the past year. On the path was a giant beetle. Seriously. It was huge. Naturally, I took a picture of it, not thinking anything of it. I wanted a picture in my scrapbook, that's all. The beetle, however, turned out to be a top of the line, robotic guard (similar to the fly in Get Smart, the one Agent 23 destroyed) and the flash from my camera set off a silent alarm, alerting CIA spies to our presence.
See, both Lara and I believe the CIA has been following our activities of the past year. While some of the Year of the Birthday events are "normal" we have several on the list that could be deemed "suspicious" or "out of character" for 30 year old women to be involved in. For example, leaving random gifts on doorsteps could certainly be viewed as suspicious, perhaps trying to make contact and leave sensitive information for others? Also, we visited the International Spy Museum early in the year, perhaps trying to hone our skills for the events of the year? These are just two of the events that can be deemed suspicious by the CIA and would give them reason to track us throughout the year. I believe they've been following me for years prior to this due to the emails I send with the initials SS, (which stands for Steppin' Stone, the 5th and 6th grade youth group I run, but also stands for something a bit more sinister). I also have relations who are stockpiling silver, seeds and guns. My Year of the Birthday adventures just bumped me up a few slots on the watch list.
Back to the woods. The beetle must have sent a signal to the CIA operatives watching our letterbox, telling them we were on our way. Obviously we had no idea what had transpired and we set off merrily down the overgrown path. Of course I took pictures, it's what I do. We heard some strange noises along the way. Kind of a cross between a duck and a frog. Probably various camouflaged mercenaries talking in code, telling those staking out the letterbox of our progress down the trail. When we stopped to try and figure out what was making the noise, it stopped.
We reached the place where we had to leave the path and climb a small hill. I was in front and therefore got to the flat rock first. I had picked up a stick along the way and proceeded to poke around behind the rock for our Tupperware. Nothing. I poked some more. Lara poked. We both checked by other rocks and along the ground nearby. Nothing. Beer cans and cigarette boxes, that's it. Our suspicions rose. Why would someone steal it? It was clearly marked as to what it was. We had checked on it not too long ago after a fellow letterboxer claimed it wasn't there. At that point it was. We began to go over the events of surrounding the letterbox. We had hidden it in the dead of winter on a day when most people were still too hungover to function. We took pictures along the way. We checked on it once or twice throughout the year. We photographed a large "beetle" when we went to retrieve it. We heard strange noises along the path. And the letterbox was gone. This had CIA written all over it.
We decided to take the road back to the car, it was right there after all. This must have spooked the CIA, they had expected us to take the path back. They had come out of hiding to take the letterbox and its top secret codes just before we got there. They'd been sitting on it since last January, watching and documenting who came to it and what they did there. Trying to crack our master plan. Along the road we ran into a couple "bird watching." Yeah. Right. When they saw us coming they quickly removed binoculars and a camera from their packs and stood to one side of the road staring up at a tree. We knew they were not who they appeared to be, we wanted to mess with them. I walked up behind them and whispered, "What are we looking at?" They both jumped. But they were pretty quick, made up some story about a warbler up in the tree that was hiding behind the leaves. "Tricky little devils" one of them said. We moved on, chuckling to ourselves.
On the way out of the park we took the route that would lead us by them again. They were further apart now, the man waking back from where we'd been. Once again they scrambled to get camera and binoculars out. I snapped their picture as we drove by, my days are numbered. I plan on keeping my camera with me at all times to make it more difficult for them to confiscate it and delete the pictures. No doubt the "bird watching couple" are not sleeping too well these days, knowing I can blow their cover at any time.
So now, somewhere in a maximum security vault, our letterbox is sitting. The nation's top code breakers are working on it day and night. Analyzing the box, the stamp, the notebook and the messages left by others for us. They are probably pulling their hair out trying to crack our code. After all, two 30 year old women do not just walk into the woods in the dead of winter to leave a box under a rock for fun. Do they?
[Editor's Note: Be sure to go back and read Beth's hilarious post about planting their letterbox, and also the experience according to Lara]
Reader Comments (2)
It's a birthday cake stamp! What can that MEAN???
Maybe it means we're manufacturing yellow cake uranium! And the people who stamped our book are our buyers.