Escape Room

So we took the boys to an Escape Room for their birthday.  I thought it would be fun because I saw one on an episode of The Big Bang Theory.  The joke was that they were all PhD's so they finished in like 9 minutes and there was a zombie who said things like, "aaaarrrrrr.norefundsforfinishingearly.rrrrrr".  John wasn't too keen until he talked with his sister, Heather.  She and her family had gone a couple of times and had a blast.  Her kids were younger than ours so that boded well for us.  He finally gave in after I said, "C'mon, it'll be something different."

And it was.  It was a singular experience.  How many of you can say that you drove 45 minutes to give $120 to a stranger just to fight with your family? Anyone? I didn't think so.  Most of you probably do it for free in the privacy of your own home.  Not on video in a San Jose strip mall.

Now I know people have fun in Escape Rooms.  Heather and her family had fun.  The group that came out ahead of us had fun.  There were pictures on the walls of other groups having fun.  Look, that group finished in 32 minutes.  Look at their smiles.  Oh, they all have group names.  We need a group name.  We chose 'The Four Moore's of the Apocalypse'.
Me, 'I want to be Pestilence.'
Tom, "There isn't Pestilence.
Me, 'Yes, there is.'
Tom,"No, he was replace with Conquest.'
Me, "What? No, he wasn't. When?"
Look at that, we're already having fun.
And we couldn't have picked a better name because once we broke the seal and entered the Escape Room, Hell followeth close behind.

If you are unfamiliar with an Escape Room, here's a quick and dirty explanation. (or you could watch BBT season 8, episode 16)  You are 'locked' in a room and have to figure out puzzles to work your way out.  The first puzzle leads to the second which leads to the third and so on. Our Escape Room's theme was an archeological tomb with ancient spells and symbols.  We were given a walkie talkie in case we ran into trouble and needed hints.  The clock was set for one hour but if the hour ran out and you were close to finishing, you were given extra time. That was their way of being nice but really it wasn't.

Now back to that group that finished in 32 minutes.  That is utter bullshit.  We spent that much time trying to solve the very first puzzle. Seriously.  There were four boxes, one on each wall, each with a puzzle containing five letters. One of each letter would combine to spell out a four letter word. The letters of that word were to be lined up on a alphabetical lock to open a chest that provided the next clue.  After 30 minutes, Rachel's/Megan's/whatever voice came over the walkie talkie, "Do you need some help?" "YES".  Her clue wasn't very helpful because Sam had gotten us that far already. He was the only one of us to make any headway.  Maybe that kid will get into college after all.

John and I spent quite a bit of time arguing over whether or not we should be going clockwise around the room.
Me, "We have to go clockwise."
John, "Why?"
Me, "Because who would go COUNTER-CLOCKWISE?!"
Honestly, how can you argue with logic like that?

At another point since we were given the letters available on each clue, John thought we should compare those letter to the letters available on the lock. Tom had the dry erase board.
Tom, "Okay, read off the letters that aren't on the lock."
John, "How can I read off the letters THAT AREN'T THERE!?!?"

We were fairly certain that the first letter was 'P' so we ending up trying every combination of P words. We'll just throw words at it until one works. This was our key strategy throughout the rest of the game.  It was a war of attrition. It was good enough for D-Day, it was good enough for us.

I would put our all-time low point at puzzle 4 or maybe it was 5; it's all kind of fuzzy. This one required us to go back to the first room and the four puzzles that were on each of the four walls.  One person had to stand directly in front of each puzzle, activating a light, allowing each person to read the puzzle at the back of the box. If one person moved away, all four lights went off and no one could see anything.  Tom read his clue, was convinced he knew the answer, and ran out of the room.  All four lights went off. <goddamnit> All, "Come back!" Tom having failed to solve the puzzle with only his clue, came back and stood in front of his wall. This allowed Sam to read his clue. Tom again convinced he knew the answer and ran out of the room and all four lights went off. <goddamnmotherfucker> "COME BACK" This happened many many times. Tom will be the first person killed during the zombie apocalypse. Most likely by his fellow survivors.

My personal low point was in room 3.  This room had two pillars, each with a hole in the front covered with a rubber gasket, like a garbage disposal.  Obviously two people were going to have to stick their hands into the holes.  Nope, I'm out.  There's no way in hell I'm sticking my hand in one of those holes.  I don't know what's in there.  I don't know how many people have been through this room. I don't know their personal hygiene standards.  Happy Birthday, it's a staph infection. That door ain't really locked, let's leave.

This room also had a mural painted on one way that "explained" how to solve the final puzzle.  I put the word in quotation marks because that mural may have been quite pretty but it didn't explain shit.  By the time we had reached the last puzzle, our time had run out. Since no one was scheduled after us  Alyssa/Kylie/whatever came over the walkie-talkie and said we could have a few more minutes.  We tried to graciously refuse.  "oh, thank you but that's okay." "No, you're almost there, keep it up!!" "thanks, Krsahmumble mumble mumble."

As we stood there trying to figure out the last puzzle, a guy came in and began resetting all the puzzles for the next group.  "Oh, we should leave." "No, no. That's okay." Great, back to the last puzzle. It involved these three rotating rings that needed to be lined up in a particular order to reveal a four digit code.  We had figured that much out. The guy came over and asked if we needed help. We, again, offered to leave but he said to take our time.  "oh, thank you, again." After a few more minutes he walked us over the the "explanatory" mural and talked us through it. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. "Really, we can go if you need to clean this place up." "oh, no, no, it's not problem." "fantastic"  Back to the wheel.  He joined us shortly because we were still getting no where. He lined up the symbols, used the mural to move the different rings and ta-da, the first number.
Huh?
Guy, "See, it's joined here at the moons so imagine that you split the symbols at the moon and mentally move them up and join them at the suns and now the greenish smears look like a number!"
Us, "uuhhh"
Guy, "Do you see it?"
Us, "uuuhh"
Guy, "See here, this part looks like the top of a...?"
John, "Eight?"
Guy, "Well no, see this part here..."
Tom, "A seven?"
Guy, "YES! YOU GOT IT!"
Me, "Well, I wouldn't go that far."
He walked us slowly through the second clue, with teeny tiny baby steps and I still had no idea what he was talking about.  But, whatever, we had the first two numbers. There weren't that many possible combinations left so we launched another full frontal assault and escaped to the glories of the waiting area and our group photo.  Left to our own devices, we would still be in that last room, deciding who we should eat first.

Instead we found ourselves, backed up against the victory wall, holding our placard emblazoned with our team name and score time.
Four Moore's of the Apocalypse
68 Minutes (yeah, right)
Becca/Brittney/damn,what was her name? said, "Smile"
We didn't say "fuck off", so well done, us.
Then we left.

The car ride home was silent.  When we got home, we all went in separate rooms and closed the doors.  Did we bond as a family? Well, let me put it this way. If only three of us had walked out of that room and Missy had asked, "Weren't there four of you?" The remaining would have insisted there were only three. If you can't trust your family to help you hide a body, who can you trust?

Look, they had fun!

Monopolies are Bad

I know this. I've taken the classes. I've read the books. I've played the game.  Everyone knows that monopolies are bad. Yet the one monopoly that I would like to see formed in the next four years is with those stupid debit/credit machines at checkout counters. I don't know what they're called. Please, Allah (or whoever is in charge today) let one of Trump's RobberBarons cabinet picks own one of those companies.

Why? Because those machines are all different. Every store has a different machine, with different questions, in  a different order. And, god forbid, you mess up and they have to reboot the transaction after reconnecting to the mothership or whatever the fuck they have to do. I've seriously considered sending myself to the back of the line when that happens because, seriously, all I had to do was read the questions. But I don't want to read your stupid questions that are written in a slightly different way from the questions at the store next door just to make sure that I'm paying attention because I'm not. And I'll tell you that right up front. I am not. paying. attention. I am here to get my cough medicine and ignore every form of intelligence, artificial or otherwise. Unless it's a dog. I have plenty of time to pet the dog. I'd almost rather go back to writing checks and making small talk with the cashier. It's a tough call.

They can't even make the answer colors the same. Why do the colors have to be different?  At this point in my life the only thing I know for sure is that red means 'stop' and green means 'go'.  Whole Foods has orange. Orange? Am I supposed to 'yield'?  One store had blue. Blue?!? I don't remember which store but BLUE? I actually said, out loud, "Blue? What the fuck is blue?" The cashier grunted.  Grunted.  I'm getting snarky with a machine and the cashier is giving me the vocal equivalent of filing her nails.  Can we just get one machine?

Although, I will admit, I do like the added security of the card chip.  I do feel much safer since that was rolled out.  No self-respecing thief would spend an extra 9 minutes standing in front of the eye-in-the-sky waiting for that transaction to go through.

Oh, you know what I learned this morning waiting to buy my cough medicine? Listening to the couple ahead of me spell out their email address 4 times? And repeat the spelling of their last name 3 times? If you just keep hacking and hacking throughout their entire transaction, the cashier won't bother asking you a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g She'll hit a few button on her register and toss the Robitussin towards the exit.

2 down, 1459 to go

Wow, that sounds like a long time. Okay, how can we make this better......it's only 35,016 hours. That sounds more reasonable, especially if you consider the average person spends 219,152 hours sleeping.  So....in theory we can sleep through his entire term.
Who's with me?!

Set your alarm for 2020!

Friday the 13th

Everyone knows that Friday the 13th is an unlucky day but no one warns you about Thursday the 12th.  Thursday the 12th is just as much, if not even more, unlucky then the Friday the 13th.  It's the day that you need to go to JoAnn's because you just found out about The Pink Pussy Hat project. If you don't know what The Pink Pussy Hat Project is, well, let me tell you.  It's a play on the pussy cat hat. People are making them to wear during the Million Mom March that takes place the day after the Inauguration. You can google all of this.  Anyway, I know someone who's going to the march so I want to make  hats for her and her friends to wear and/or give to others.  What does all of this mean? It means I need pink yarn and I need it now.  I only have a week to knit as many hats as possible so times a wastin'.

On the morning of Thursday the 12th, I went to the gym and then rushed to JoAnn's to get yarn.  When I got there, I had to pee really bad so I rushed to the bathroom at the back of the store.  It was then that, in some cosmic twist of luck, as I turned to flush the toilet, my key fob fell out of my pocket and into the toilet.
 <SPLOOSH>
<fuuuuuucccckkkkkkk>

And there I stood, staring at my key fob sitting at the bottom of a bowl of urine. Well, there's no other way around this, looks like it's time to get a new car.

John, "What did you do?"
Me, "I fished it out."
John, "With you hand?"
Me, "Yes, with my hand, how else? Then I rinsed it off in the sink"
John, "You rinsed it off?!?!"
Me, "In case it hadn't been submerged in enough water, I thought a little more should do the trick."
John, "Those things are electronic!"
Me, "I KNOW IT'S ELECTRONIC. IT WAS ALSO COATED IN URINE!!"

I didn't use soap though, because although soap seemed like a good idea, soap just didn't seem like a good idea. If you follow me. I dried it off thoroughly, at least the outside. The inside was the real concern but how, oh how, can you dry the inside of a key fob?  I know, I'll pop out the faux-key and shake out whatever liquid I can over top of my shoes.  What's a little more urine among friends? Then I got my yarn.  Sure, I could have gone straight out to the parking lot to see if the key still worked but I didn't. I got my yarn thinking it will either work or not, 10 more minutes wouldn't change that. And if it doesn't work, I'll call John and then go next door to Sprouts and buy a bag of rice.  That's what do you with wet electronics, right? Put them in a bag of rice?

The key worked. Hurrah. I got home and went straight to the pantry just to discover that we didn't have any rice.  No rice...rice, rice, rice......how about oatmeal? That's kinda the same thing. So I put my urine marinated key fob in a bag of oatmeal and sat down to knit.

Now every time I approach the car, part of me expects the fob to crap out. And my fingers are aching from all the furious knitting. And, really, if you think about it, this is all Trump's fault. God, I hate that ass.

Let me know if you want a Pink Pussy Hat.  I thought they were weird looking but after the fourth one, they start to grow on you....

That's My Boy

The other day, in a post Christmas attempt to get something new to work, Sam was at the kitchen counter.  I'm not sure what he was fiddling with; I was at the table eating and reading a book. John walked by and asked if he could help.

John, "Where are the instructions?"
Sam, "I don't know."
John, "You didn't read the instructions?"
Sam, "I'm a Dawson."
John, <looking over at me> "What does that mean?"
Me, <still reading and through a mouthful of bagel>" Instructions are for pussies."
Sam, "That."

I think that's what you call irony...

I got a Thundershirt for Alice, the nervous white dog, but the velcro scares the shit out of her.

Me, "come over here, this will make you feel nice and snug and safe and..."
<rrrrrriiiippppp>
Alice, "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" and runs away with her tail between her legs.