by Richard Timothy | Oct 27, 2011 | I Do Suggest, I Think There's a Point, Lightbulbs and Soapboxes, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
I hear people say all the time that lying is a bad thing. As a child I was taught that lying is wrong, not just wrong, but a sin. We even have laws that demand we not lie and if we are caught doing so we can go to jail, or get fined, or be subject to hours of community service, or all three. The thing is, when you get right down to it, there are plenty of lies that we don’t mind at all, and in some cases we enjoy them quite a lot. So for today’s Smirk, here are a few of those lies that I think we as people thoroughly enjoy.
Let’s start with the Tooth Fairy. Adults tell their kids that some mentally deranged tutu wearing waif with wings, who has an addiction to ivory in the shape of children’s teeth, breaks in to and enters their home while the family is sleeping, creeps into the child’s room and invades the kids personal space by reaching under the child’s pillow, while their sleeping head is on it!, to find a freshly removed tooth. The only thing the keeps her from being a prosecuted is the fact that, apart from being fictional, she leaves a little coin under your pillow in exchange for the tooth, instead of outright stealing it.
Still, when you hear this lie as a kid, you are elated that some fairy is going to be paying you a special visit during the night to pick up your discarded tooth and leave you some cash in its place. You know, if you stop and think about it, the Tooth Fairy is a lot like garbage man. However, in this day and age I think the PC job description would be a door-to-door ivory disposal engineer. The thing I loved about this lie was the reward I got for playing an active role in it. When I lost a tooth I always placed it under my pillow, looking forward to the monetary reward I would be getting for losing it in the first place. Although, now that I think about it, it does kind of teach kids that it’s alright to sell your body parts . . . the more I think about this lady the creepier she gets.
The cash I got from the Tooth Fairy did turn into a bit of a vicious cycle. I always used my Tooth Fairy money to buy more candy so I could lose more teeth to get more money to get more candy. The Tooth Fairy was one of my few money making venues as a kid. If I wanted candy my options for making money so I could get some was teeth (25 cents each), a lemonade stand (10 cents a glass), my weekly allowance (1 dollar), searching the couch for loose change (this varied anywhere from 1 cent to a record $1.87), and birthdays (I could always count on my grandparents giving me a 5 dollar bill each year. Due to these limited money making opportunities I once, and I’m not proud of this, took my little sister’s tooth from under her pillow while she slept and put it under my own pillow in hopes of cashing in on her lost tooth . . . it didn’t work, and I got grounded.
Next we have the over-sized, self-aware, ultra-soft, cuddly woodland creature that has a hide and seek fetish for baskets full of treats and dyed hard boiled eggs. Not to mention, thanks to Cadbury, it is believed that this bunny has the magical power to excrete chocolate eggs.
Side note: Thanks to the marketing campaign of Cadbury every Easter, I do always get a cheap laugh when I purchase my one Cadbury Creme Egg for the year and then, while eating it in front of my friends, mention once or twice, “I’ve really got to stop eating this crap.”
I loved this lie as a kid! The idea of a giant bunny sneaking into my house once a year to expel chocolate all over the place and then steal all the eggs we dyed the night before only to hide them throughout the house, was not only a vast source of youthful entertainment, but it was a wonderful exercise in imagination. It resulted in me asking questions such as, “If I was a bunny, where would I hide an Easter basket?” Plus, if you were like me and not that proficient at finding all of the stashes of chocolate droppings around the house there was always the chance of finding a lost stash of chocolate a few weeks after finishing the last bits of my Easter candy.
One lie that initially carried with it a great deal of disappointment was the lie about lying. No, not the “you should never lie” lie, but the one about the spontaneous combustion that occurs to one’s britches when a lie is told. Seriously, the first time I caught someone lying to me I was more disappointed that their pants did not burst into flames than I was about the fact that I caught them lying to me. This was a lie I did not appreciate as a kid, but as an adult who tells this lie to children, it is a true delight. The most rewarding part is watching them try to comprehend the cause and effect dynamic that they are pretty sure is flawed, but they don’t want to test it out, just in case their pants catch fire.
The list of acceptable lies goes on and on, Santa being one of the biggest, not just by body mass, but by the reaction people had on it once they found out . . . a Smirk I am saving for the holidays.
If you are still leery of this “liking lies” concept there is one lie we all love to be a part of. The “It’s not sour” lie associated for all things sour. We lie all the time about things not being sour when we know for a fact they are. The sole purpose for this is to get the person we are lying to, usually a child, to put something extremely sour in their mouth unbeknownst to them. Then we wait with high anticipation for the lie to pay off when the kid’s taste buds register they are eating something sour and their face uncontrollably distorts in to a wide array of visual hilarity. In short, we lie to people about sour food so they will eat it and make funny faces that make us laugh.
An entire room of adults will take an active role in this lie just so they can all laugh at the faces a five year old makes when they eat a lemon. If you get me anywhere near a baby and a kitchen at the same time, you can bet at some point I am going to be coaxing the little whippersnapper to sample a lemon wedge. And you know what? No one stops me. Know why? They, just like me, can’t wait to see and laugh at the infant’s reaction. The “sour lie” has been going on for generations, and I think as long as humans continue to have kids they are going to be lying to those kids about something tasting sour, all for the sake of laughing at their reaction to an unexpected flavor. It’s a lie that we all love to share.
So, what are some of your favorite happy lies?
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: lying, kids pulling teeth, Cadbury Creme Egg, pants on fire, and eating sour lemon.
© Richard Timothy 2011
by Richard Timothy | Oct 19, 2011 | I Think There's a Point, Observationally Speaking
I ended up working a little late yesterday and as a result the sun had already dropped behind the mountains by the time I started my commute home. It during that magical hour where half of the people on the road are turning on their head lights and the other half are debating with themselves if it is actually dark enough to turn on their lights or should they wait a little longer. This special hour is also the time where those who drive with sunglasses struggle with the decision to remove them for the rest of the drive home.
If you are one of those who usually drive with sunglasses on, like me, you understand that the commitment to keep them on until you roll into your garage is a very powerful urge. Ok, in truth I usually just forget until something in the back of my mind reminds me that it’s getting too dark to clearly see my surroundings.
I have the same problem when I working on my computer at home. No, I don’t work on my computer while wearing sunglasses, but what I have done on at least once a week is sit in my office typing away and then suddenly realize that I am struggling to see my surroundings. This usually equated to me having a hard time seeing the keys on the keyboard. I suddenly realize that I’ve been sitting in the dark for about an hour and get up and turn on the lights.
With my sunglasses there is a hint of narcissism attached to it, because sunglasses are just cool, and for some reason I have a tendency to believe that I am always going to look cooler wearing them as opposed to not wearing them. The only exception to this rule, those big silly gag sunglasses that people occasionally put on horses. No one was ever or will ever look cool in them. Not even Mr. Ed. So when driving in the dusk in to nighttime transitional hour, I’m usually on the closer to dark end of the spectrum when I finally take them off.
It was as I was driving home, and noticing that the person behind me had made all of the same turns I had made, that I starting thinking about how that dusk to nighttime hour can change a lot more than just my motivation to turn on my lights or remove my sunglasses. It’s the magic hour that turns normal strangers in their cars to crazy psychopaths that are obviously out to get me. Here’s what I mean …
Now depending on how close you live to work and how big the city is you live in, it can be common for the same vehicle to be behind you for miles. It takes me about thirty minutes to get home from work each day, and there have been days where I’ve had the same car following me for almost twenty minutes. When these situations happen I never give them a second thought, that is, until the sun goes down that is.
There is something about driving when its dark that invokes and entirely new, albeit skewed, perspective. Let’s say I leave the grocery store at 3PM and notice a car follows me out of the parking lot and stays behind me for eight blocks before turning down a side road into some cul-de-sac two blocks before I get to my house, I wouldn’t think anything about it.
Now take the exact same situation and move it ahead a few hours so it’s now 10PM and officially dark outside. All of a sudden instead of a possible neighbor following me home, I’m clearly being stalked by a serial killer and if they are still behind me after five blocks my only option for survival is evasive maneuvers that I learned watching the Dukes of Hazzard as a kid. A sharp left, accelerate, a hard right, another hard right, and then I race to the nearest roundabout so that I can coyly do an anything but stealth O-turn to make sure no one it following me. And if someone happens to get on the roundabout while I’m on in, I’ll sometimes do an extra lap just to make sure I have escaped this new maniacal culprit. I’m just glad there are no ditches close by, because nothing says evasive maneuvers quite like jumping a ditch. I’m not saying I would, I’m just saying the temptation would be great.
So … am I the only one that goes through this? Does today’s Smirk ring true for you as well? I hope so. It’s always reassuring to know that I’m not alone. Especially when some “crazy person” if following me home from the store after the sun goes down.
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: rear view mirror at night, horse wearing sunglasses, dukes of hazard jumping.
© Richard Timothy 2011
by Richard Timothy | Oct 5, 2011 | I Do Suggest, I Think There's a Point, My Cutie Baby Sweetie Pie, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
Today’s Smirk is brought to you thanks to my sweetie-baby-cutie-pie-wifey-pooh and her younger sister Rochie-butt. I’m not sure why by for some reason terms of endearment for my wife’s family always includes making sure the name of endearment ends with something related to or connected with the derriere region of the human physique.
So here’s what happened … Rochelle, aka Rochie-butt, was visiting for a few days. Now I don’t know about you, but when I get together with my family let’s just say there is an element of goofiness that comes out, gets passed around and is enjoyed by all. Angela’s family shares this same quality, and when she and Rochelle spent a little too much time together (usually twenty minutes or longer) their motivation to break into song, do silly walks or dances, make sound effect noises, or … well you get the point, these types of actions come to the forefront of their personalities.
When these two get in this type of mood two things happen, first, I openly and loudly exclaim how eerie it is at how similar those two are, and second, I attempt to join in starting off by using Star Wars sound effects or sharing my best “Hulk smash!” impression replacing Hulk’s name with someone else in the room. Hey, when a case of the giggles starts there are no dumb additions to keep the fit going. I won’t say that in looking back there has never been the need to offer a formal written apology to someone, but now that I’m out of my twenties, it rarely, and I mean rarely, happens.
So back to Angela and Rochelle, I hear them walk into the house and it is clear that the giggles have already started, I head down to help bring in some groceries and if at all possible get Angela to do her Chewbacca yell, which she will only do when she is in the type of mood. It’s not that her Chewbacca yell is all that authentic, but it always makes me laugh.
As all three of us are in the kitchen, maneuvering around each other, putting away the groceries and Rochelle manages to say something that inspires Angela to begin doing a little dance while singing out, “I’m Rochelle. I’m Rochelle.”
Rochelle makes it clear that she is about to hit the “no more giggles” wall. This is the point in a community shared bout of laughter that someone essentially sobers up in an instance and everything that was previously hysterical is now dumb and not funny in the least. It’s kind of like driving 80 on the freeway and then putting the car in reverse and stomping on the gas. This bipolar action from everything is funny to nothing is funny takes about .0025% of a second, confusing everyone in the room who is still enjoying the warm fuzzy feeling of group laughter.
Rochelle, still half laughing, warns Angela to “Quit it or I’ll get out my secret weapon!” as Angela continues with her song and dance number. Rochelle then hits the wall and the warning to “quit it” stops and her “secret weapon”, or implement of stopping the family insanity, comes out of her purse as she states, “Fine, you asked for it.”
In her hand is her smart phone and tapping away on her touch screen to pulling up its video record function. Once it is ready to go (this take about five seconds tops), her finger hovering over the record button, she gives her final warning, “Go ahead. Keep it up. I’ll put that shit on Facebook.”
Not only did Angela stop her Rochelle themed song and dance, but the same second Rochelle finished her final warning, Angela simultaneously jumped and hid behind me to hide from the camera. Then, peeking over my shoulder with the phone at the ready she squeaked a defeated, “No.” (As is no she would not be put on Facebook doing her musical Rochelle impression.)
I was amazed at how effective and efficient Rochelle’s threat was. I’ve never seen anything work quite that proficiently, and it got me thinking about the benefits of converting to a smart phone for crowd control purposes at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Note: It is important to point at that the power of this threat does not work on kids up to the age of 12 and adults who have had a few more than too many, apparently adolescents and inebriation both seem to carry with it the characteristic of lessened inhibitions when there is a camera present ready to record your every word and action. It’s as if one’s inner “Born to be a star” personality takes over and all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the show.
And, in the case with the drunken adult, it’s a pretty good way to encourage them to pay for all your drinks the next time you go out as payment for letting them delete the only existing copy of the video you made of them off your phone.
The laughter started again about twenty minutes later with no repeat threat of “putting that shit on Facebook” regardless the song and dance number either of them was doing. It didn’t matter though, the rest of the night I replayed the initial event over and over again, smirking every time I got to the point where the threat was made and my sweetie-baby-cutie-pie-wifey-pooh jumped behind me in an act of defeat before the record button could ever be pressed. Ah, the power of technology and its assistance in controlling the amount of goofiness one’s family is willing to dish out at any given time … just brilliant, and a Smirk, I feel, well worth the sharing.
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: sisters laughing, arrested development chicken, taking photo on phone, and drunk photo.
© Richard Timothy 2011
by Richard Timothy | Sep 27, 2011 | Fiction, Observationally Speaking, Redefined
With September almost at an end what better way to wrap up this month revisiting my Smirkfinition concept, focusing on words that I’ve a few words I’ve used in the Smirks I’ve posted this month. For those not familiar with the term Smirkfinition, well, there are many words out there that, when left to my own devices, create a fair amount of personal amusement. I’m visiting these words and giving them a new … nay a Smirk definition; hopefully you’ll find them as entertaining as I do.
Reverend
Reverend, pronounced rev-er-end, is the practice of revving your vehicles (car, truck, motorcycle, something with an engine) engine before turning it off. The counterpart to this work is revelry, which is revving your engine over and over again after first starting it up. Traditionally this only took place on cold mornings. In later years this practice has evolved into an action commonly performed by men when other men are around to show their dominance and fearlessness, unfortunately the female portion consider this obnoxious, rude, and how they gage the mental development of the man in the car. The more revs the lower their mental development.
Note: It should be noted that these men are always good for a free drink and probably have a container of chilled wine coolers already in their car, although it is not recommend that you get in the guy’s car to consume said wine cooler.
Wedding
The word wedding is a slang term for a specific time used by monks in the late 18th century. The first part of the word identifies the day, in this case Wednesday. The second portion of the word, ding, equates to the church bells, specifically then all the bells in the church would ring, which was traditionally at noon. So in short, wedding quite literally translates into “Wednesday at noon”.
Perform
Perform is what everyone who has ever acted in the musical Cats has accomplished. Simply put it is when a person it acting like a cat and while holding a feline pose they purr.
Note: Technically it should be “purform”, but due to a misprint that appeared on the Broadway poster for cats, which said, “The cast perform with grace and brilliance.” was originally said as, “The cast purform with grace and brilliance.” The writers inability or correctly translate can be blamed on the southern accent of the person who was quoted.
Bride
Bride is the activity the couple usually engages in on the wedding night.
Groom
Groom was originally the location where the bride was supposed to take place.
Honeymoon
Honeymoon is the act when your significant, commonly referred to as “your honey” engages in the comical debauchery of flashing you their unclothed buttocks. This comes from the verb moon, as in to moon someone, which holds no regulations towards who one is flashing their exposed gluteus maximus at. In the case of a honeymoon, the mooning action is reserved for the mooner’s “honey”.
Matrimony
Matrimony is a form of barter currency that originated during the Great Depression where mattresses were used as a form of cash. Later this term evolved with the times and is now used to describe the mattresses that people stuff full of cash.
Flying
Flying is the anti-potty mouth term used to emphasize the negative emotion people feel when they are lied to. The f constitutes the (according to Americans) the queen mother of all dirty words. The f dash, dash, dash word … as in f#%! If someone opposed to the specifics of profanity discovers someone is lying to them, apart from getting a wee bit annoyed, they may let the person know that they know the person is flying to them (aka f’ing lying). Other forms of this word include referring to the person telling the lie as a flyer (aka f’ing liar), or that someone is telling them a fly (aka f’ing lie). Apparently people opposed to profanity have no problem inferring profanity just as long as the specific words of profanity are not spoken.
And that brings this installment of my Smirkfinitions to a close. As you can see, when it comes to defining words in a completely inaccurate manner, I have a gift … or curse, depending on how you choose to look at it. I hope you enjoyed them.
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: Dictionary, church bells, and surprised bride.
© Richard Timothy 2011
by Richard Timothy | Sep 19, 2011 | I Do Suggest, I Think There's a Point, My List of Things that Don't Suck, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
Last weekend (not the past one, but the one before that) I had the honor of performing the wedding of my oldest brother. The wedding went off without a hitch … although if you think about it, isn’t the whole point of a marriage, to get hitched? With this wedding being the fourth wedding I have performed, I thought for this week’s Smirk I’d take a look as some of the things I’ve learned over the past few weddings.
When my first wedding came up, let’s just say that I was very happy I had been in a wedding prior to it or things may have turned out a little lacking in flow. When I showed up I was planning on simply walking the couple through the ceremony on how it was going to work and showing them the logistics for how a sand ceremony works. As it turned out, the couple wanted their parents and a child from a previous relationship added to the ceremony, so I knew I’d have a few people to direct.
It was when I arrived and walked into the space where the wedding was going to take place and the groom asked, “So what do we do?” that I realized they were going to need a little more direction than just were to stand and the queues they need to wait for before they performed their task in the ceremony… and some reason when you walk into a wedding rehearsal a day (or hours) before the official ceremony, and chaos of people find out you are “the reverend”, pretty much anything you say after that becomes the official law for how things are done for the wedding.
I got to put together the precession for who would be walking down the aisle and in what order. I got to choose the sides that the brides and groom’s family were to sit on, and had them practice the march a few times so that the timing and spacing would work out instead of having everyone shuffle in like a train trying for its quickest time for passenger arrival. The couple did have the wedding march songs picked out, which was helpful, but unfortunately they were not sure when they needed to play those songs.
Here are few things to keep in mind if you every find yourself choosing to become a reverend so you can perform a wedding for a friend or family member.
Just because you are a reverend does not mean that people get to confess things to you. For some reason when people hear you hold some sort of title that they associate a kind of authority you hear a fair share of stories from people you know (or don’t know) about things they did that you a) never ever wanted to know, or b) just don’t care about. You really can break someone off in the middle of their confession about accidentally killing their little sister’s pet hamster by putting it in that plastic running ball and letting it make a mad dash down the stairs. I mean you could, but I didn’t want to risk it and have them show up later with a therapy bill they expected me to pay for rejecting their confession half way through.- Know the preferred language of the couple getting married, the language of their beliefs I mean. If the couple does not believe in god(s) you really don’t want to use Heavenly Father, Shiva, Yahweh, Buddha, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Elohim, Zeus, The Holy Ghost, etc. to bless the couple. Likewise, if they do believe in a god(s) make sure you use the right one(s).
- Your power to bless the couple is endless. No really, it is. You can use anything and everything to bless them with. I’ve used sand, spices, energy, the sun, coconuts, the ocean, a stick. As long as the blessing holds a positive connotation to the couple and union taking place, it’s all good.
This brings me when overseeing a wedding ceremony always remember the Boy Scout motto and “be prepared!” This included being prepared for situations that are not your fault, but require you to be cover for someone. For example, at a wedding I did on a beach in Mexico, there was a part in the ceremony where the couple and attendees were to be given a glass of champagne for a toast near the end. The people in charge of getting the drinks out to everyone was a little lacking in their preparedness and when the time came to pass out the glasses, they had not even opened the bottles yet. Hence, I had to stall. This is where the ocean, and sun, and coconuts, and stick, and anything else lying around that I could see were used as objects of reflection and blessing toward the happy couple. And you know what? No one noticed.
Now that I’ve brought up the wedding in Mexico … sometimes you have to lie in order to make a wedding happen the way the couple wants it too. Meaning, I had not authority in Mexico to perform a wedding, but my friends wanted a ceremony on a white sand beach, they not only deserved a wedding on a white sand beach, they were going to get a wedding on a white sand beach. It was a beautiful amazing wedding where they wanted, how they wanted, and when it came time to filling out the paper work, turns out they “officially” (wink, wink) got married in my back yard in Utah, on the exact same day we were all in Mexico together. Thus is the magic of matrimony.- Never guess on titles, especially on how the bride is choosing her name. The last thing you want is to finish your ceremony by announcing the couple as Mr. and Mrs. James Brown (or whatever the groom’s name is) and have the bride, who as it turns out is a devout feminist set on equality, bring the entire ceremony to a screeching halt by saying, “Excuse me!?!!” while giving you the evil eye.
- When telling others about performing wedding, it is best to express that you are performing the ceremony and not marrying someone. The amount of confusion and odd looks you get from others is astounding. For example, telling someone “I am marrying my brother next weekend in Arizona.” brings up an entire set of different mental images about you and marriage laws in Arizona than if I were to say, “I am performing ceremony the wedding for my brother in Arizona next weekend.” The only real confusion that might occur in that second statement is that someone might think that both my brother and I perform weddings and that we was supposed to perform one in Arizona and can’t so I am covering for him.
- Do not abuse your power to control the actions of others during the ceremony, namely the kiss. The couple is waiting for you to give the green light to smooch town and surprisingly they will wait longer than you would expect to get the go ahead from the presiding reverend. Stay focused until they couple exits they ceremony area.
Oh yeah, your job is not done until the couple has signed the certificate. Say want about ceremonies and where they take place, in the US all of that is fluff, because you are not married according to the government, until you sign that piece of paper given to you by the state that you are married. Which also brings up and important point, if you get suckered in to performing a wedding for a coworker’s sibling of that you don’t know at all. Get wedding paper signed and get the hell out of there as soon as you can, because being the reverend at a wedding for people you don’t know really kind of sucks, and you don’t want to get stuck at a strangers wedding.
One last thing, creating a wedding ceremony for someone you know well and hold dear in your heart is truly one of the best experiences. The ceremony gets to come from you and is a gift you get to give to them. If you get the opportunity, take it, because when you love the people you are performing the ceremony for, it hold more meaning, emotion, appreciation and power than any ceremony some stranger or vague family acquaintance will ever be able to create and perform for the happy couple.
Also, if there is an ex involved and they contact your with suggestions, smile and nod. Say, “Thank you for that suggestion.” You can even take notes if you want. Just remember that when you get home, burn every note you took and reject every single suggestion they gave … even if it didn’t seem like that bad of an idea … because it was. The end. Don’t even try to second guess it. Just walk away and don’t look back.
Image Sources:
Google Images, keywords: wedding officiant, wedding procession, la la la I can’t hear you, be prepared, telling a fib, signing wedding certificate, and wedding group hug.
© Richard Timothy 2011
by Richard Timothy | Sep 8, 2011 | Gratefully Grateful, My Cutie Baby Sweetie Pie, Non-Fiction, Observationally Speaking
This weekend brings about a delightful, memorable, and highly anticipated addition to my life as Reverend Rich (click here in the event you missed my Smirk about being a reverend). I get to perform the wedding ceremony for my oldest brother this Saturday. In preparing for this ceremony, it did get me a bit nostalgic for my own wedding almost four years ago … this in turn got me thinking about two of my favorite people, who gave Angela and I one of the most memorable wedding gifts of all time … a treasure hunt in Italy.
For clarities sake we were already heading to Italy for the honeymoon, it’s not like they surprised us with tickets there or anything. We had visited Italy a few years back and had fallen in love with the place. As a result we planned a two week visit for our honeymoon. One week some place new (Tuscany), and a week in a place we had fallen in love with the first time we went (Cinque Terre). It was our love for Cinque Terre that motivated our friends, Mike and Kathy, to visit there when they planned their trip to Italy. They returned from their trip about a week or so before our wedding.
So when they showed up on “the big day” carrying a little paper-made treasure chest that placed on the gift table, curiosity ensued. As friends and family started to gather for the reception and Angela and I found ourselves with a few free moments, Mike and Kathy brought their gift to us, insisting we open it right away and reminding us the rest of the evening that we make sure we take the contents of the chest with us to Italy.
Inside the treasure chest was a booty (treasure for you non-pirate speakers) of plastic imitation bullion, and several pages folded together. It was the paper that we needed to make sure we took with us. As I unfolded the paper there before me was a treasure map! Drawn out on papyrus looking copy paper with candle singed edged to add to its authenticity. Along with the map was a collection of printed out visual identifiers to ensure we did not get lost following the map. Then they shared the following story.
While they were in Cinque Terre they got something for us, and then with camera in hand went on a little walk. Cinque Terre is a national park that included five small fishing villages. Between the last two towns Manarola and Riomaggiore is a famous walking trail called Via dell’Amore, or “Love’s Trail”, and it was along this trail that they decided to burry our treasure. They found a side trail that had a lot less traffic and hiked away from the flow of tourists toward an isolated picnic area. Once there they found a stick and as one played lookout, the other began to dig. Once the hole was big and deep enough they placed the in treasure and covered it with dirt. Then they placed a stone square slab over the top of it so no one could tell the ground underneath had been disturbed, and scratched an X into the slabs surface, adding some dirt and dry foliage as a finishing touch to detour any interest toward the slab.
Now when you are using sticks to dig holes in the countryside along the coast of Italy during the early part of September there is a certain physical alteration that occurs. Things like an excess of perspiration, which can alter ones hair from styled to frizzy and unkempt. Also, ones face can become flushed and changes its hue to bright red. All of these things happened to Mike and Kathy and as they walked down the side trail towards the main trail some tourists who had witnessed them head up the path noticed this change as well.
Seeing Mike and Kathy head up the trail and return ten/fifteen minutes later, all flustered, flushed, sweaty, and a little out of breath led the couple to believe that my friends had been up to something not at all related to burying hidden treasure. The man nudged the woman he was with, nodded toward Mike and Kathy, held up one hand, making the “okay” hand gesture, and then with the index finger of his other had proceeded to move it in and out of the “o” making the international hand sign for “getting it on”. The couple started laughing.
“All we could do was smile and wave, and walk hastily away,” Mike told us, adding, “I wouldn’t have minded if we had been doing what we were accused of. Still, I can see how they made the mistake.”
I took the map and stuck it in my pocket, and kept it with me the rest of the night and for the flight to Italy the next day. There was a buried treasure waiting for us in Italy, and I had no intention of letting that map out of my sight.
It wasn’t until our last week in Italy that we made it back to the beloved town of Manarola in Cinque Terre. Once we arrived and got settled it was too late to venture out treasure hunting. So the very next morning … we slept in, but after a late breakfast we filled my backpack with the necessities, two large bottles of water, one back of granola, one camera, one fully charged spare battery, out Guide to Italy book, and one treasure map.
Conveniently, Manarola was the starting point for the map. The first clue was the flight of stairs that we needed to ascend to get us on “Love’s Trail”.
Once on the path we followed it until we came to the next clue, a “Bar” pole along the path. (There was a little bar along the trail that allows hikers to get a drink, sit at a shaded table, look out over the ocean and enjoy the serenity of the place. This was also the place where the couple “caught” Mike and Kathy coming down the hidden treasure path.)
Just past the bar was the next clue, “Turn left off the Love’s Trail and ascend up toward the Green Point Pic-Nic Area.”
We followed this new side path until we can to the next clue on the map, “Stop at the first blue flag with yellow stars.”
Once there we followed the next instruction, “Turn left and head toward the first pic-nic area.”
There hidden in the back corner of this area was a stone square slab that had and X scratched into the top of it. So I grabbed a stick, picked up the slab, and began to dig.
An inch or so down I hit something that wasn’t dirt. It was the rustling sound of rocks on plastic.
I shook off all the dirt and debris and opened the decaying bag.
Eureka! We found the hidden treasure chest! Granted it was a Barbie doll sized treasure chest, but a treasure chest all the same.
Inside the chest was our booty of European bullion!, which translates into a bunch of one Euro coins and a note instructing us to continue to the end of “Love’s Trail” to a quaint little café with good wine and a beautiful view of the ocean.
We continued our walk to Riomaggiore under mountain side walkways,
next to rocky cliffs and serene blue waters,
and finally arriving at the establishment that our booty was intended for the Viz Della Amore.
Even though it had been about two weeks of amazing Italian wine, I had no intention on detouring from that splendor. Angela, however, does have a soft spot for margaritas and when she saw it available on the drink menu, she could not resist the allure of enjoying a margarita in Italy.
And thus our treasure hunting in Italy came to an end, filling us with love, joy, good food, great wine, one extra strong margarita and a toast to our dear, dear friends who took the time to bury a treasure in Italy and then they gave us the map to for our wedding.
Even though the box full of coins and the lunch they purchased are long gone, the true treasure was the experience that these friends gave us. Treasure hunting in Italy is always there with us whenever we think of Cinque Terre, any time we talk about visiting Italy again, and every time we thing of our amazing honeymoon starting our life together a husband and wife. So it is with this Smirk that I wanted to thank you, Mike and Kathy, for your gift and the lifelong treasure that it, and you, shall always be to us.
Image Sources: Photos from my honeymoon and …
Google Images, keywords: treasure map and doing it hand sign.
© Richard Timothy 2011
The cash I got from the Tooth Fairy did turn into a bit of a vicious cycle. I always used my Tooth Fairy money to buy more candy so I could lose more teeth to get more money to get more candy. The Tooth Fairy was one of my few money making venues as a kid. If I wanted candy my options for making money so I could get some was teeth (25 cents each), a lemonade stand (10 cents a glass), my weekly allowance (1 dollar), searching the couch for loose change (this varied anywhere from 1 cent to a record $1.87), and birthdays (I could always count on my grandparents giving me a 5 dollar bill each year. Due to these limited money making opportunities I once, and I’m not proud of this, took my little sister’s tooth from under her pillow while she slept and put it under my own pillow in hopes of cashing in on her lost tooth . . . it didn’t work, and I got grounded. 
