Quicksand Part 1

The secret to quicksand is a flow of water that comes from the bottom. Well, there's another option: if a sand-water mix is shaken just so, like in an earthquake, it'll spontaneously devolve into that liquid-solid trap so frequently featured in movies and adventure stories. But that, the shaking option, wasn't feasible. The best way, clearly , is water flowing from underneath.

It was my first Scav, and we had to present to the judges working quicksand. My official position had been "Thursday Czar", meaning that I was in charge of the various events that need to happen on the first day of the Hunt. In my case, it meant organizing a hot dog stand complete with a grill, an electric hot dog maker (think toaster with round slots - it was mostly for decoration), and Mia, a fellow team member, dressed in a hot dog costume in the middle of the Quads.

Although the road trip - that year it was going out to Princeton and doing all sorts of Ivy-league themed items - also left on Thursday, I had minimal responsibilities for that. In any case, they were gone by 10 a.m., so I focused all my attention on the hot dog stand. We were supposed to give away 100 hot dogs over the course of two hours each on Thursday and Friday. The thing to keep in mind is there were going to be 5 or 6 teams, each selling hot dogs. So even if demand was high, there was no guarantee our hot dogs would go fast. In the end, though, we "sold" all 100 on Thursday.

I was Thursday Czar because I had to leave on Friday to fly back to Massachusetts in order to run to be a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Boston. I had signed up for it before I knew when Scav was. I had worked for Kerry the summer before, in New Hampshire, and I was going to work for him again the next summer in DC, so I was pretty tied to the campaign. Still, I'm not sure if, had I known the two things would conflict, I might have chosen Scav over the DNC.