You toss and turn all night long in anticipation of the hunt tomorrow morning. You are on the computer late Friday night searching the Geocaching web site for new caches when one pops up. You print out the page and excitedly inform the wife that you have a chance to be the FTF (First To Find) and to be prepared to get up early in the morning.

You toss and turn all night long in anticipation of the hunt tomorrow morning. At 6 am the alarm goes off and you bound out of bed. Okay... you stumble out of bed. You're ready to go in 15 minutes, but the wife needs at least 45 minutes to get her makeup on. You try to shorten the process by telling her makeup isn't necessary since you are only going in the woods. Nothing doing. What if someone should see her? Finally, she's all made up and looking good, and you're standing by the front door on the porch waiting, but she's not coming your way. "What are you doing?" you ask. "I'm feeding the cats," she replies. So, you stand there, doing heavy sighs, shuffling from one foot to another, waiting. It's not like the cats will starve to death before you get back. Finally, she's done and off you go!

After about 5 miles down the road it finally gets a lock. You hand it to the wife and tell her to punch in the coordinates. "Where are they?" she asks. "Darn it!" You jump into the car and start down the road. "Darn it!" you say, as you look for someplace to turn around. "What is it?" she asks. "I forgot the GPSr," you mumble between curses. So, back to the house, run in and grab the GPS unit and back on the road. You turn on the GPSr and put it on the dash to get a signal. After about 5 miles down the road it finally gets a lock. You hand it to the wife and tell her to punch in the coordinates. "Where are they?" she asks. "Darn it!" You look for another turn around and race back to the house to get the cache page you printed off.

All is good now. You have the coordinates punched in and you are on your way, just an hour behind schedule! You intently follow the arrow on the GPSr watching its every move as it takes you closer to the cache. As you follow the arrow, it finally points straight ahead 0.2 miles. You are so close you can smell it now. One slight problem; it's pointing through someone's back yard. "This can't be right," your wife says. "Well, maybe there's a trail back there," you reply, "Go look." She's looking at you like you're crazy, but you finally convince her to go peek. Around the corner of the house she goes. A few seconds later, here she comes back at a dead run with a junkyard dog right on her heels. You shout encouragements to her (not like she needs any motivation) to go faster. She makes it safely back into the car and glares at you. "So there wasn't a trail back there?" you ask. More glaring. Okay. So, maybe this isn't the right way in. "Didn't you print a map on Mapquest?" she asks.There is probably a trail right through there," you say as you point at a faint game trail. "Of course," you reply. "Where is it?" she asks. "At home," you mumble.

After a little searching you finally get into the right area. As you start off into the woods with a beautiful river running beside you, she says, "This doesn't look like a trail. I think the trail is over there on the other side of the river," she says, pointing off to the left. You look at the GPSr and say, "No it's on this side. There is probably a trail right through there," you say as you point at a faint game trail. Off you go.

About a half a mile down the trail, the GPSr is definitely pointing to the other side of the river. You swallow your pride and tell her she was right, you're on the wrong side. So, she turns around and starts back. "Wait," you say, "We can find someplace to cross." After a little searching, you find a fallen log across the river. She is looking uncertain as to the wisdom of trying to walk across the log, but you assure her all is well, just follow you. As you are half way across, using your hiking staff as balance like a ropewalker, you turn to check on her progress. Oops!! Your hiking staff wipes her right off the log!...you are in the middle of eight-foot high blackberry bushes...

When you come out on the other side, you are in the middle of eight-foot high blackberry bushes, with about 100 feet to go to get out of them. You are brave and lead the way, pushing back the briars and unknowingly letting them snap back to hit the wife. As you emerge on the other side of the blackberry briars, she looks like she's been sorting male and female wildcats. Weak from the loss of blood and hypothermia, your wife follows you the last 100 feet to the cache.

You joyfully log the FTF and can't understand why your wife doesn't exactly share your enthusiasm?

This story is dedicated to all the wives and husbands out there that put up with their partner's insane addiction to this sport/hobby called Geocaching.