Did you know you can catch cooties on the end of a pencil?.....or in your own pocket? How about the hood of your favorite hoody? My kids caught them from school...from a TEACHER, no less!!
Yep, it's true. Cooties have invaded the Miller house. Ok, let me explain before you all ban your kids from any contact with us. While checking out some boards about what to expect at a letterboxing meet which we attended October 28th in Corvallis, I ran across a whole thread of entries about cooties. Naturally, I read them all and was hooked.
Cooties, it turns out, are miniature letterboxes that are passed from one LBer to another by stealthily placing the package into the unsuspecting person's purse, pocket, hood, open backpack....etc. Some cooties are glued to a clip and simply clipped on somewhere not likely to be noticed right away. They come in all shapes and mostly mini sizes in a variety of clever containers. Some of the most ingenious ones I read about were hidden in a container shaped like a soda can and put in a cooler with other sodas, some were carved into the eraser of a pencil, some are disguised in film containers, and some were simply tossed into the back seat through an open car door while the cars owner was changing their shoes only to be found when the car returned home and was unloaded from the meet.
Well, armed with my new knowledge of this sneaky little assault I grabbed my partner in cootie-crime, Emily, and we immediately went to work. In no time at all Emily had carved an ant about 1/4 inch by 1/8 inch and we made a tiny little logbook (some cooties have logbooks and some don't) and we put the whole thing into an old bead container about 1 inch square that I had among my craft things. We called it "Ants in Your Pants" and plotted who we were going to give it to the next day at the meet.
We successfully handed off our own cootie and in the course of the day had collected, logged into and redispursed a few more. While at the meet, we ran into one of Eli's teachers, Ms. Yunkin, from Guy Lee whom we had NO idea was a letterboxer. We were delighted to find out that she knew of another teacher, Mrs. Aldridge, who was also an LBer!! Cool.
The kids went to school on Monday and found out that someone had cootied Mrs. Aldridge! When Mrs. Aldridge wondered aloud to Ms. Yunkin how she was going to get rid of the cootie, Ms. Yunkin gave us up as LBers and Emily was consequently cootied! Wow. Then, as if she hadn't caused any trouble at all herself, Ms. Yunkin cootied Brielle!!
So, there you have it people. If you are a letterboxer and we find you out you may just find a little prize waiting for you somewhere. If you aren't a letterboxer, what are you waiting for? Get in on this fun stuff, man. You are missing out! Call me. I will hook you up.
Mel
*who is determined to convert the entire world to letterboxing and who will worry about creating the resultant 12 step program later*
::spic, spark, singe...::
too...many...ideas.......brain....hurts.............
