For those who don’t know, GISHWHES is the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen with money going to the non-profit, Random Acts. My next project with them is Endure4Kindness, which I will post about separately.

In my opinion Gishwhes 2014 was a huge success. I had a great time! I had a great team. We got a lot done. I am definitely happy with my individual items. The ones I picked but then didn’t do were picked up and done so much better than I would have done them it makes me glad I gave up on those rather than doing something sucky.

When all was said and done, I completed ten items for a total of 396 points and a cost of $14.11, which is 61 points more and $14 less than last year’s hunt. Definitely a good thing.

I did video, which I hate, but I did it anyway. I did another Twitter. It seems as though I am the twitter expert despite not using it very much anymore. And now I have an alarm clock and I am Orlando Jones.

My teammates hailed from California, New Jersey, Georgia, New York, Utah, New Zealand, Israel, and Ireland. Of the six people I already knew, the newest friend I had known for five years and the oldest friend on the team I’ve known for thirty-three years give or take a couple (honestly, can’t remember if it was middle school or high school but either way a shit ton of years).

I made business sized cards for this year to explain Gishwhes but let’s be frank; there really is no explaining it. Maybe next year, I’ll have a better 30 second commercial and do a double sided card. Shrug. I have about a year to think about it.

The items I completed were

• to request a FOIA about my parents
• take video of myself in front of a local landmark (I used the state capitol)
• a photo montage of when I grow up, guest starring my daughter
• my photo with a black and white sign for the team
• an homage and tribute to the rubber glove inventor
• share a true act of kindness story done for me for the Random Acts website
• the species hybridization of Jared Mooselecki (of course! Who else?!)
• Jam Stand with the kids
• Cajole a published sci-fi author to write a 140 word story
• and the Orlando Jones Twitter.

I would really love it if the Jam Stand gets into the Coffee Table Book. I went to great lengths to kiss up to Misha in it, including making our Jam Stand a West Collins franchise complete with West’s picture and offering free popcorn with every plate of pasta and jam sauce. Of course the popcorn was the West Collins special variety made by Jet Puff! My kids, without any prompting from me, donned mustaches. They are definitely good sports. Last year, they worked for the post office. This year pasta and jam sauce. Who knows what Misha will ask of them next year?!

I’m still kind of in that Gishwhes frame of mind despite it ending more than a month ago. In fact, I’m about to make a sock monkey hat for almost no reason at all.

I’ve been reviewing items for the Coffee Table Book. So far, I’ve completed four, which is three more than I did last year. It’s so awesome to see how other people interpreted the prompts/items.

I’ve reviewed: Elopus vs. Wooster, Popcorn Monster, Five Headed Monster doing yard work, and Museum Quality Display of Dishware, which I have to say that some of them were truly museum quality.

However, Misha, I am not a Gisher and I am not sorry. I am a Gishwhesian and if that makes me an outlaw, I’m sure there’s a country song written about it. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but I came into this hunt a Gishwhesian and I will leave it the same way, wearing a magnificent costume in front of a landmark with a rainbow farting unicorn and my hand up an elopus puppet’s something or other.

Gishwhesian.

Gisher is just a fad anyway. It’ll be gone in less than a year. You mark my words.

It is impossible to calculate the amount of absonome that goes on during Gishwhes week. It’s like a giant family reunion when your family is half committed to an insane asylum and the other half should be. I signed up for a group doing a two week version of Gishwhes-lite, but I’m not motivated. It’s a great idea, but there’s something special about THE WEEK. The stress. The insomnia. The insanity. The together that we are all at the same time doing variations on the same things. It is unique and glorious and brilliant.

Not to mention that when Grandma is mud wrestling and Dad is wearing a French maid’s outfit, it is time to rethink your life choices.

For many of us, it is a time to step out of our comfort zones, think outside of the box we put ourselves into the rest of the year, even outside of the atmosphere of our planet Earth; one day perhaps outside of the solar system, but for now, if each year brings us a little further out, the better it is for the world and the people of that world.

Most importantly, there can never be too much kindness and compassion and Gishwhes and its parents, Misha and Random Acts remind us how little it takes out of our day to make someone else’s better.

With that in mind, it makes me a little sad but I would like to touch on my disappointment with some people; not anyone on my team or anyone I know directly. I’ve been in a couple of different groups where they talk about Gishwhes and help each other as much as is allowed. They’re good networking groups.

I did feel, however, that a lot of people have lost the true meaning of Gishwhes and it’s certainly not to meet Misha Collins (although that would be a bonus). I saw a lot of complaining, a lot of whining about not understanding an item when that item was mostly about interpretation. It’s less about the skill and more about artistic vision. I saw some shortcuts. For example, people used their bone marrow cards from prior to Gishwhes and other items that were already made when the purpose of that particular item is to get more people on the list. (ETA: After posting this, I received a message from someone whose team used existing bone marrow donor cards. Scroll down to the end to read their perspective. It was something that I hadn’t considered.)

Also, the point, as I understand it is to create new art, do good things. In fact, at the end of the hunt, the Gish FB posted, “We create, therefore, we live.”

Everyone should be enjoying themselves above everything else that they are doing and every team won’t get every item, and that’s okay. F-U-N.

I was also disappointed with how much ShatnerHate there was and that bothered me a lot. People found William Shatner to be annoying, brash, braggadocios and having the ego the size of Texas (or the Northwest Territories if you want to go with his Canadian roots).

And water is wet.

He’s fucking William Shatner!

You don’t have to like him. Don’t pay any attention to him if that’s the case. He’s 80 years old; he’s been a celebrity since the 1960s, before many of those naysayers were born. He’s not going to change now. Love him or hate him, but stop hating on him publicly in the name of Gishwhes. That is the complete opposite of what Gishwhes is all about.

Misha is the messenger; not the message. Take the week of Gishwhes and continue all year. Donate blood. Visit the elderly. Mud wrestle Grandma. Pack boxes of food at food pantries and churches. Shovel your neighbor’s snow. Pull weeds. You can even wear a sock monkey on your head. Or a real monkey (**remember, do no harm, including to primates**). Zookeepers are welcome to make the world a better place, too.

Until next year, restock the kale; gather the plaid and figure out what rhymes with squirrel.

P.S. I just ran this through spell check and apparently Wooster is in my dictionary. What the hell, Misha?!

(ETA: As a member a team that submitted existing donor cards, I wanted to let you know there was a very good reason at least in our case Our team is mostly older folks that have various health problems/disabilities that keep us from donating marrow & the ONLY people on our team that could already had cards, so rather than waste the registry’s time with applications that weren’t going anywhere we submitted the existing cards to show that we support the cause but couldn’t actively apply.)