[Ghoulish Delight]

Aaaanyway.


So we haven't told the tale of how we fvcked up the very first step. But it wasn't our fault.

For those that didn't play the Enchanted Race part of the format was that we had 16 envelopes with about 30 random phrases printed on the front of each, the one in the bottom right corner having a filled in checkbox. As we solved puzzles, the answers to the puzzles would indicate which envelope to open next, the stack containing several decoy envelope that would result in penalties for opening the wrong one.

The very first clue for envelope opening we were given was a "souvenier", a large novelty map of Disneyland. By way of example, AVP held it up in front of the ballroom and said, "Okay, everybody, what does the map say on it?" Being a smartass, I was looking at the back of the package, where the grand canyon diorama was visiable, and while everyone else was dutifully reading "Disneyland Resort" off the front, I was saying, "Mule Deer!" Because it said "Mule Deer".

Well, we start flipping through our envelopes. None of the filled in boxes on the envelopes said "Disneyland Resort." But, oho, what's this? One says "Mule Deer!" Holy crap, my smarminess just paid off in SPADES! Those clever MA folk threw everyone off by drawing attention to the big old "Disneyland" on the front, meanwhile, the REAL clue was hidden in 9 pt. font on the back. Advantage Happy Haunts!

Tony happened to be right next to us and saw me looking at the quest from the Mule Deer envelope. "Why did you open that one?" I point at "mule deer". "Where does it say mule deer on the souvenier?" I point at "mule deer". "Uhhh, we have a problem."

Yup, we were wrong. Or rather, they overlooked the fact that the clue was not unique. Effing fantastic.

Fortunately, the envelope we incorrectly opened turned out to be the correct one for the very next clue, not a penalty-inducing decoy. So no harm done, save for quite a bit of lost time fumbling with the wrong envelope. That got us off on the wrong foot and we didn't recover until it was way too late.