The Hunter Games

You know it is not the most successful of your five consecutive Post Hunts when the highlight of the day is remaining upright during the event.

This is admittedly a vast improvement over last year, when I blew that opportunity before the activity even began. While I was rushing to meet with my team who had already arrived last year, I texted to let them know that I’d just gotten off the metro and would see them at the main stage shortly. While focused on my iPhone, I was not focused on the sidewalk and thus missed a few steps and landed in a heap on the pavement. Worse? This occurred in front of several hundred passersby — most of whom were also headed to the Post Hunt as was evidenced by the fact that they were wearing T-shirts emblazoned with computer coding jokes. (Perhaps I should not be so judgmental. Particularly because the people wearing "Bi(nary) Curious" t-shirts likely made it to the starting line without falling on their faces.)

I am one of a team of three that has been together for these past five Hunts. The other two-thirds of my team live together in D.C. proper (as they are married, they find this arrangement rather convenient). They share a love of wordplay, a ridiculous sense of humor and are totally the two you want in the poop-joke trenches with you. We trained separately by doing many puzzles and studying clues from prior Hunts. We trained together by evading the paparazzi in foreign countries, running races, and of course — beaning each other with pipe wrenches.

Even with all this training and four other Hunts behind us, we solved only about two of the puzzles this year, down from the four or five we usually get. After struggling for about two-and-a-half hours, we dejectedly quit before the end game was even announced — something we have never done before.

We nursed our wounds by sitting outside at Brasserie Beck for the next few hours, eating food and drinking some great Belgian beer in the glorious weather, while lamenting how the winning Post Hunt prize of $2,000 presented in a large, ceremonial check continued to remain elusive.

Well, until our server rather unceremoniously presented us with a check that rivaled the size of that one, anyway ...