It seemed like a good idea at the time… Having just binged the television show Supernatural during COVIDand finding out that Misha Collins, who plays Castiel, created a Guinness World Record Breaking Scavenger Hunt, my roommate and I decided to give it a shot. Greatest International Scavenger Hunt or GISH gives teams from across the globe a chance to make complete fools of themselves in toxic embarrassment. Tasks from creating a wedding dress made of plastic bags, to painting on bellies, to building candy firing contraptions, to doing sing-a-longs, to confronting your emotions, to political mockery, anything and everything is fair game. Unreasonable pain and suffering that has occurred for our team so far: making our teammate Jason become our “blushing bride” for our plastic bag wedding dress, complete with veil and bouquet; hot glue gun burns while Janelle was creating a miniature Burning Man out of matchsticks; Lance creating socks that can walk on Lego; April creating a beehive hairdo of cotton candy; Adam sitting still so Janelle could paint his face on his belly with makeup; and myself as team captain trying to rally the troops, who are located across Vancouver Island (11 of us) and the US (4), as well as digging deep and willing to be vulnerable revealing my physical and emotional scars for a couple of items. GISH is about giving back to those who need it. To join the hunt, the fee this year went towards feeding 1Million kids affected by COVID-related economic hardship. Some of the tasks involve charities or organizations such as the Be My Eyes app, Nothing But Nets, #GISH International Forest, VocalID, Every Last One and more. This hunt has us creating works of art out of recycled things, materials such as spices, coffee & tea, macaroni, household items; creating artistic and written works featuring our favorite Winchester brothers played by Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles; it has us solving puzzles that hurt our heads for days; is has us supporting the LGBT; and digging deep into political messages like spreading the word to go out vote! No matter how much you feel like a complete idiot looking totally weird, even if it’s in your own living room, you will be doing it with a giant grin on your face, because you can’t help it! Through our pain and suffering of having fun, we are helping others who may be suffering elsewhere in the world or in our own communities. If you see something weird going on in your community during the week of Aug 1-8^th, you’ll know, ahh it’s GISH week. Consider signing up on a team next year! Or simply support a team in your area with a hunt item they may need some help with.

This is the team captain of CrossroadOutlaws, wishing you a Happy GISH Week as my sanity slowly declines at 1:26am.