PLANNED TO THE SILLIEST DETAIL

BY AMADO SLEIMAN
Special to the Pioneer Press

I admit it. For the last two weeks, I have had a problem. Isn't that the first step toward recovery? My friends Heather, Jason, Brian, Chris and I got caught up in the search for a little blue disk known as the Pioneer Press Treasure Hunt medallion.

It's the kind of illness that consumed every waking hour of my day. Every song I heard, every street I drove past, and everything I read suddenly was turned into an anagram or a hidden meaning of some sort. I couldn't help it.

For those who aren't familiar, here is a little background as to what we have been doing for the past 12 days. Each day, a clue is published in the Pioneer Press. Medallion hunters don't like to wait for the paper to arrive on their doorstep in the morning, so they often wait at the Pioneer Press the night before, until the paper is released about 11 p.m. These people then call their friends, and someone from the bunch posts it on the Internet for hundreds of anxious viewers.

Ah, the Internet. Upward of 16,000 postings have appeared on the main medallion hunt message board — yes, there are multiple boards, too. As a group, I would estimate that the five of us read about 80 percent of them. About 99 percent of the postings are useless — but sometimes that little piece of information you need shows up. This is what we spent many work hours — and many of our evenings — doing until clue time.

Then we bundled up, grabbed shovels, hockey sticks, flashlights and many maps and started searching. At the beginning of the hunt, we were usually home shortly after midnight, but as the hunt went on, a 2:30 a.m. return made for a tough morning the next day at work. We got up early on weekends because daylight was our friend.

The clues were brutal. Every clue seemed to fit every park, if we thought about it enough. Which we did — plenty. We practically had the clues memorized and, of course, now they make perfect sense.

PLANNED TO THE SILLIEST DETAIL

Fast forward to Tuesday night. By the 11th (of 12 clues), people were still unsure of even which park the medallion was in. A rare event, possibly in retaliation against the hunters who had claimed that the past couple of years were too easy? The masses were fairly convinced it was at Harriet Island, but everyone still had doubts. That night, the clue gave us the info we needed — it was at Como Park.

After that, a few hundred vehicles — filled with hunters in complete shock — suddenly left their downtown post and headed straight for Como. By 1 a.m., more than 1,000 people with flashlights in the park produced an amazing site. By the next morning, the medallion still had not been found, even though many hunters had spent the night searching.

Then, the final clue. Recent history led us to believe that the clue writers would provide the exact location, so we set up a plan. Chris and I left work at noon to try to quickly learn the layout at Como — the park had been trampled in the 12 hours since the "dead giveaway" clue was released.

The park manual we use as a reference easily fits most of the St. Paul parks onto a single page with plenty of room to spare. But Como takes up eight full pages in the manual, making it a hunter's nightmare. Every inch of it was now under attack by the craziest of the crazy. The hunt was almost canceled because of the destruction caused by many stupid individuals: A word to the wise, don't pet the frog in Frog Pond at Como Park.

This was our chance. Throughout the hunt, we considered our theories to be quite accurate and innovative, but the fact of the matter was that a one-night race to a well-laid-out spot was going to be our best shot at ever finding this medallion. We strategically placed Jason, Heather, Brian and Chris at various points throughout the park with contingency plans for how to get out of there quickly if, for some reason, the clue led us to another park.

The logistics were planned down to the silliest of details — I already mentioned that I had a problem, didn't I? I went to the Pioneer Press at 6:30 p.m. to wait in line — I was third in line. It was freezing, but a great experience nonetheless. While waiting, I was once again told that I look like the actor Ray Romano — but only with my hat on, so the others made me keep it on. Others also were quite jealous that my four teammates stopped by to bring hot chocolate, candy and a much-needed 10-minute warm-up break.

IN A FOREST WITH 2,000 OTHER PEOPLE

I passed most of the first four hours telling those around me why the medallion could not be at Como and suggesting other parks where my friends were "actually" waiting. I also kept entertained by making sure people didn't cut in line, and I took every opportunity to yell at them. When you sit there for five hours, it's pretty hard not to notice when there is suddenly someone new standing between "chair guy" and "chatty double-parker." Then the media hit.

Being at the front of the line brought many a news reporter — and multiple interviews with a documentary crew about the hunt they have been filming for about three years. The line stretched around the front of the building, around the side of the building and around the back of the building. These were just the people in charge of getting the clue. You can imagine how many were in the park.

Just before 11:30 p.m., we saw the newspapers get carted out. It was time. I'd imagine that the other smart individuals were rapidly warming up their fingers and their jaws, because I'm sure nobody else was in any condition to speak clearly or dial quickly by this point of the frozen evening either.

The doors opened, and mayhem ensued. We grabbed our papers and ran out the door to make the call. It was mostly a blur, but I remember the person in front of me almost getting his paper ripped out of his hands. I also remember someone offering me $10 for mine. I was too focused to even look up. I read the first few lines and realized the medallion was within seconds of where we had placed Jason, and Brian was close by, also!

After mistakenly calling Brian first and hanging up on him, I got Jason on the phone and told him to run to the spot where he and I had been the night before. I read the clue to him as my fingers and mouth started to freeze. Somehow, I ended up behind a building downtown. I don't know where, or how I got there.

It was crazy on the other end, too. Brian's phone was the first to ring in his area, and that drew everyone to him. Two people in the area with leaf blowers made phone conversations difficult. Jason and Brian were among the first to arrive at the medallion site. Minutes later, as I was being interviewed on camera for the documentary, my phone rang. Unfortunately, it was a false alarm.

By now, Chris and Heather had run from their locations to join the hunt, and I was driving in from downtown. When I arrived, it was a sight to see! The wooded area was lit up from blocks away. As I type this, I realize that the feelings and adrenaline that made this such a fun night are not adequately coming across. It's hard to explain what it feels like to be in a forest at midnight on a Wednesday, with an estimated 2,000 other people, knowing that you could be standing inches away from $10,000.

We searched and re-searched the area for another 30 minutes before we got word that the prize had been claimed. Disappointment and relief both hit. I was actually sick of the ring of my cell phone, and I wanted to destroy the thing by the end of the night. I don't know how many times we all called each other this week, but each time we had to take off our gloves and dig into our clothing to pull the phones out in time.

After that, Brian and I walked over about 30 yards. There we saw the one thing we had been looking for: the bike hills! We couldn't find them going north from the starting point, and that threw us off target. Part of me wants to go back and see if the clue was incorrect in saying to go north, or if we were just stupid to have not brought a compass with us. But that would have been a moot point, had Jason and I just walked a little farther the previous night. You see, there are two paths leading into this wooded area. The one we took had no bike hills. The point where the two paths met was where we stopped walking the previous night. If we had known those hills were there, we would been among the first on the scene.

As a side note, the guy two spots behind me in line was the person who actually found the medallion. "Secret Cell-phone Dude" spent almost the entire five hours ducking out of line and whispering into his phone. I should've known he was up to something.

Regardless, when reading stories about the evening gives you chills, you know you had a good time.

Like I said, I have a problem.