…it’s a test of friendship, patience, respect, teamwork, deductive reasoning, problem solving, discernment, persuasive abilities, creativity, boldness, recklessness, and competitiveness. For 6 hours on Sunday, my friend and I were put to these tests and with the help of a team of loyal friends, a cousin, and a boyfriend, crashed through the finish line in third place.
We lost only to a team who had a car at their disposal and another team who was almost intolerably spirited.
The mission: To scour all 5 boroughs of New York searching for landmarks [Each borough contained 3] in front of which we were to pose for a photo.
The timeframe: Sunday, 5/22: 11:30am-6:30pm
The reward: bragging rights and $200 each. (For the record, when we first signed up, the prize was predicted to be $1,000…each!)
The result?
Well, Eunice and I met everyone at the assigned meeting location, Ozzie’s Coffeeshop in Park Slope, Brooklyn, at 11am. We were greeted w/ our first challenge, to pass M&M’s to each other via straws, using only our breaths as suction. Creative? yes! Easy? No! We were frustrated as we dropped a few, ran out of time just as we were getting into a rhythm, and had a fellow competitor watching us like a hawk the entire time! We passed a total of 4 M&M’s to each other in one minute…a decent performance. Following was a brief welcome, during which we learned that we (the Queens of the Concrete Jungle) would be competing against Men in Black III (3 black guys!), The Flying Pigs, I Love New Dorks, If Charlie Sheen were on our team, we would win (they were wearing “Charlie Sheen shirts!”), The Three Ninjas, & several others. Then, we received our packets (20 pages of clues and instructions) just in time to flip them over as the clock started at precisely 11:30am!
Our game plan went a little something like this: sit down and plan, plan, plan…Get addresses, train stops, transfers, and create a route that would efficiently move us through the 5 boroughs, landing us back in Brooklyn with 3 clues in each of the 5 boroughs completed! In addition, we had 2 large items and about 20 small items at our disposal to offer us more points.
Conflict: Inevitably, there were differing opinions as to how things should be tackled. One of us wanted to incorporate all of the small items (a picture with a kebab vendor, a picture in front of the Wall Street bull, a picture in front of the Staten Island hospital) worth 5 points each, while the other one of us wanted to focus on the big ticket items (a picture in front of the Beekman Theatre, the Chrysler Building, Cleopatra’s Needle), worth 15 points each with an added bonus of 20 points upon the completion of the 3 items per borough. Deciding which clues to tackle and in what order was incontrovertibly our chronic point of contention. Interestingly, however, there was never a question as to what order in which we should tackle the boroughs or the pace we wanted to keep.
The Pace:
Speaking of the “pace we wanted to keep,” it was pretty much “run!” We literally ran from the Brooklyn Museum to Prospect Park, then ran within Prospect Park to Lefferts Garden to take a picture in front of a house there. We ran into the subway stops, out of the subway stops, off the ferry, onto the ferry, inside parks…poor Eunice who hadn’t worked out in three years! The exhaustion began to set in around 4pm as we sat in my cousin’s car on the way to the Unisphere in Flushing Meadow Park. As we lifted our creaky bodies out of the car, we had to will ourselves to get our legs moving again so that we could break into a light job.
Moments:
With stakes high, outlandish tasks, clashing dispositions and time ticking, moments of pure comedy will remain fond memories of this day! Here are some hilarious slices of the day!
- I had just bought Eunice’s boyfriend a slice of pizza from one of our photo stops and he wanted at it right away…while he was driving. Normally, this would be perfectly normal behavior, but in such a high-pressure situation, the sight of him leisurely munching on pizza while navigating the car with one hand was clearly unbearable for his no-longer-so-sweet girlfriend! So finally, as he hungrily reached for the bag of garlic knots, she snatched them from his hands and bursted out “You can eat them later when we get out of the car!” He was shocked and hurt. I chuckled silently in the backseat!
- Eunice, who hadn’t run in three years, was an amazing sport and never once did I feel she was weighing us down. At one point, huffing and puffing, she called her boyfriend to request the help of him and his car. Her conversation sounded a little something like this: “Chris, puff, puff, can you, puff, puff, meet us in, wheeze, puff, puff, in Coney Island?! puff, puff, puff, puff. Her bag was bouncing off her body, her expression was one of pure strife, and her voice was one of a damsel in distress. I felt terrible but so entertained at the same time!
- One possible game-changing clue was one in which we had to create a “New York, New York” kick line with as many strangers as possible, collecting an enticing 2 points per person. Knowing that the Staten Island ferry was in our near future, I knew where we would get it done! With a captive audience, we began approaching people and collected three very eager guys, a group of very enthusiastic ladies, and a handful of other singles and pairs who got caught up in the shuffle. We began kicking and singing and snapping away! I believe we got credit for 20 people in our kickline. That was crazy!
- It was about 4pm by the time we reached Queens and jumped in my cousin’s car. We had completed 2 boroughs and wanted 3 more under our belt. 2 hours later and a lot of traffic later, we had to face the reality that we were not even going to complete even Queens. My cousin, shaking his head at our trials, wondered aloud why we didn’t just Photoshop ourselves into everything! It was a genius idea, but Eunice was immediately resistant. I was enticed, and in that final hour, I was willing to do it. It was a battle of the morals as we duked it out in the car, closing in on 30 minutes left. It’s interesting how things change when under pressure.
Finally, at 7:15pm, we were back at Headquarters, High Dive, a bar just down the street from the starting point. We offered up our photos for approval, defended some of our submissions, and sat down for the verdict. The winner (Charlie Sheen team) received just over 500 points, 2nd place (the Flying Pigs) came in with 421, and we (the Queens of the Concrete Jungle) placed third with 408 points. Our faces fell. I really thought that we were going to win. I had already told everyone that I was going to win. I was so optimistic. I was so sure. I was so….downtrodden. 
We said our goodbyes, interrogated the winners, thanked the organizers, and set out to find some COMFORT FOOD! Now I know why it’s called comfort food! Boy did I need it and boy did I take it! Pizza and chocolate cake while we debriefed on the day and found ourselves able to laugh at it was a perfect ending. I learned about New York, felt the love of my very helpful friends, and made memories with a good girlfriend. Who doesn’t love that? 
