this is actually pretty caught up in the logging process for me, because after i find each cache i write a real log about each one, usually with photographs and it takes me a while.
sometimes i get all distracted and have to spend a week or two researching stuff i saw on my way to a cache, and that all takes more time than texting in "TFTC" from my phone.
not that i would ever do such a thing, but people do.
if there's a problem with the cache or if i have an especially outstading experience i will send the cache owner an email right away, but often i am eight or nine months behind in telling the story.
sometimes in that interval a cache i have found (or not found) becomes inactive and is archived, so when i finally get around to writing my backdated log, i am logging a cache that is no longer there.
usually this isn't a problem.
recently i got this email (stripped of its identifying marks):
stop goning [sic] to my archived caches and saying you were there and cheating. bad on you. It is only a game.
ok, so this cache owner either does not read the cache logs, or else just comes out swinging.
here is my full response (identifiers redacted):
you may feel free to check the logbooks for my signature. you do that, don't you?
plus i have photos.
i am very sorry it upsets you to have me log caches some months after i have found them, but the fact is that i found them. i am simply logging them the way i found them and telling the story. sometimes it takes me a while. i am currently halfway caught up to logging the caches i found on [date], which is a day i happen to have had to make a return visit to one of your caches in order to return the bag of [descriptor] toys i accidentally took with me when i was there on [date].
quite frankly, i would have expected better of you just based on your cache hides and the people who like you.
and yes, i do intend to log both my finds and my not-founds on the caches i visited while i was staying in [town] last may. some of those caches are yours.
i am hoping to finish logging last may's cache visits (some found and some not found) in the next couple of weeks before i come back out to the finger lakes in october.
perhaps you would like to meet for lunch or something?
you can read the logs from the may trip yourself. granted, such a thing could be faked, i guess, if you had enough time and energy and it was that important to you. i think the record as a whole stands up pretty well as a plausible account of how i spent a couple of weeks on the road.
it also wouldn't have been terribly hard for this person to simply check the logbooks for my signature.
it would not have been out of line for this person to have noticed my backdated found logs and thought: i wonder what's up with that? and then gone and checked either the online logs or the signatures in the physical log to see if i was legit.
which brings me back to this person's email to me.
stop being so suspicious and calling people cheaters without checking any facts. bad on you. it's only a game.
No comments:
Post a Comment