We managed to escape from one of those escape rooms this past week. I use “we” rather loosely, as I didn’t actually accomplish anything. I didn’t find a single clue that led to opening a lock, a box, or a door. I basically stumbled around aimlessly looking at things on the wall, or in a desk. I am not a producing partner in the search for clues. Truthfully, I didn’t think I would be good at this game. I did not go in with any grand illusions of competency. In fact, past experience would force me to believe that I would be extraordinary only in my ineptitude at finding clues. See, twice in our married life, Travis has sent me on a scavenger hunt for a gift. I can’t remember the first one that well, only that he had to linger over me and basically break down each clue, which was followed by him telling me where the next clue was and how I should have figured it out. The second time was a Christmas gift. It went much like the first and ended with the angel on the top of our Christmas tree wearing a bracelet as a belt. Unless the last clue is, “The angel on the Christmas tree is wearing your bracelet as a belt,” there is no way on earth that I was ever going to figure that one out. There can be no subtlety. If the fate of the human race depended on me to figure out a vague clue, then humans would be gone.

This makes me wonder, how did I even weed my way through the obviously superior intellects in the world, and manage to be born in the first place. Shouldn’t Survival of the Fittest have eliminated the intellectually inferior, like me? The Weizeorick name was, in fact, on the brink of extinction, when my father – the last male carrier of the name – produced six sons and salvaged the name. Of course, those six sons have only produced seven male heirs, so we are hardly closing in on the Smiths. It seems like a version of the Law of Diminishing Returns. Perhaps we are descendants of the court jester. We were tolerated in exchange for some sort of entertainment value. I really shouldn’t lump my siblings in with me. Maybe there is a Watson among us. Maybe I alone am the mentally stunted.

Anyway, I have succeeded in surrounding myself with better sleuths than I will ever be, so that is why I have some modicum of success. I had the rest of the Core 6, and Alex (Taryn’s boyfriend) and Jason (Tessa’s boyfriend). I believe each and every one of them produced a key or solved a riddle. I was the only one that stumbled around, taking apart a piece of furniture that was put in there only to distract the lesser intellects and keep them out of the way, so the superior minds could work. It functioned perfectly in my case. I spent a significant amount of time there.

At the end of the night, we commenced to Steak and Shake to relish our victory and discuss the clues and solutions. I just basked in the company, happy to be a part of the group. As we left, it occurred to me that the outing would have never happened if I hadn’t planned and booked it. So, in the end, I found my function. I am the planner. There can be no success without an outing in the first place. I am content in my role. Time for the next adventure, whatever it may be.