my own worst enemy

The Great Easter Keg Hunt

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Yes, you read that correctly. An Easter Keg Hunt.

What's so amazing about this idea is not so much the pure genius of turning a childhood tradition into something adults would enjoy, but rather the fact that neither I nor my roommates (current or previous) thought of it first.

No, it was not our idea but that of the employees of that oft-visited seller of spirits, the Tavern on Main. Those sly purveyors of potent potables figured out a way to get Christians to come to a bar on the most holy of days -- by giving away free stuff.

Here's how it worked. Teams of two arrived at the Tavern at noon on Easter day. Sitting on the bar were two empty kegs; one gold, one silver, and both decorated like Easter eggs. The finders gold keg would be awarded a grand prize which included t-shirts, hats, shot glasses, pint glasses, two $50 gift certificates to the Tavern, and two tickets to an LA arena football game. The finders of the silver keg would be awarded with an unknown consolation prize.

While all the teams were held temporarily captive, two Tavern employees hid each keg in a public park somewhere in El Segundo. The picture below shows a map of our fair city and each dot represents a park or recreation facility. Finding these kegs would be no small task.

Six of us (roommates and friends) formed three teams which divided up the parks. Armed with bikes and cars, we quickly raced off to find the coveted quarry.

Imagine our surprise when, 25 minutes later, we had all searhed our respective parks to find nothing! These guys weren't kidding around when they hid these things. We quickly began backtracking, still trying to beat the dozen or so other teams that seemed to have caught up with us.

Over an hour into the hunt, we received a call from Matthias saying that found the silver keg! It wasn't much longer that the organizers of the hunt called to inform us that both kegs had been found. The grand prize winner? A guy on a scooter whose teammate had abandoned him at the starting gun. It turns out we walked past the winning keg several times but never saw it because we failed to look up (it was in a tree).

Matthias's team was awarded with t-shirts, hats, and two mini bottles of very cheap champagne. On top of that, Matthias achieved Tavern fame when, after finding the silver keg, ran it back through town to the Tavern on his shoulders.

Best of all, we all got happy hour prices for the rest of the day!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 19, 2006 at 7:49 AM. There are . If you want, you can leave your own response by clicking here. You may also send this post to a friend of yours via email, or bookmark it for yourself by using icons below;