House Sitting

Maybe don't ask me to house sit for you.

My coworker Molly just went on vacation. She left me her house key so I could check on her cat. As soon as she put the key in my hand I started wondering what I was going to do to mess with her. I checked on her cat briefly, checking the food and water levels, then forgot I was trying to plan a prank. Today I got a text asking for the first clue, since I'd told her what I'd be doing was a scavenger hunt.

I swore, and said she'd have to wait for it. I headed to her place and went in to keep the cat company while I plotted. I also cleaned up a pile of cat puke, because I'm a good friend. I started by drawing a mermaid (Molly is crazy in love with mermaids, and I figure if I'm about to fuck with someone who just turned 21 and is getting home from Vegas I may as well make it worth her while with a doodle).

 I then tore the doodle neatly into three pieces, grabbed my sketchbook and locked up. I went through the hunt backwards, storing her key on her patio, in the drawer of her outdoor coffee table. Then I saw a likely tree and left the head of the mermaid with a clue tucked under a rusty nail bent into the trees bark.

 I counted out the steps from the tree to the parking lot when I stowed her midriff with a step count of 43 paces scrawled on it, then told her to look under a rock where the cars were looking for the first real clue.

Then I took a picture of her front step on snapchat telling her to start there, and placing the mermaid's tail under the doormat.

I figured, easy, it was a half-assed prank, but it'll take maybe five minutes. So I get her text around 8 that she had started looking. She texts me five minutes later asking if the cock was in her parking lot. I laughed, and texted back making fun of what I assumed was a typo. She then sends me this

and asks if that doesn't say "cock." I grouch at her that I was in a hurry, and that it says rock, but apparently she'd been hunting for phallic shaped trees for a while. So I think, okay, longer than I thought, but not ridiculous. But then after a while I get another text saying that 43 paces put her in sticker bushes. Was she meant to be in sticker bushes? I was starting to feel like a monster. No, I sent back, she picked the wrong direction to walk in. I looked at the clock and realized she'd  been on my stupid hunt for half an hour. I asked if she wanted to call it quits and she said no, just a hint. So I told her to walk the paces from the rock with her building parallel on her right. Luckily she found the tree clue okay, and the key shortly afterward.

I'm a great friend, let me watch your house for you.