Anti-scavenger hunt

Find 16 acorn caps.
Collect one clean sock.

There’s something about being barefoot that makes you feel alive. Sprinting through a field of mowed - but not too recently - green grass, feeling the dirt cave and spring up beneath you, it’s like the ground is alive beneath you. It’s like you’re invincible. But you’re not: pain is just a step away, on the road’s sharp gravel or the tennis court’s hot pavement. Only the toughest (or the dumbest) run there, ignoring their mortality to win the race.

Obtain a pair of sunglasses.
Find something sweet, and something salty.

There’s something about a summer evening that makes the hours feel infinite. Daylight reaches deep into the dusk and there’s always “still time” after dinner: for a swim, for a paddle, for a game of euchre. The sky darkens gently, even reluctantly, streaking ribbons of pink and orange across the heavens as the trees fade to black silhouettes. You hardly even notice it’s getting dark until you look up and realize you can’t see the words on the sign a few feet in front of you.

Find something with every color of the rainbow.
Bring something that starts with the letter M.

There’s something about a fast friend that makes everything an adventure. Especially when, even though you’re still in that awkward I-barely-know-you-but-we’re-basically-the-same-person stage, you can tell they’re the one. So you ask if they (an adult like you) would like to team up against the pre-teens in the weekly scavenger hunt. And they say ‘of course’. So you both run around barefoot, reliving your parallel childhoods, for one, sweet, endless evening.