Make Someone's Day by Pamda Bhaer, Waldo Cheerio
June 17th, 2008 8:14 AM / Location: 34.162012,-118.0894Pamda: While relatively new to the glory that is sf0, my natural talent at making a fool of myself in front of strangers as well as my penchant for purchasing large amounts of children’s toys led me to immediately select task “Make Someone’s Day” as my inaugural expedition. I called up my good friend W. Cheerio and coerced him into agreeing to work with me.
He was enticed by the promise of an indefatigable challenger to his rock-paper-scissors throne. (Good ol' rock. Nuthin' beats rock.)
The first stop I made was at my local Target, to pick up gifts. I wandered through the Market section for a bit before I decided that most people probably wouldn’t want to take food from strangers. I did, however, discover that food had become a great deal more sentient since my last experiences with it:
Surprising, since I’d eaten lunch a few minutes ago.
I then hied myself over to the toys section, where a glorious display awaited me:
Picked out the shiniest one (along with a neon green gift bow), then wandered until I found 8 gifts, all within the$2-$3 range. My final purchases were
-Ball
-“Air Dart Blaster” (Think Nerf ripoff)
-Water Balloons, with inflater
-Sidewalk chalk
-Miracle bubbles 6 pack
-Play Doh
-Kite (Depicting Winny the Pooh & Tigger as superheros)
-Plastic pig that made oinking noises
I tried to pick mostly things that one particularly creative person or a large group of people could enjoy outdoors (meaning I shied away from cards, board games, etc., although I won’t say I wasn’t tempted:
While I was waiting to pay, I spied a disposable camera hanging in the impulse purchases section. It was $6, but I pleaded with the cashier until she let me run over to Electronics and pick up a cheaper $2 version. I also grabbed a photo development envelope from the 1-hour photo department. My hope was that we would find a group of people accommodating enough to take the camera, use all the film in it, then drop it off at a Target somewhere. I’d filled out the information on the front with my sf0 username and cell phone number.
When I got home, I wrote notes on construction paper to package with each gift. I wrote a whole bunch of them (mostly inappropriate) but here are the ones I ended up using—
-Give this penny to someone you love (with a penny taped to the note)
-Try Trader Joe’s Havarti Cheese, it’s really good.
-MGMT “Time to Pretend” (song recommendation)
-I like your pants.
-You smell nice.
-Incomplete hangman game “ _ A_ _ / I_/_E E_ _ _/_OO_/_O/_E/A/_A_ _ _ _ A”
I wasn’t planning on doing the task until the next day, but as luck would have it Mr. Cheerio appeared at my door that evening, interrupting my very important schedule of watching Top Chef. We were contacted by another sf0er, Rusten Groot, and a few of us ended up spending the night at a playground and watching Arsenic and Old Lace. Cheerio had planned on driving home from my house that night, but as usual he had to make things as complicated as possible:
Those photos were taken the next morning. It was 2 AM when we discovered the flat, so he ended up having to stay at my house. We drove to 7-11 to buy contact solution, where we discovered another gift-GOLIATH CARDS.
We also discovered a house with 3 cars: an all-terrain Ford, a white medic truck, and an army grade Pinzgauer. We decided that whoever lived there knew something about an impending zombie attack. It was frightening.
Headed home. Cheerio requested pants and I gladly acquiesced. He is 6’+. I am 5’ish.
The next morning I was showered, pigtailed, and ready to depart by 9:30 AM. Cheerio, on the other hand—
We realized that it would be a good idea to change his tire, so we didn’t end up leaving until about 11. We each took separate cars to the Gold Line station about 3 blocks away from my house. That is because we care about the environment.
Purchased day passes for $5 and we were on our way! The first gift we decided we needed to give away was the ball, since it was so conspicuous. I’d seen a middle-aged man smile as we boarded with it, so I decided that he deserved to have it. My original idea for this gift was that I wanted to give it to the first person who asked why we had it (e.g. “Why do you have that ball?” “You mean, why do YOU have that ball?”) but there weren’t many people on the train when we first got on and it was drawing too much attention. Since I am small, Asian, and a girl while Cheerio is tall, male, and corpse-like, it was up to me to deliver the first gift. We waited until the train had almost reached the 3rd stop, then I approached him, said hello, and handed it over. He took it then looked at Cheerio and asked “Is she gonna take the ball?” as I walked out of the train. Cheerio wisely did not answer but followed me to a different car.
We weren’t really sure if he was going to hold on to it (he could very easily have just left it on a seat next to him if he was going to work or something) but a later sighting of Ball Guy at Union Station confirmed that he had, indeed, kept the ball.
The next gift we gave was the giant card. We weren’t really sure who to give this to, but we saw a guy sitting on the train near us that had gone to our university (we identified him by a logo on his shirt). Again, I approached him, made some small talk about our school, then gave him the card. We hadn’t written anything on it since our idea was that they could give it to someone else, but who knows if he decided to or not.
We were nearing the end of the line. Cheerio had yet to give a gift, but once he did, he picked the manliest gift of all-the plastic pig.
We took a little time to scrape off the price tag, then selected our next recipient. A ponytailed man (I just now realized that nearly every gift we gave was to a male. Whoops.) reading a Dean Koontz book seemed like a good target. We actually waited until we were at Union Station, then Cheerio followed him out of the train and handed him the pig over the railing of some stairs. I didn’t get actual footage of the gift being handed over because that was the point where Ball Guy reappeared. I did, however, manage to get some great reaction shots of Dean Koontz guy holding the pig and looking confused. He located Cheerio and the following conversation occurred:
Dean Koontz Guy: Hey, so do you think I’m a pig?
Cheerio: No, absolutely not. I just saw you reading that Dean Koontz book-One Door Away From Heaven, right?
DK Guy: Yeah.
Cheerio: You’ll get it once you finish the book.
DK Guy: Ok then, thanks!
I feel kind of bad that he will never actually understand why he got that pig, but at the very least he looked happy.
We re-boarded the train and a happy group of 2 families followed us on soon after. They seemed like perfect recipients for the kite, since they had 3 kids (all under 3 years) with them. They were probably the happiest to get a gift and kept thanking me for the kite. It was nice.
We disembarked at Chinatown and followed a group of artsy looking students we’d seen on the train so we could give them the camera. They were confused at first, but once we explained that they could take pictures of whatever they wanted they seemed pretty excited.
We wandered for a bit and discussed the implications behind the unnecessarily threatening moniker “The SHOP”.
Then we had lunch at Homegirl Café. If you don’t know about this place, their story is at http://www.homeboy-industries.org/cafe.php.
We got tacos and something called Sarah’s drink, which was delicious. Cheerio was insistent on ordering tacos with something called Beef Tinga. Unfortunately once the Tinga Tacos arrived, they insisted on being unpleasantly spicy. Cheerio was displeased and grew a moustache in protest.
My attempt:
When we went back up to the train station, we ran into the family to whom we’d given the kite. They said thanks again and asked us why we were doing this. We explained a bit about how we wanted to give a gift to strangers, they were really supportive and cool. Turns out that one family was visiting from Kansas and that the other was from Northridge, but rarely rode the train and were taking this opportunity to show their friends around LA. Now they’ll all have stories about how nice the people riding LA public trans are. Huzzah.
Baby approves of sf0
The next gift we decided to give was the air dart gun. I had a very specific type of person in mind for this gift, I definitely wanted it to be someone in a group of teenagers. We found a perfect group sitting right next to us on the train, but weren’t sure how to a) give it to them and b) pick who to give it to. I ended up deciding to pick one guy on the basis of his sandals, then we debated opening lines for gift giving. We thought it’d be pretty funny to single one person out as the group’s leader and tell them that they’d need the gun soon, and we actually came up with a pretty good line—but in typical Cheerio fashion, what ended up being said was “Here, take this, it’s a gun. Shoot things!”
Gun guy was very happy about this, there’s a bit of footage of him opening the gun excitedly. Unfortunately I was so focused on taping him through the window that I missed the train. Oops. For the time being, Cheerio & I were stranded. We used our break to hone our survival skills:
Cheerio practiced being hidden.
I practiced being pips.
It all worked out though, because the next train we boarded turned out to contain a large group of elementary school students on a field trip. We singled out one kid who was walking up and down the aisles unsteadily, to the great merriment of his fellow schoolmates. I told him he looked like a happy person and handed him water balloons. Again, he was extremely pleased.
At this point, we were left with sidewalk chalk, Play Doh, and Miracle Bubbles. We decided that all 3 of these gifts should go to people who needed “additional whimsy” in their lives (Cheerio’s phrase. I swear he said whimsy like 50 times that day).
Anyway, we found an artsy looking guy on one of the trains and I gave him the Miracle Bubbles. I guess it doesn’t make complete sense that we would give an artsy guy more whimsy, but part of the idea I had when selecting the gifts was that I wanted to find people who would appreciate them. And damn, did he appreciate the bubbles-well, once I explained what they were. He was really cool too, and even went so far as to try to find a business card to give me. He had to get off the train before he could find one, but he departed with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. I think.
We were nearing the end of the line where we’d parked our cars, and we still had 2 gifts left to give. I wasn’t averse to holding on to the sidewalk chalk if we didn’t find an appropriate candidate, but we decided to give the Play Doh to the conductor of the train. We followed him once he’d gotten off the train and Cheerio handed him the Play Doh. It was a nice moment.
As our last act of good for the day, we left our day passes on the machines where you buy passes for the Gold Line.
Flash to...today! Cheerio & I had been away on a camping trip (where our sidewalk chalk figured quite prominently, it turned out) so we hadn't tried to contact any photo developing centers for a little over a week. We used the Target website to locate regional photo centers, and about an hour ago I found the developed photos at a Target in Alhambra! Picked them up and it turns out that our selected recipients did us proud. They even took a photo of a napkin with their phone number on it, which I plan on calling as soon as I figure out what to say (I may integrate task "Leave Clues" into my reply). The photos are located here.
-Pamda & Waldo
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ntask35 comment(s)
I had fun doing it, thanks for the nice comment! =)
Hey, this was fun.
Also, I thinkg that there's this retired task where you do something similar to what you did with the camera. Multi-tasking, I like it.
Wait, so you watched Arsenic and Old Lace in a playground?
It was a really spur-of-the-moment idea, but probably my favorite part of the whole experience. I'm glad you approve. Do you remember the name of the task?
Also, no, we went to the playground for a while then called up a friend who happened to live in the area and invaded his house. He was a pretty good sport about the whole thing, considering it was about midnight and he had a final the next day.
No, I don't, and it's drivin' me nuts. Anyone else know what it's called?
This gem of an old task is what I think you're thinking of, though it's almost sort of the opposite.
There's also this community where you can post photos from found film, digital cameras, etc:
http://www.ifoundyourcamera.blogspot.com/
Thanks for the link!
That's exactly what I was thinking of DuckAardvark. Though I can see I remembered it differently than what it is.
Wow.o.wow.o.wow.
You people are seriously an amazing addition to the community here, especially if you can maintain this amazing level of tasking. I love the guy in the first video when you just get off the train. Amazing. Not to mention artsy bubble guy.
I bet you felt good. I wish we had some kind of transit system here that wasn't full of grumpy, elderly people and the mentally deranged.
Well fegging done.
You just made my day-not quite within the parameters of the task, but be happy anyway.
I'm so glad you liked our efforts, especially in light of the number & caliber of the tasks you've already completed. I hope our future attempts do not disappoint.
You guys just blew the back of the head of SFØ off. There is so much win and awesome in this task I don't even know how to put it into words.
The link's acting screwy, but I googled it and found what you were referencing (I think). High praise, indeed. I am flattered.
The link in question is http://sf0.org/Lank/Invent-a-New-Word/
I am very pleased you think so. I've just added some media to our submission directly, so we don't show up as a .txt submission. Pamda is on the case to upload a few of our extraneous images, including a very apropos pamphlet we found on-board the train warning passengers against accepting strange gifts from strangers. I kid you not.
I am not on public transit... but "THIS MUCH" made my day.
Please have Cheerio do Vana White-like video documentation for all tasks.
I can think of nothing that would bring him (or me, for that matter) greater joy. I'm glad your day was made =).
Luckily, the judicial system has, at long last acceded to our demands. I am free to invoke the memory of Vanna White in all future praxes as desired:
http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F2/989/989.F2d.1512.90-55840.html
This was fantastic! I guess the manly pig was my all-around favorite: man, the way to deliver the explanation and make the guy cool with it...
So, what was the original line to go with the air dart gun?
Favorited
First things first-are you Susy Derkins as in Susy Derkins from Calvin & Hobbes? If you are, I like you. Chances are I'd like you anyway, but I'd rather pin my opinions on internet pseudonyms-it makes life easier.
Cheerio was pretty slick with that response, I was impressed as well. I don't remember what our original line was exactly, but the one he used ended up being more entertaining, and I don't think Gun Guy minded.
I am named almost like the target of GROSS, yes, in order to highlight the fact that I wish I was her but no one could :)
I am happy to be here to see your tasks as they happen.
But I wanted to repeat everyone's congratulations and welcome:
Congratulations!
and Welcome!
:) Excellent work.
It's never too late to be friendly over the internet. Thanks =)
This is a fantastic completion!
You guys kick ass, and welcome to the game. Please do Leave Clues or involve the art students in some other way! That would be hysterical.
While I already completed Leave Clues in a tandem double-praxis, Pamda is considering leaving a trail of clues for our fantastically cooperative photographers, and I'll help (if she lets me) just for the satisfaction of a task well done. Pamda knows her way around a trail of clues, believe you me.
I am actually assembling a trail of clues as we speak...the only problem is that the first clue is a text message, and I have no way of knowing whether or not the number they gave me is able to accept them. I guess I'll find out. Also, thanks!
Good god, this is a million times of win.
Incorperates talking to strangers, confusion, and fake moustaches. All SF0 staples.
If you are who I think you are (and that would be Ben from Journey to the End of the Night), then I would like you to know that I thoroughly appreciated your red suspenders yesterday. If you are not Ben then thank you for the sweet comment and that creepy remark about suspenders should be completely ignored.
I am your admirer and I shall not be secretive.
By the way, that's intended to be second person possessive plural, so please both feel complimented.
mad props you guys! great ideas and execution. i'm impressed by how human you both are, how open and fun in your interactions with people. when aliens come and ask for proof that the human race is worth saving, i'mma point them at you all.
<3
Wow. That was fun. Very thorough and entertaining!