Mouth Taped Shut treasure hunt

[october_midnight]

Wow. I had hoped they would drop one of these here but it's mostly been the U.S. and I was so afraid I'd be stuck at work when they did, if they did at all. So it's a day off from work, got up a bit before 10am (mostly to check the Dark Knight Rises OperationEarlyBird page...I know) and @MouthTapedShut drops another clue. I've managed to crack a few so I checked out the pic it linked to....age...license plate, I check back on the TDKR page, it's down of course...I chuckle and refresh Twitter and the first new tweet says 'Vancouver, BC'...I don't even think. Within 20 seconds I have the nearest hoodie and pair of jeans on. Run back to the computer, and see '/ageless'. I type in the URL and it points to Main St.....easily a 20-25 min drive away but I don't even think twice. The nutcracker picture looks familiar too. I enter it in my iPhone and run for the door.

I scream to my car, scream out on to the street and am frantically thinking which way's the fastest way there. I speed up and after a few blocks it dawns on me. 'That's the wooden nutcracker statue I saw while at a red light a few weeks back outside an antique store.' My heart sinks as it's probably been there a while and someone else surely knows it too. Of course, the traffic decides to be excruciatingly slow but I get to the street within 15 minutes (thankfully never crossed the path of any police as I was a healthy amount over the speed limit many times...having the OST for The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo playing only made me more tense) and I park a block away. I run to the next street and see a couple in all black around the store. I feel gut punched. They're smiling and return to their SUV and pull away as I cross the street to the store. I figure they found the note and it had directions where to go and I'm hooped. I check Twitter to see if any 'FOUND' tweets have dropped...nothing. So I run up to the statue and check it's arms, behind it...frantic. After 20 seconds a lady comes out of the store (not a rep, one of the owners) and asks if I'm interested in the statue. 'Very.' She asks if I'm there for a reason, I reply 'Looking for something...' She says 'Look harder.' and my eyes go wide. 'Maybe...under it?' I tilt the statue and freak out when I see the note inside.



She lets me in and says 'now you just have to find a large French cabinet.' I say 'oh yeah.' as the place is FILLED with them. One stands out, it's huge and the main cabinet door is slightly open. I open it and see the envelope and a huge smile hits me. 'Congratulations. They said anytime after 10am to expect someone, didn't think it'd be so soon.' She pulls out a camera and says that it was mailed to her with explicit instructions, she takes a few pics of me like they told her to, says congratulations again. I say 'Thank you so much.' and walk out to my car. I take a pic of it on my car seat, and as I pull out and drive past the store, I see two people run full speed up to the nutcracker statue. Just in time.









Shout out to @antovolk @mentorless @Star_Nubalo @bgalbraith @thehighroller5 and a few others that I've seen helping everyone...they're all crazy...I think they had every puzzle solved within like two minutes. Cheers to everyone!