Psychologists have noticed a new and alarming trend, the growing number of people afflicted with GAS (Geocaching Addiction Syndrome).
Someone once said that, since one out of every three people suffers from some sort of mental/emotional malady, take a look around at two people near you. If they look okay, it must be you. Take the following test:
Do you haunt the geocaching Web site, searching for yet another new one in range of your house or job so you can charge out and claim the FTF award?
Do you own a Magellan GPSr but suffer from Garmin envy? Or vice versa?
Do clerks at three or more dollar stores know you by name?
Do you wake up early in the morning, planning your next caching sortie using methods which the makers of "Ocean's 12" would kill to learn?
Are you painting little cache symbols on the side of your minivan, like fighter pilots used to for official "kills?"
Is your alarm usually set for oh-dark-thirty in your quest for "just one cache" on the way to work?
Do you sometimes call in sick, with the phone in one hand and a GPSr in the other?
Are you trying to design a utility belt like Batman's?
Do you have a hard hat complete with miner's lamp?
When designing a cache, do you often refer to your autographed copy of Army Field Manual 5-31 (Booby Traps)?
Have you decided just how to attach that film can (painted white) to a polar bear's collar, to make the cache a 5/5?
If you answered "yes" to two or more of the above, you probably have GAS; at the minimum you are a cacheaholic. If you answered "yes" to five or more, you should seek professional help. After all, in a country riddled with "syndromes," why should cachers be different?
Fortunately, GAS HOG (Geocaching Addiction Syndrome, Helping Others Group) can arrange for you to consult with a Tibetan medicine man. Among other things, he may be able to use acupuncture to relieve the GAS pressure.
That's normally followed by a 12-step multi-cache rated 6/6. Any survivors consider themselves cured.