Your (distant, secondhand) Grief Counts

In the last month or so, I've talked to a couple of different people who were close to me who were shaken by the deaths of people who were not close to them. They didn't want to impose on the families affected by the deaths, but they did need to talk about it, so they talked to me-- and, to be clear, I do know that it is an honor to be trusted this much.

One of the things I told them is that I do know, from firsthand experience, that having someone sad for you because someone close to you has died makes grief lighter. 

I learned this from the secondhand-mourner perspective when a woman I knew and admired lost her husband to suicide. When I got to the casket-- she was standing at the head of it-- and looked into my friend's eyes, all I could do is cry. She hugged me, and said, "Thank you for crying for me."

I didn't know her that well, and I had never met her husband that I knew of, and I felt utterly impotent to offer any comfort in that moment. That is why when she said it, I thought she was being very thoughtful of me to let me think that I had actually done her any good.

I thought this until I lost my friend who was murdered by her ex-husband. Some people were so shocked when I told them about it that I had to spend precious emotional energy calming them down. That was pretty hard. But others-- many others, even some who didn't know my friend at all-- chose to be sad for me, and I learned firsthand that having someone else be sad for my loss is one of the single most healing things that I've ever experienced.

I learned this again when my dad died. Fewer people, though not zero, were shocked and upset and needed me to be emotionally present in ways that were pretty hard. But others offered sweet, loving support. I especially appreciate a couple of the teachers in the building where I worked who quietly checked in on me now and again to make sure I was doing OK. They had lost their own fathers within the last few years, and they knew from their own firsthand experience what was needed. But all of the other people, including close friends, who didn't know what to do and who were just straight up sad for me? I was SO thankful for them, too. Every expression of grief on my behalf seemed to split mine up and take a part of it away.

So, my advice: be aware not to impose, but looking someone in the eye and letting them know how truly sad you are for their loss is not maybe a little perhaps helpful, but it genuinely lifts the burdens of grief. If you feel an unexpected wave of grief over the death of someone you have never met, this not only signals that you are a human with a functioning heart, but it means that if you are in a position to communicate that grief, you could provide the exact support that grieving person or family needs. It tells them that their person mattered-- even to someone who had never met them. And surely, if you think about it, someone who matters even to those who never met them must matter a lot.

The caveat: some people are not going to be up to human interaction when they are grieving. The essence of not imposing is being willing to step back when the person indicates that is what they would like you to do. If this is the vibe you're getting, be sure to respect it, but at the same time understand that your own grief is still real, and that you yourself may need to reach out for support. I learned that one the hard way. My personal experience is that suicides can be particularly difficult to process. I beg of you to reach out for the support you need if you are finding yourself in a hole having to do with this issue-- or if you find yourself in an emotional hole about anything at all. Each life is precious, including yours.

The Unfunny* Jokes Stage is one of my favorites

So, when young persons get to be around four or five years old, they begin to pick up on the fact that jokes exist.** They hear someone tell a joke, then they hear someone else laugh, and they aren't sure what is going on, so they ask. Sometimes, someone is able to explain why it was funny, but sometimes explanation fails, so to the child, it comes out something like: you say a couple of things that don't make sense and then someone laughs. And then they think: that's not a bad deal! I should try that!

And then they do. And, as good language learners, when they don't get it right the first time, they try again. And then again. And again.

This stage can be very trying for parents. Do you laugh? Do you pretend to laugh? And what do you do when your five-year-old is on their hundredth unfunny joke of the day and you just want to scream? 

The thing is, the vast majority of linguistic forms that children encounter in day-to-day life are produced spontaneously, so it makes sense that they assume that jokes fall into this category, too. It's not the kid's fault that they have no idea that (funny) jokes are fiendishly difficult to make up on the fly.

But, as I mentioned in the title, I have a different perspective. I think that unfunny jokes are adorable in the way that, say, watching a four-year-old wash dishes is adorable. If your goal is to get the dishes clean, you will be in trouble. If your goal is to let the kid have fun while trying out something grownup, and to encourage them along the way, you will find much more happiness.

Here, let me give an example. My sister just visited with two of her children, the younger of whom is squarely in the unfunny jokes stage (which, yes, is what prompted this post). This is one of hers:

Niece: Knock knock.

Myself: Who's there?

Niece: Turkey.

Myself: Turkey who?

Niece: Turkey that doesn't exist! while laughing so hard at her own joke that she can hardly stand up, as is normal.

So, look. She knows the basic form: knock knock, who's there, give a name, answer with the name + who, and then-- and this shows a fair amount of sophistication, IMHO-- the very last line, the punchline, should incorporate the name with a surprise ending that upends the original expectation set up by that name in the first place.

I actually laughed at this one. I thought it was so delightful that she had gotten so close to something actually funny. I even retold it to a couple of other people, who because they don't love unfunny jokes as much as I do did not laugh. *sigh*

Anyway, hopefully this post has left you with a renewed-- or perhaps just new-- appreciation for unfunny jokes. The best defense against them-- besides learning to appreciate them-- is to take the time to teach the poor kid an actual joke.*** After that, supposing they can read, you can put a joke book in their hands --and even kids who have outgrown unfunny jokes frequently appreciate a joke or riddle book.****

Also: good luck! If you have a kid going through this stage and you know me well enough to have my phone number, you are welcome to call me up, and if I have time, I will listen to a couple of unfunny jokes and laugh at them. If you don't know me well enough to have my phone number, I would love to get (these kind of) unfunny jokes in the comments. 

*To be clear, I'm not talking about jokes that merely don't fit one particular person's sense of humor. I'm talking about jokes that nobody would think were funny unless they were thinking about them in a very particular way (which I will get to in a moment).

**It isn't that children younger than five can't be funny or make you laugh on purpose, but this verbal unit called a joke or a riddle starts appearing on their radar around this time.

***You will then hear that joke approximately 50,000 times a day, because making others laugh is powerful magic, but at least it won't be one unfunny joke after another. 

****I feel compelled to mention that if a child was not in the habit of cornering friends, relatives, acquaintances, and passing strangers and then assaulting them with multiple riddles and/or jokes, the acquisition of a joke or riddle book can prompt such behavior. Maybe give a manners book at the same time? I don't really have a solution for this one other than ongoing, kind, but firm discussions about when, where, and how it is and is not appropriate to tell jokes.

Thinking about the Heavenly Gift as mentioned in Ether 12

This morning I was listening to Ether 12-- one of my favorites-- when I heard something I had never noticed before. "...[A]nd be partakers of the gift, if ye will but have faith." This is in verse 9.

Wait, what gift? I mean, it makes sense-- faith leads to all kinds of cool things-- but what gift?

So I tapped the "go back" button and listened to this, in verse 8: "...and prepared a way that thereby others might be partakers of the heavenly gift, that they might hope for those things which they have not seen." And then the whole of verse 9: "Wherefore, ye may also have hope, and be partakers of the gift, if ye will but have faith."

Right. The heavenly gift. But this left me with a new question: what is the heavenly gift? I was so curious that I had to stop washing dishes and come over to my laptop to look up where that phrase might be used in the rest of the scriptures. It turns out that there are only two other places: 4 Nephi 1:3, and Hebrews 6:4. In 4 Nephi it talks about how in the perfect, Zion society, all were made partakers of "the heavenly gift." Hebrews 6:4 talks about the heavenly gift as being something that happens to a person along with being enlightened and being made partakers of the Holy Ghost. 

That makes three out of three references to The Heavenly Gift which seem to associate it closely with seeing Jesus Christ, but the one I started with specifically excludes supposing that it is the appearance itself: "But because of the faith of men he has shown himself unto the world, and glorified the name of the Father, and prepared a way that thereby others might be partakers of the heavenly gift..."

I wondered if the heavenly gift might refer to the plan of salvation or to the atonement of Jesus Christ, but again I thought to myself: those who lived before Christ surely partook of those even without seeing Him. Of course it has to be associated somehow, but it somehow seems to be not exactly this.

I looked at Hebrews 6 again and started reading the whole chapter. When I got to a reference to hope, I paused. My two verses that I came from in Ether both referenced hope, too. I decided I should hop over to the Topical Guide listing on hope and see what I could see by looking through those. At first the going was slow, but then it started sticking out to me that hope is in "things which are not seen, which are true." It isn't like I didn't know this before, but it just seemed to jump out at me. It seemed to fit with the idea that the heavenly gift had to be associated with seeing Jesus, and yet it wasn't... exactly... actually seeing Him.

Of course, being as how we are, depending on your point of view, either in the middle of or very close to the start of the Christmas season, it did occur to me that the Heavenly Gift could simply be Jesus Christ Himself.

And as that thought wound its way through my brain again, all of a sudden I made the connection: the Heavenly Gift is any manifestation of God in the world. It's brought about by faith; it's hoped for by (Godly) hope. I excitedly began to read the lists of miracles wrought by faith in Ether 12, and it fit. Being called of God: definitely shows you God in the world. The prison of Ammonihah being shaken to the earth: shows God in the world. The Lamanites' hearts being wrought upon and changed: most certainly these show God in the world. Receiving a promise that you wouldn't taste of death: also shows God in the world.

Over in Hebrews 11, it also fits: obtaining a witness that you are righteous shows God in the world. Being warned of God, directed by God, and receiving gifts of God all show that God is in the world.

And shouldn't that be what we hope for? To see God in the world? It seems like that is a most Godly thing to hope for. It wouldn't exclude a direct visitation, but it doesn't demand it, either. In fact, hope doesn't demand anything, but that's a different post for a different day.

I began to wonder if I might gain an insight into charity by applying this new perspective. Almost as soon as I wondered it, I saw it: if we see God in the world, we have a better chance of becoming like Him, of gaining His attributes, of loving as He does. 

And again, I wonder how much I was set up for this entire insight trail by posting on Facebook on the #givethanks hashtag, as President Nelson asked us to do. Giving thanks is a small and simple-- tiny, really-- way to see God in the world. I'm not sure how much faith it took for me to do that, but it didn't feel like much!

Happy Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope that you, too, get to feel some manifestation of God in the world, no matter how small. In my life, these manifestations bring peace and joy.

Maple Caramel Seven-Minute Frosting, with (pan)cakes underneath

I'm not naming which celebration this was for, because I think the internet at large already knows quite enough about what I celebrate when, thank you very much.

Do you ever get a taste-thought in your brain? I think that the closest word for it in English is "craving" (and no, I don't know of a word for it in any other languages), but craving implies that you are at some level obsessed with consuming the thing, and what I'm describing is more like when you close your eyes and see a picture in your mind, or when you are walking along and your brain plays music for you, and if you like it well enough, you try to draw it or describe it or write it down or in whatever way you can realize the idea which has come to you.

Anyway. Today I was thinking about whether or not to make cake for (un)said celebration, and the thought came to me: caramel. And then I remembered how I am wealthy enough-- unlike much of the rest of my life before now-- that I have REAL maple syrup to play with, culinarily.*

So this is what I did. I looked up a recipe for maple syrup caramel, and decided to "use" this one: pinch of yum magic vegan caramel sauce. And by use, I mean that I only used two of the four ingredients she lists; I substituted one, and left one out. (But I linked to it to give credit where credit is due, and besides which, if I could have those ingredients, I would have just gone with them). In my situation, though, I used a teacup in the microwave and put in 2T of maple syrup, 2T of oil, and 1/16t of salt, and microwaved it for a minute. And at the end of that I had a delicious tasting syrup at the bottom of a bunch of oil, so next time I'll be reducing the oil by half and deciding about further modifications from there.

But boy howdy did I mention how good it is?

OK. Next, I used Paula Deen's 7-minute frosting recipe, which I modified this time just because my eggs are oddly small (and which I usually modify by putting in 1 cup of sugar instead of a cup and a half) BUT the modification that matters this time is that instead of vanilla-- which never does taste good to me in frosting-- I put in two teaspoons (as in the kind you eat with teaspoons-- sorry I didn't measure, but I think they were pretty close to a standard teaspoon?) of the maple syrup caramel stuff. Every time I've tried to flavor this frosting recipe before, the flavoring has come out too strong, but not this time! Probably because the flavoring can be eaten straight up on its own. But this part of the recipe is definitely getting made again, especially since three ingredients in the microwave for one minute is my kind of recipe.

I dished out some frosting for Mom to eat (of course snitching as much as I myself wanted). Then I took the leftover oil-and-syrup, and mixed it in with the egg yolks, and then mixed that in with some cake mix, and then folded in the frosting that I thought would not be needed for the top of the cake, and then I put the whole shebang in the oven.

I'll tell you in the morning how it went.

IN THE MORNING: After tasting my cake experiment, I decided to eat my frosting with some pancakes I had made earlier. The flavoring which was just right for the frosting was too weak for the cake, which was also just a little dense. Meh. I never make cakes, partly because I've never liked them that much, partly because my body doesn't like ingredients that allow them to taste good: butter, milk, almonds, any form of coconut. I'll survive. Next time, maybe I'll just make meringues. Or pavlova.

*If I didn't have real maple syrup, I would definitely make some simple syrup by boiling 2 c. sugar** with 1 c. water and then adding a flavoring like mapleine or almond extract or something. It doesn't taste the same as maple syrup, but it tastes good enough that it's sometimes just what I'm in the mood for, over real maple syrup. I'm never in the mood for corn syrup faintly flavored with maple, though.

**OK, fine, most days I'm only cooking for myself and I haven't made a 2 cup batch of simple syrup in at least a decade, but what I DO do is put one tablespoon of sugar and one of water in a teacup and then microwave it for 30 seconds at a time until the viscosity gets to be syrupy-looking. This makes enough for me for one meal's worth of pancakes, and then I don't have to worry about putting leftover syrup in the fridge or whatever. The water boils off much more quickly in the microwave than on a stove, which is why after a couple of tries in which I ended up with crystallized sugar instead of syrup, I changed the proportion for the tiny version of the recipe.

How taking a walk with a three-year-old helped me figure out my writing goals

One day when my oldest niece was about three years old, I stopped in at my sister's house, which at the time was close to a credit union I belonged to. At some point in our conversation that day, we decided that I would take my niece with me on my errand to the credit union. I wanted to hang out with her; I had a couple of hours free; and the credit union was a twenty minute walk away, even if we walked very slowly.

Our plan worked perfectly. She got to walk the whole time, because I wasn't worried about getting there before it closed or in time for me to go do some other errand. Once we got to the window, she announced proudly to the teller, "I'm Cinderella!"

The teller looked at me in confusion. "Is that really her name?"

"Let me give you a clue. I'm her fairy godmother."

And then I did whatever business I had come to transact-- I truly don't remember what it was any more-- and then we walked back to her house, and all was well.

Now, the moral you might take from this story is that you should leave plenty of time for walks with  three-year-olds, and if that is the conclusion you draw, I'm not going to tell you you're wrong. But I feel like there's an even more interesting lesson you could take away from it.

I realized as I was going home that I had two sets of goals for that walk. I wanted most to hang out with my niece and let her explore and have fun. But I also had an errand to run, and it was actually easier to accomplish the first goal once I had that second goal in mind.

I've come to think of these kinds of goals as end-goals and guardrail goals. For me, loving people, protecting the environment, and obeying the law are among my guardrail goals. They are all so important to me that the only way I would break one of them deliberately is if another guardrail goal were involved. But having end-goals as well makes keeping those guardrail goals more interesting, and sometimes even easier.

So, for instance, for a long time-- too long, for my taste-- one of my end goals was to get a bachelor's degree. And I finally have one! Along the way, I lived with roommates, which brought me into contact with others and gave me a chance to figure out how to love them both more and more effectively. Through my general education classes, I also learned enough science to be able to appreciate science writing and interpret it for myself. And in my philosophy classes, discussions about Kantian ethics would always start out with the caveat to his "never tell a lie" rule that we all agree to: if I have Jews hidden in my house and Nazis are at the door, I will definitely break the law.

But wait, you say. Getting an education is kind of a good in and of itself, so it's kind of not fair to be listing how it helps with all of those other things. Aren't there some end goals that aren't good?

Well, yeah. As we can see from the Nazi example mentioned above, if your end goal in and of itself violates a guardrail goal, you gotta chuck it.

But other than that, as far as I can tell, not only does the ethical human have the right to choose whatever end goals she likes; she may even be under obligation to do so, because they are so helpful in accomplishing those guardrail goals.

And that brings me to my writing goals. I want to bring delight, information, and helpfulness to others: that's an end goal. I want to be dependable (and of course honest) in my business relationships: that's a guardrail goal. And what I want for myself is a combination of end and guardrail goals: I want to write things which I enjoy writing (end goal); of course write ethically (which can get tricky when you write about real humans, but I would argue can even be an issue when you write about fantasy worlds-- so, guardrail goal); and at some point I would like to make a profit, which I am leaving as an end goal but would sure be a lot more comfortable if it were a guardrail goal. But it's best to leave guardrail goals as things have more control over, and end goals as things you have less control of, so there you have it.

I was able to distill these goals into a one sentence purpose statement, and it's held for-- let me check-- wow, since December 24th! Well, isn't that nice! (I checked the version history on the document where I listed my writing goals to figure that out.) I'm open to finding out more about what I want, but so far I'm holding to this one: I write to create joy.

I write to create joy.

Daily Feelings Sort + choosing gratitude

I do a "feelings sort" every morning, right at the top of my daily journal entry. (I write in the morning, about the day before, because I tend to be approximately twice as gloomy in the evenings as in the mornings.) It's pretty basic: I write down five words (or very occasionally phrases) that answer the question "how am I feeling?" So, a typical day might include sad, cheerful, OK, thoughtful, and thankful.

Part of the point of the feelings sort is to notice and label the sort of brain-stem, I-don't-get-a-choice-about-them feelings like sadness or anger (please anyone who knows the neuroscience of this better than I do off the top of my head be very gentle in the comments-- I'm just trying to get this written, for now). If I notice and label those feelings, I can work on them; I can take a walk, or organize part of my house, or call a friend, or something. Or, if I'm feeling joyful or triumphant or happy, I get that right down at the top of the entry, to be explored later, and remember that recording my emotions isn't always about controlling them.

I always include thankful, or some variant thereof. That's because I can choose which emotions to project, both to myself and others, and by writing these down, I am nudging myself to that choice. Occasionally I have to write "trying to be thankful" because I do want to be honest, but usually I can find at least one little thing to make it true.

Map Mystery in The Library, Part the first: How this home-made escape room was played

For the last two summers running, our school has applied for a grant to have our library open during the summer, because our boundaries are such that walking to the public library for most of our kids isn't really practical. I got to be the summer librarian this year (yay!) which was SO fun and also kinda stressful. But mostly fun.

Part of the stress is that I had advertised two different escape rooms, but I didn't have either of them actually figured out all of the way until the Friday before they opened on Tuesday. Since I was only being paid for my time, and not for any materials, I set myself a budget of about $20 for the whole summer, and got to work. I'm pretty sure that I used less than that, but I would have needed a little more if I hadn't been able to use school resources for some of the things I did. Also, I used a reasonable amount of my down-time at work to figure this out before the summer started, which means that if you figured in the cost of my time as well, it would have been WAY over-budget-- but part of the reason I'm blogging about this is so that other people who think this sounds cool can do it without having to invest all that time.

This post will describe the escape room as the kids experienced it. The next post will go into more specifics about how I developed and implemented this escape room, with the hopes that my readers can implement these ideas for themselves if they so desire.

1. You enter the escape room

This is where I admit that I've never done a real escape room, though I have done a couple of escape room board games, which were pretty fun. But even in my ignorance, I am aware of the differences between this and a "real" escape room. For one thing, neither of my scenarios involves actually escaping from anywhere-- though this isn't actually as unusual as you might think.*

Even if it had been practical to provide a sense of being actually locked in a space (which it wasn't) I wouldn't have wanted to do it. For one thing, liability! Sheesh! And for another thing, the kids who come to summer library tend to be in upper elementary school (grades 3-5), so I felt like they would be looking for a less-intense escape room experience. And in fact, I got one third-grader who had gone to a real escape room with some older family members and had NOT enjoyed it, but when he came to ours, it was just right. Huzzah!

My boss, the main librarian, suggested that I create a sense of at least being separated from the rest of the library, though, by using our moveable wall that sometimes gets used to partition the library during testing. This wall folds like an accordion, with both ends being on wheeled platforms. Using the wall was a GREAT idea, and worked like a dream. So, when the children entered the "escape room," they went into a space defined on two sides by bookshelves, and on two other sides by this partition wall. Besides helping the teams feel like they were in an actual room, it also allowed the secrets of the escape room to be NOT discovered by a team until they actually got into the "room" itself.

So. You walk into the escape room, and either the game master explains or else you can read the opening scenario:

You have just put a chicken dinner on to roast when a gang of international thieves comes and steals your mother's necklace. You need to locate the gang's secret hideout, find the necklace, and get home, all before the chicken burns. Good luck!

A more important difference between this room and most "real" escape rooms is that both of our summer library escape rooms were 100% linear-- meaning that the teams in the rooms were NOT solving multiple mysteries at once. I was (and am) aware that having multiple mysteries leading to the solution of one puzzle is the most common way to set up an escape room.**

However, since I was making this up all on my own, and couldn't quite figure out how to make multiple mysteries feed into a larger one in the amount of time I had to plan, I finally decided to be OK with it. The advantage of that approach, which I only noticed after I accepted that I would be using it, is that it's a lot easier for the kids-- which again, since my target audience is maybe the youngest that would possibly be interested in an escape room, might not be as disadvantageous as might first seem likely.

All of that is to say that when a teams walks into the escape room, the first clue is a bunch of papers which have been ripped up and are in a small, pink garbage can. Their first task is to put those pieces of paper back together, like a puzzle (tape was provided for this purpose). I took a picture of the escape room after this step had been completed:

On the backs of these sheets were math equations, which, when the children solved them, revealed four numbers. The team could then correlate these clues with numbers on the fronts of the papers to figure out the combination to the lock on the box with "top secret notes" inside:

Once they opened that, they could read the document inside-- helpfully titled "Notes from the secret meeting of our gang of thieves." These notes set out conditions for where the gang wanted their hideout to be. Luckily, the fronts of the "puzzle" pieces were "fact sheets" for various locations. Once the kids figured out which location fit the requirements, they got to go to the next step: the "blast shield shop."

2. The "blast shield shop" and "secret hideout"

Now the team moved from sitting around the table to an area just in front of an aisle between two shelves. In that aisle, we (actually, not really we-- my awesome assistant, a rising 10th grader from our local high school, did this part 100% himself, for which I was and am deeply thankful) set up a "laser maze" with 1/8 inch, metallic washi tape, thus:

At the end of the maze is a "glitter bomb"-- a jack-in-the-box stuffed with some glitter pom-poms. The team's instructions were to use these pompoms to "explode" the "doors" to the hideout so that they can get out the back way-- but the trick is, they can't get exploded themselves. So, at least one pom-pom has to touch one door, and no pom-poms can touch any team members.

And that's where the "blast shield shop" comes in. The truth is that this particular pom-pom-and-jack-in-the-box combo is not particularly explosive. It's pretty dang easy to just point it in the right direction and not get hit. But THEY don't know that, going in, so we gave them the option to get some protection before they do so. Thus:

I added the requirement for the youngest member of the party to answer the questions because I knew that several of the teams that were interested in this escape room were non-twin sibling teams, which I suspected would mean that the older sibling would be more likely to dominate during the math-equation-solving portion of the game. I turned out to be correct in that assumption, and I was really glad that I added this requirement.

Oh, and what are the blast shields? Pieces of posterboard, left over from a library project. Having to carry them through the laser maze added an enjoyable level of challenge to the whole thing.

I did also bring a dollar-store picker-upper that I already owned, from home. This turned out not to be terribly helpful-- which my trustworthy assistant correctly predicted it wouldn't-- but I pointed out to him that we didn't KNOW that it wouldn't be helpful, and that if it wasn't, it would be an interesting red herring. Which it was.

The papers you see were the two maps we used for the geography questions. More on those in a later post.

3. Find the necklace!

Astute readers will notice that unless a team has located the necklace, they have failed in the mission. The necklace I chose was an INexpensive one from home-- something from a thrift store or yard sale would have worked fine, though.


The part that was a little more expensive/elaborate in this section of the escape room, however, is that I ended up making a hollow book for it. It wasn't monetarily expensive, but it WAS pretty time-expensive. But at least now I own a hollow book, which I think is pretty awesome!!!

And the extra cool part is the fact that the particular section of library books at the end of those shelves just happened to be the 916-917 section, which covers travel guides. :)

This is what it looked like on the shelf:

Yes, I made a cover for the book. Yes, with an accurate call number as if it had been an actual book. Yes, I might have put more effort into this escape room than was strictly necessary.

So, that's it for this week! Hopefully in the next week or two I can post about how playtesting helped me refine this escape room, and suggestions for if someone wanted to copy it in detail. Yes, this is explicit permission: if you want to use this for your own home-made escape room, GO for it.*** I would be so pleased. :D

*I learned this from the following source, quoted below: Nicholson, S .(2015). Peeking behind the locked door: A survey of escape room facilities. White Paper available at http://scottnicholson.com/pubs/erfacwhite.pdf

Many narrative paths listed above do not necessarily make sense with a story element of “you are trapped in a room and must escape.” This means that to fit the escape room name, the designer must add a layer onto the game of the players being trapped in some way and needing to escape. Facilities  were asked in what percentage of the games were players actually needing to escape the room as part  of the narrative. Overall, about 70% of escape room games require players to actually escape the  room as part of the winning condition. This means that 30% of the games in escape room facilities aren’t actually about escaping rooms. For the Asian respondents, however, this percentage was much higher – 96% of games in Asian escape rooms require players to escape a room, while in Australia  and the Americas, only about 60% of escape room games are about escaping a room.

** I only figured out how to articulate what I felt like was wrong with the escape room I had come up with from reading the above-quoted Scott Nicholson paper. Even though in the end, with this round, I decided I was more than OK with the all-the-mysteries-in-a-row format, I feel like knowing how to make it more like a real escape room/more complicated will be very helpful, should I ever decide to try this sort of thing again.

*** Just, you know, be safe. I did my best to make this one as safe as I could, and indeed no one got hurt-- but in particular the size of the pom-poms as compared to the strength of the jack-in-the-box could make it not as safe, so please be careful!