Olympia, WA – Don’t give up just yet, shelter-in-place detectives: You’ve found the key to the safe containing the riddle which led to the map, but you are not out of the woods yet. The voice of mystery man and provocateur, Governor Jay Inslee, will boom out of the loudspeaker of your escape room on Sunday, May 31 with the final clue to unlock the door of your messy, smelly apartment.
A storm of eager clue-snatchers and cryptologists have been eagerly discussing what the next clue could be.
“I’ve already found the Mummy’s sarcophagus full of anagrams and puzzle pieces. That led me past the tower of overflowing dishes in the sink and into the other room where my cat was scratching up my IKEA couch,” said trapped and cash-strapped former bud tender, Harley Howell. “I didn’t even fall for the faulty compass that points south – total red herring. This next clue better open up the outside door and the state’s crippled economy, or else I might run out of time.”
Inslee has a habit of keeping things interesting. Rather than depositing the state’s unemployment claim benefits directly into citizens’ bank accounts, small bundles of cash have been hidden in violin cases, taped under floormats, and stuffed into coffee pots for contestants to discover.
“Superimposing Lewis and Clark’s original travel route onto your tiny apartment’s floorplan is probably a great starting point. Just imagine the pile of unfolded laundry on the floor to be Cape Disappointment and work backwards from there,” said one of Inlsee’s executive aides.
Internal sources with direct knowledge of what’s to come say that lockdowners are in for a surprise on May 31, when they discover that the next clue will lead them to a steel bomb-proof door with a counter-down timer that won’t open up fully until August.
