On any given workday, I have an average of seven continuous IM conversations going on. And that’s with people at work. Some of them are in my department, and our conversations focus mostly on what dipshits our co-workers are. Some of them are outside my department, and our conversations focus mostly on what dipshits everyone’s co-workers are. Sometimes the topics of conversation stray away from co-workers but remain on people who are dipshits.

The other day, Zach and I were talking about a pub crawl he’d been on over the weekend that led him to a few Bosnian bars. The thing about St. Louis is that it’s full of Bosnians. The regular Serbo-Croatian Bosnians started coming here in the mid-90s when Milosevic was busy ethnically cleansing his way across their country. Then the ethnic Albanians came. Then the gypsies came. Also, you should know that a lot of the Bosnians are Muslim (they were the ones being cleansed) and some of them are Christians. And again, some of them are gypsies.

The regular Bosnians have beef with the Albanians and vice versa, but everyone has beef with the gypsies. And without trying to sound like an asshole xenophobe, it’s because the gypsies tend to be some shady motherfuckers. Have you seen My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding? Okay, multiple that by about three hundred and remember that we’re talking about Eastern Europe. They are highly, highly ethnic and highly, highly resistant to anything that’s not. I know that most people living in strictly American America want to believe that all ethnic groups are these adorably boisterous and food crazy minorities, but that’s simply untrue. Like I said, the regular Bosnians and Albanians don’t like the gypsies. According to them, they lie, scam, steal, sponge off the government (which now includes the Bosnians, as they live, work, and pay taxes here), drink, gamble, do drugs, cheat on their women, beat their women, and are general lowlifes. I’ve no idea how much of this is true and how much of it is cultural bias or if these gypsies are the kinds that do curses, but one woman on my Facebook married a gypsy right out of high school and she seems to share most of these sentiments. They are still married.

Anyway.

Somehow, the topic of Bosnian bars on a pub crawl got Zach and I talking about hipster bars on a pub crawl, and because it’s no fun to just be in a hipster bar, we decided to add a safari element to it. A hipster bingo element, if you will. We decided that we could print up official scorecards and rent a party bus and charge people to go on a Hipster Scavenger Hunt Pub Crawl.

The circuit would include your standard hipster-ish bars in the South City corridor of Bevo, Southwest Garden, Tower Grove, and South Grand. Each contestant gets a card with a list of hipster attributes to “hunt,” and cameras are required. Pics or it didn’t happen. While most scavenger hunts are on an each-item-gets-a-check sort of standard, our scavenger hunt items will be scored on a point scale. It’s easy to find someone wearing plaid, but an ironic My Little Pony tattoo should obviously be worth more.

I have no idea what the point system is yet. I can’t do everything.

• plaid
• deep V-neck
• video game tattoo
• comic book/cartoon tattoo
• local band tattoo
• tattoo that makes no goddamn sense whatsoever, like, a fucking scribble or something
• hipster locking up a fixie
• keys and bike lock hanging from belt loop
• hood up while indoors
• Ray-Bans worn indoors
• ear gauges
• general malnourishment
• Parliaments/American Spirits/some other old person hippie cigarette
• Marty McFly vest
• “I don’t watch television”
• dude wearing a headband
• chick wearing a headband across her forehead
• sweat bands (wrist or forehead are acceptable and scored equally)
• proudly-displayed pit stains
• dirty hair
• flippy hair
• minor 70’s rock star hair
• could-be-kind-of-emo hair
• “their first album was better”
• terrible posture without benefit of scoliosis
• tall can of PBR
• participation in veganism
• ironic eyeglasses (includes grandma-style, army issue while not actually in the army, and lens-free)
• chain wallets
• bandana hanging from back pocket
• Keds, or similarly disgusting filthy canvas shoes
• kickball league shirt and/or trophy
• anyone who brings a laptop or iPad into a bar
• very expensive DSLR held by someone who looks homeless
• hipster mullet (worn by anyone too young to have been 23 in 1987 and/or not currently residing in a trailer on 10+ acres of land)
• jorts (cuffed or cut-off, scored equally)
• skinny jeans
• tight-rolled jeans
• weather-inappropriate clothing (ex: scarves or floppy, impotent-looking stocking caps worn in summer, straw hats or loose-fitting weightlifter tank tops worn in winter)
• age-inappropriate clothing (ex: anything that would fit a child or small-boned teenager but definitely not an adult with a drinking problem)
• interest in sports, but only those played by Europeans
• suspenders that don’t actually hold up someone’s pants
• belt made from a piece of rope
• unnecessarily high socks
• indie music karaoke
• copy of VICE magazine
• references to Terry Richardson, David Lynch, or Brian Eno
• earbuds in while at a bar or other social event

Mustache Lightning Round (points vary by type):

• finger ‘stache
  scum ‘stache
  porn ‘stache
  Old West ‘stache
  Magnum PI ‘stache (TRICK QUESTION hipsters can’t grow manful ‘staches!)

(Thanks to Zach, Tyler, and Graham for helping to write this list. Especially Graham, who was blasé at first but then got into it enough to shout suggestions from the shower.)