My search for the elusive ANSWER.

The ANSWER is a legendary beast that is said to inhabit the endless deserts of the African savannah. Hunters have spent centuries voyaging into the desert--some come with axes, some come with knives, some come empty handed--but all of them have the same goal in mind. To catch the Answer. To grab hold of it, drag it down, and claim it as their own.

Most of them return empty handed, though some return with tales of seeing a blur running away at a thousand miles an hour, or a shadow on the sand, or a solitary footprint, eight feet in diameter, or a single eye peering at them during the night.

I decided it was high time I tried to catch the Answer myself.

I didn't have a gun or anything else typically used for big game hunting. I didn't even have a tranquilizer. Instead, I grabbed a rubber band and a butterfly net.

I couldn't go to Africa, so I simply wandered out into the woods.

Alas, no Answer. It eventually dawned on me that I didn't even know what an Answer looked like. I could have been staring one in the face all along, but not known it.

That was the Answer.

No wonder it's so hard to catch with a net.