You'd think that it would be easy to come up with an idea for a lifestyle piece from B3 in Louisville, Kentucky. It's the home of Larry Flynt, we were sure that there were a lot of slaughterhouses in the area and the Derby was just weeks away. On the plane ride to the event, we were confident that ideas would just fall into our hands.

It would have been too easy to pick on the Kentucky Waterfall (a popular slang term for a mullet) for our piece. Although there were mullets-o-plenty worn by the spectators, many of the helmeted warriors actually had commendable reasons for their hairstyle. As a matter of fact, one man grew the back of his hair out specifically so that he could cut it and then donate it to children with cancer. His intentions were honorable, but sadly ours were not. After years of poking fun at something we didn't understand, we had a new understanding of the mullet. Ashamed, we decided that it best to scrap that idea and think of something else.

It would have been even easier to deliver a fluff piece on "Thunder 2000." For those of you who don't know what Thunder is, we were told that it was the largest fireworks display in America and that it officially announced the beginning of the Kentucky Derby. Unfortunately, the EXPN booth didn't close down on Saturday until around 7:00 P.M. Tired from a day of handing out stickers and harassing people, we opted to watch the fireworks from the parking lot of the Holiday Inn rather than risk the enormous crowd comprised of residents from every bordering city and state. Even from the luxurious parking lot, we were impressed by the 50-some-odd tons of fireworks over the Ohio River, but it didn't really seem to fit into what we considered a "lifestyle" piece.

As the weekend progressed, we had another brilliant idea. While sharing a "ten sack" at White Castle (we were told that it was "Kentucky brain food"), we noticed a Big and Tall store across the street. Cornelius ,star of the soon to be EXPN exclusive web-show Guerrilla Cam, suggested that we buy the largest pair of underpants and see how many little kids we could get to fit inside of them. They were men's size 74 waist and although they seemed to be the hit of the show, even bigger than the Condor's return, we decided to save the footage for G-Cam. Besides, it's really hard to write about a bunch of kids getting into a wacky pair of underwear without alerting the federal authorities.

Sunday rolled around and we began to get desperate. It wasn't that we were brain-dead from the nightly Louisville rituals or that we didn't appreciate the hospitality of the locals, it was just that everything seemed to backfire. Fireworks, mullets, big underwear, we decided to leave those stories for the local news. However, it's times like these, when you're facing the prospect of returning home empty handed, that a story finds you.

Like we had on Saturday, we put together a list of items for the local kids to run around wildly and fetch. Their mission: to get every single item to win a signed skateboard deck. It was hard work, but we felt that rather than just draw a name out of a box, it would be an interesting way to keep the kids busy between events. At around two o'clock on Sunday, ESPN announced the EXPN Scavenger Hunt from the vert ramp. Hundreds of little skaters, bladers and bikers swarmed to meet Cornelius by the EXPN tent for a chance at a deck signed by Kingdom's Chris Gentry and his gorgeous wife. Several kids grabbed for the deck. Others opted to shove each other around and try and get first dibs at the important list that was about to be posted. One kid pointed at another accusing him of being a "liar" and a "cheater" from the event on Saturday. It was madness. Quietly, in the back of the chaos, a woman and her five year-old daughter studied the list. It read:

Two soaking wet girls
Bag of chips
1/2 Dozen Socks
Powerbar
Snowcone
Cup of river water
One pocket full of dirt, one full of ice
Sunglasses
A newspaper
A large cardboard box
Ten cigarette butts
Five Cans
Twenty packs of Winterfresh gum
Gum off of the ground
Autographs from a cop, a beer lady and someone with a heavy metal T-shirt

Instantaneous havoc broke out as boarders, bladers and bikers set aside their differences to team up. Although it was obvious by looking in their eyes, that they would bide their time to stab each other in the back after they won, the community created from the second the list was unveiled seemed sincere. Brotherhood and unity filled the air as security guards began screaming things like, "get off that board," "walk your bike," and "take those skates off." High fives went around the horn and it didn't seem to matter what discipline or lifestyle you had chosen. It was truly what a festival like B3 was supposed to be about. It was better than mullets. It was more breathtaking than fireworks and it smelled a lot better than big underpants. These kids were actually exercising. Not only that, they were acting environmentally.

Unsurprisingly, anything that runs that smoothly and creates that much mayhem usually ends in horror. And this did. One by one, the teams returned with their items, and the walls of action sports discrimination returned. Cornelius was nearly trampled by the excited kids as they shouted at him to sift through their stuff. We found out that even a big man is no match for a gaggle of deck-hungry kids. Covered in cigarette butts, half-chewed gum and drippings from soda cans that had been urinated in, Cornelius gained the control of the crowd by shouting, "I don't see any soaking wet girls!"

The kids were silenced as they gripped onto each other for ideas. They tugged at their anchorman (usually the tallest or coolest of their gang) for answers. One desperate young man even offered ten bucks to two girls walking by and was rejected. And then, as the many teams began to take on new members and assess the situation, from the back of the pack a path cleared as the soaking wet mother and her daughter stepped forward with a large cardboard box. Cornelius, who didn't even realize they were competing, started checking them by patting them on the back.

"They're soaking wet," he announced to the confusion of the flock. "Check."

Winners of the EXPN scavenger hunt

The other contestants shrugged their shoulders and desperately picked up the pace. Item-by-item, the articles were plucked from the mother's cardboard box. With only two things left--the pocket full of ice and the pocket full of dirt--the mother looked into her daughter's eyes and did the unspeakable.

""I don't have any pockets in my pants,"" she said. As the other teams surrounded her nervously jumping up and down, she poured a blue snow cone and a handful of dirt down her pants and won the EXPN Scavenger Hunt.

As the event came to close, three kids approached the little girl in their Fox Racing T-shirts and said, "you have the coolest mother in the world." She threw the Chris Gentry deck over her shoulder (it was 3/4 of her overall mass), she thanked the boys and proudly walked away.

This might seem a little cheesy to a lot of people, but it was one of the coolest things that I had ever witnessed. There is no bottom line or real message to this story. It wasn't a miracle and it didn't convey the true spirit of any phoney holiday. It was nice however--especially after we had gone to the event with nothing but cruel intentions--to see something other than funnel cakes, half-eating corn dogs and little kids kicking out each other's legs.