As sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, you can be sure that when Olive Garden releases their annual Never Ending Pasta Passes those suckers will be gone almost instantly. This year was no exception. But the pasta giants were kind to their pasta-loving fans this year: when Olive Garden launched a countdown clock on their website a few days ago, it ticked down the hours, minutes, and seconds to September 19 without letting us know why.
When the clock hit zero, we found out that Olive Garden created a digital scavenger hunt for 10 lucky people to win year-long pasta passes. As in you get free pasta if you’re good at puzzles and quick as lightning.
Essentially, you had to solve one of the 10 puzzles, the answer to which would lead you to a social media profile. If you were the first person to direct message that account with the phrase, “Pasta pass please!” then you won a frickin’ pasta pass. Simple enough.
But they didn’t make it easy — after all, a pasta pass is like gold, spaghetti, and lasagna and ravioli gold). Though all 10 passes were claimed within a day, the puzzles weren’t exactly self-explanatory. Which means that 10 people out there are puzzle geniuses, and they should probably, like, become professional labyrinth sphinxes or puzzle masters. After eating all that pasta, of course.
Because, I mean, look at these:
But the esoteric clues didn’t stop people from searching. And maybe even slagging off work.
It's a scavenger hunt! Which I'm not doing instead of working. Nope.
— Lisa Maria Garza (@LMariaGarza) September 19, 2018
Congratulations to the lucky winners. You pasta-rich bastards.
