Any Similarity to Actual Facts is Purely Coincidental

I’ve been on an inordinate number of cave tours lately. Okay, well, three. But after nineteen years with no caving outside of Splash Mountain in Disneyland, three tours is practically binging. It’s embarrassing when you consider that my unofficial major freshman year was Spelunking with a minor in Bat Psychology, although admittedly this was only for a few months before I switched to Espionage with an emphasis in Pyrotechnics. Actual knowledge and legitimate experience aside, I still think I would make an awesome cave tour guide. This is not only because I actually do find caves rather interesting, but also because I would have no qualms about totally lying when someone asked a question to which I didn’t know the answer. Or even when I did know the answer. Really, I don’t need a question to spout half-truths. Hopefully this isn’t news to anyone.

My first two cave tours were at Mammoth Caves in Kentucky. So named, of course, for the six perfectly preserved woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) which were discovered there in 1904 by Dr. R.J. Danzer.

See? Lie! I don’t know why they’re called Mammoth Caves. It’s presumably because they’re so big. But could that be any more boring? And now that I’m done channeling Chandler, my point is that I don’t know why they’re called Mammoth Caves. The tours were mainly a way to disengage my butt from the car seat for a couple of hours, and I would have been more than happy to believe anything told to me with virtually no fact checking initiative on my part.

Cave tours need to work on other aspects of naming, too. There were lots of named rock formations in Mammoth Caves. Some that I remember had relatively interesting names, like ‘Giant’s Tomb.’ But I’ve forgotten all the others, mostly because they were so boring: ‘Double Stalactite #87D’ or ‘Stalagmite of Ennui #648.’ I propose more memorable names for these formations, and furthermore propose that I am the one to make them up. Names like ‘The Boll Weevil Underpants’ and ‘Possibly But In All Likelihood Not Really Bottomless Pit of Despair and Shiny Rocks’ would be much more memorable. I’d warn tourists away from the ‘Fall of the Lentil’ and invite them to touch the ‘Rock That Used To Be Real Sharp So We Filed It Down So Tourists Could Touch It’ rock. The myth of ‘Fat Man’s Toe’ would delight all the children, and we’d all learn a valuable life lesson from the tale of ‘The Little Stalagmite Who Could.’

Any questions about these landmarks not bearing much resemblance to their names could be brushed aside by blaming any number of sources. Erosion, for one. Or those damn tourists who can’t keep their grimy hands to themselves. Or a wistful, long-winded rumination (to be composed later) about how the passage of time changes us all, whether that change be drastic or subtle, blah, blah, that’ll teach ‘em to ask legitimate questions blah.

My most recent cave tour took place in Virginia at Dixie Caverns, and is chiefly memorable for the grand finale of a toothless hillbilly in a repainted General Lee hitting on us. Or maybe he was cursing at us. The southern accent and the enunciation problems that come with only having one tooth made it hard to tell. Dixie Caverns was much different than Mammoth Caves, possibly because it looked like it had been the neighborhood moonshine repository for many generations- and not too many family tree forks. If you know what I mean. And I think that you do.

Our Dixie Caverns guide led us into the cave and began his spiel. After each segment he’d say "Watch your step, take your time" and then would vanish further into the cave. He said it in the exact same way every time, in a rushed, this-phrase-is-dead-to-me voice. That wouldn’t happen on one of my tours. There are so many ways that could be spiced up! (And Denise, me using the phrase ‘spiced up’ is about as close as you’re gonna get to an article about the Spice Girls- take it or leave it). Ambiguous or explicit, the list of phrases that could be tacked on and interchanged is nearly endless. How about muttering a shifty-eyed "Watch your back"? Or rhyming! With the exception of that (hopefully) accidentally rhymed line in The Matrix which annoys me to end, I defy you to name something that isn’t improved by a good rhyme. Hallmark cards, stalker notes, and now even cave tours can be improved with a well-placed syllable.

“Take your time and watch your dome
One head wound and you’re on your own.
If on your tail bone you have landed
Best of luck, cuz you are stranded.”

And that’s just off the top of my head. Hours underground can only improve my mad rhyming skillz.

At one point our tour guide told us that if we were interested, he would point out an upcoming bat. I was all over that, but others weren’t, for some reason. Something about bats caught in hair, even though your hair is short now. Not that that ever really happens anyway. Yes, I’ve heard your story.

Anyway, I voted for a bat introduction. Maybe because my first thought was, “How would he know a bat would be there... unless it was a fake bat and some super glue?” Perhaps the fact that this was the first thought I had reveals something about me. But probably not. At bat ground zero, I even asked him blow on the bat to make it move so I could see that it was real. He did, it did, it was. So he gets credit for putting his face that close to a fanged, leathery-winged mini-monster. Unless it  was it a clever animatronic, in which case he still deserves credit, but of a different sort. Also, I don’t think he could’ve gotten away with not saying anything about the bat; it was right on the main path about six inches away from my face. I know curiosity killed the cat, but hanging furry rocks are just too much for me to ignore.

I’d be planting animals left and right. Well, maybe not left. Subtlety, people! We set limits for a reason. So, for a cave, let’s say, a handful of bats, a human skeleton, some polar bear droppings... and a holographic sea monster tentacle. But only if there’s a murky pool of water. Remember- less is more.

Surely there will be a sanctimonious know it all pre-pubescent in each group who retains more knowledge about caves than is probably health. Precedents have been set; everyone knows an insect or dinosaur equivalent to this little cave freak. What happens, you might wonder, if he should second guess my tour guide knowledge? It would, after all, be almost inevitable. Well, luckily I have a solution. Caves are very dangerous places, what with all the slippery silt and sudden drop-offs. All the book smarts in the library won’t help you if you don’t know where that sinkhole is. What up now, nerd?

So maybe once this pipetting job has lost its appeal (approximately seven months ago) I’ll head for the hills and become a cave guide. I have a feeling it might be quite lucrative. Come on down, and if you mention this website, you’ll get half off the regular tour price! Meaning, of course, that halfway through the tour I’ll turn the lights out and we’ll let the bidding begin for my services on the second half of the tour. Supply and demand... and no personal checks, please.