Down The Deep Dark Hole

I'm a tad claustrophobic. I didn't used to be. Went caving all the time, long ago, in the misspent days of my youth.

There was this one cave we visited. Getting into the "Foyer" was easy, but once you were in a ways, there was this entryway we called the "Steering Wheel," because it was a hole you had to crawl through that was a little bigger than the steering wheel on my car at the time. It wasn't just a HOLE, either. It was a four foot long GAP. You had to put your arms ahead of you and oonch along on your stomach muscles, inchworm style. But it was worth it, because of the gorgeous gallery up ahead, with these glittering calcite stalactites.

Then one day, we were down there, sitting and talking in the dark and admiring the natural beauty of the cave, and someone asked, "What time is it?"

...and I suddenly realized that it was much later than I thought it was. "OH, SHIT, WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW!"

Y'see, caves in Texas are quite often home to thousands of Mexican freetail bats that come out in the early evening to hunt bugs. Little buggers can eat a third of their weight in mosquitoes every night.

And in summer, they tend to come out ALL AT ONCE.

We scrambled, but I had to go first, because I was the only one who knew which way to go to get out. And I oonched through that four foot wiggle like I had never oonched before.

We almost made it.

And I will hear, forevermore, echoing in the dark spaces of my memory, Charlie's screams as several thousand Mexican freetail bats tried to get AROUND him through a four foot long tunnel that was less than two feet across.

I tell you, it was one lively night at the emergency room, that night...