A Story From Twenty Years Ago

It's almost twenty-five years since my high-school graduation. I took a lot of pictures back then, so one of my former classmates asked me to scan and upload all my old pics to share with everyone in our batch. I found a lot of photos in an old shoebox, all of which brought back good memories that made me laugh. I'd like to tell the story of the pic above. It's a personal story I can't help but share here, in the hopes that it'll make you guys laugh too. Given how crazy the world seems to be, a good laugh always helps, methinks.

This is a pic I took of my friends, John, Jonathan, and Eric. We were inside a dark cave which stretched a long way underground and was filled with murky water. We had heard about caves filled with bats in San Miguel, Bulacan, and decided to pay a visit. This photo was taken just before we all stripped down to our underwear and swam into the cave. The water tasted foul, and it was dark, scary, and full of bat guano. Yuck!

While we were swimming, Eric asked, "You think there are fish and other things in the water with us now?"

Of course, after he asked that, we all imagined cold and slimy stuff brushing up against our legs underwater. Eric's such an idiot for having asked a question that we really didn't need to hear.

I also remember John suddenly exclaiming in mid-stroke that he lost a new hammer in the depths. "My hammer! I dropped my hammer!" he said, which led me to ask him, "What the hell were you doing carrying a hammer with you?"

"We might have needed it," he said.

"We're swimming in deep water in a dark cave, and you expected to hammer something? What, you think we're suddenly going to see a nail sticking out of the cave wall and you would need to pound it in? Or did you plan to hang a picture of yourself somewhere in here?"

"It's my Dad's hammer! It's brand new! It's expensive! I've got to find it!"

"You're kidding, right?" Jonathan said. "You're going to dive in there?" The water was deep and unclear, and we weren't sure how far down it went. It could've been ten feet deep, or twenty, or more. Also, who knew what lurked beneath?

John did dive anyway. While he was gone, there were tense moments when the three of us wondered if he would ever resurface. He did, eventually, but he couldn't find the hammer. How could he? He said he couldn't even find the bottom.

Talking about it afterward cracked all of us up except for John, who was out one expensive hammer.

Years and years from now, people will explore this cave and find his new hammer, and wonder how it got there, not knowing the truth: that some nutjob brought a brand new hammer with him while swimming in the dark--for whatever dumb reason--and clumsily dropped it. A future archaeological puzzle, for sure.

These scientists will then mistakenly theorize that some construction might have been attempted inside the cave by human beings of the mid-20th century, and will then proceed to excavate the cave in the hopes of finding and studying further signs of human settlement inside deep dark places during this era. In the process of digging, they will completely destroy this natural wonder. This mistake will also cost these future people money, time, and valuable resources, cause violent arguments between warring factions of scientists and sociologists, and will set back all their research for decades.

We have only my friend, John, to blame.