No, I'm not talking about stealing formations and selling them on the black market. (And if I was, I'm wouldn't have much luck shopping in Leigh.) I'm talking gear. Flashlights, helmets, batteries: the necessary stuff for caving.
Leigh Cave tends to have a lot of first time cavers crawl through its gates. These cavers don't necessarily leave the property with the same volume of gear that they came in with.
Normal cave litter tends to be Powerbar wrappers, soda cans and broken beer bottles. But due to luck (either their bad or my good), all the litter around Leigh comes in the form of perfectly serviceable cave gear.
The last time I went to Leigh was a little under two years ago (just before the cave became harder to get into than Fort Knox). This was a trip with dozens of ten-year-olds marching their way through the cave.
I had invited my friends Tony and Laura along, since they were curious about caving. They were taller than the average Leigh tourist that day, but there were plenty of other grown ups seeing Leigh for the first time. (Long story short about Tony and Laura: they changed their minds very soon after seeing the pipe they had to crawl through. Next time I'll invite them to a cave with entrances bigger than personal pizzas.)
There were also eight gajillion kids going through the cave that day. That number might be a bit of hyperbole, but it was still at least fifty kids passing through Leigh's tiny metal portholes. We should set up a toll booth.
I was one of the last people to leave the cave, and noticed a pile of flashlights by the entrance. These were big D-cell flashlights, not all that useful for caving, but nice in a big pack as a backup light. Maybe they were dropped, or stashed by people who forget them on the way out. Either way, they were in the cave, the buses full of kids were long gone, and the responsible thing to do is to pack everything out of the cave. So I did.
As a further bonus, outside one of the kids left a perfectly good pale green climbing helmet. No light mount, but it works fine for head-bonk protection.
Add this stuff to the fourth flashlight I had in my bag from Tony and Laura (who forgot about it in their haste to get someplace without a roof) and I had hit the jackpot.
I brough the loot to the next grotto meeting, but no one claimed any of it. So I held onto it until the original owners could be found. But for all practical purposes, I've already stuck my branding iron on them. (Except Tony and Laura's flashlight, which I gave back to them the next time I saw them.)
I was eagerly awaiting my next Leigh trip (and hoping there were some forgetful carbide cavers) but the Leigh lockdown began soon afterward.
Fast forward two years. After a ridiculously long negotiation period, Mark Ives� Boy Scout troop finally gets the approval to enter the cave. And I'm available to chaperone.
Bear in mind Francois was the leader. He did the hard work. Rachael and I were the chaperones. This is equivalent to the teachers that go to the prom and get to drink all the confisgated hootch. It's not a job, it's standing around and occasionally making sure no one walks off a cliff.
Before the trip, Mark gave me several packages of AA batteries to hold in my bag. They were in individual cardboard four-count sleeves, a format I hadn't seen before. I dropped four or five packages in my bag, and we crawled into Leigh.
The trip was on Father's Day, so naturally it became agony for the dads that volunteered their day to bond with their sons. Two of the meatier dads had some trouble going in the Mail Slot. So that was an hour of standing around. Getting them back out was another hour. Too bad none of these scouts had any hootch to confisgate.
This problem is acutally a good thing for a small cave. It stretches the trip out. Without incidents, you can see all of Leigh inside of half an hour. Whatever adds filler makes it seem like a burlier trip, despite you being four minutes from the entrance the whole time.
We got outside and had the usual post-cave soda and granola bar consumption. I was looking for scouts who might forget some juicy piece of equipment, but they all put it right back in their cars where they came from. (They picked up their litter, too.)
Dang, no booty for me.
I got home later that night, and went through the customary preliminary gear cleaning. This doesn't clean a thing, but is the bare minimum to prevent corrosion and mold from sprouting on my stuff. The coveralls get thrown in the shower, my boots are put on the radiator to dry, the batteries get taken out of the lights, and my pack gets emptied.
Inside my bag was some mushy cardboard ... and brand new batteries. Those cardboard sleeves were trashed at the first hint of moisture, but the loose batteries were all perfectly serviceable.
They're not mine, so I need to return them to Mark. If there's any circumstance where Mark, me and the batteries are in one room, I'll be happy to give them back. But those are slim odds.
Everyone has half a dozen books they've lent out and never gotten back, and another half dozen books they've borrowed but never given back. These batteries fall in the same category. They're minor enough items so it's just not worth remembering past a certain time period.
In the meantime, I'm getting my branding iron heated up.