This year, the staff began really cracking down on nametags. Everyone needed them leaving and coming back to the camp site. There are a few cheapos who want to avoid paying the registration fee, or are just stopping by for the day and don't want to pay a day pass. (Cavers are astoundingly, dependably cheap. Waitresses of the world: apologies for the years of bad tips.)
Half the people who attend have learned that cave trips take away from valuable drinking time, so those of us who actually went caving had them all to ourselves.
I get back from a caving trip on Saturday afternoon, and found two messages on my cell phone. I couldn't access them from the spotty reception in the car: It's West Virginia after all. I was curious who had left two messages. I can normally guess who called based on what calls I was expecting. Both of these were mysteries.
I get back to the NNJG's camp, and the grotto people sitting under the tarps say that the registration desk has been looking for me. Twice. The NNJG had its site marked on the dry erase board at the registration area. The security people must have seen that I was listed as an NNJG member, checked at the board, and then driven the golf cart to our tents.
They shouted if anyone knew where I was, when I was coming back, and that it was very important that I check in with the registration area. They did that again a couple hours later.
I don't say much, but begin running to the registration area. I know someone was dead - again.
In 2001, I went to the NSS Convention in Kentucky. I didn't have a cell phone, but called my family before I left. If anything important happened, I'd call. I didn't think they've have occasion to call me.
I didn't call during the week. Less people had cell phones in 2001, service was worse than it was now, and the only phones on site were a few pay phones literally a mile from my tent. I didn't have the pocketful of quarters to call 1000 miles away on a pay phone, but I didn't attempt to get that pocketful, either.
When I got back a week later, I found out that my friend Paul had died. He died before I even reached Kentucky. There had already been services, and several of my friends had taken off a few days from work, and there had been a big impromptu sleepover at my dad's place because he was close to where Paul lived in Edison. I had no idea it was going on. It was all over now.
Had I called, there was a family debate about whether to tell me. It'd ruin my vacation, and I'd have to choose between finding a way to get from Great Saltpetre Cave, Kentucky to New Jersey (I carpooled over with Ed Sira, who'd be leaving on Saturday) or ignoring Paul's death and pretending to have a good time. I hadn't called, and so the talk was just theoretical. I still don't know which I'd have preferred.
The next time I took a week's vacation, I began to get worried that there'd be another dead friend. It didn't happen, luckily. A little later I finally got a cell phone, so I could be in contact no matter where I was - except for mountainous areas.
As I run to the site now, with two uncheckable messages on the phone in my pocket, I wonder which of my family members were in the most danger this weekend. As far as I know, they were all sticking around home. If anyone was going to die in a Labor Day incident, it statistically should be me. But they all could be traveling, be hit by drunk drivers or just be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I reach the registration area, an opened garage that's wallpapered in giant winged insects and flyers for OTR events. Someone else was in line, going through the slow motion of double-checking ID before getting issued a replacement ID badge. Replacement badges are $2, and for the first time people who lose their badges now have a practical reason to get new ones.
Steve McLuckie is volunteering behind the desk. He's a good guy; I remember him keeping a calm demeanor when he was inspecting someone's gear left in a garage for a year, found a mother mouse with six babies hanging onto her nipples, and then had the scampering seven-mouse Voltron run up his arm and under his shirt.
The people with the lost ID are taking their sweet damn time. I don't know for sure I have a dead family member, and don't usually insist on cutting in the line, but do they have to be so damned slow about everything? Just take your card and leave!
After two of the longest minutes of my life, they leave. Steve says hi without a major break in his demeanor: if he knows there's a "Dead Mom" note waiting to be delivered, he's got a hell of a poker face. I say that there was a message for me from security. Steve walks to the little room in the back to check.
He comes back with a slightly more serious look on his face. He reaches out across the table to hug me.
Wait, he's grabbing my lapels. He pulls me close to him, like a drill sergeant who just got called Suzie. This is a really horrible way to tell me my mom's dead.
"You owe us money, mister."
This was not instant relief; I'm a little too scared to wipe that slate clean in two seconds. I swear it has nothing to do with me being cheap.
Steve doesn't know the specifics, but it has something to do with the grand sum of $10. I almost had the world's earliest heart attack because of $10.
Those messages on my phone might could still be bad news. Somehow, I had reception in the registration garage. The first message is from my dad, inviting me to a barbecue on Sunday. The second message is also Dad, saying he forgot I was in West Virginia but if I find my way back to New Jersey by Sunday I was invited to a barbecue.
Now my heart stops racing. No logical reason to worry. I ask Steve if I should just pay the $10 now, but this is something only the one guy can handle. I tell Steve I'll stop by later when the guy is actually there.
The $10 in question dates back to January of 2000. I wrote a $10 check to join TRA, the organization that runs OTRs (and really ought to be named OTR to avoid confusion). Soon after I wrote the check, I changed banks. I transferred half of my checking account money to the new bank, and left half the money for three months for all checks to clear. I don't do the best bookkeeping with personal checks, but knew there wasn't anything big outstanding. I emptied the account in April 2000.
In July 2000, I get issued a TRA card in the mail. They then blow the dust off my $10 check - presumably with a stack of other $10 checks - and try to cash them. Mine bounces. (I don't know if it would have bounced if I had closed out the account the official way. A teller said I just needed to write a check for the whole balance. Once it had a zero balance, it would close down by itself. This wasn't true, so I began getting $10 charges for insufficient funds - and then a bounced check fee of $25 or so on top of that.)
I had my card, though, so when I went to OTR on Labor Day 2000, I showed my card and said I might owe $10. This happened to be 2:00 A.M., when I normally hit OTR after driving straight to West Virginia from work. Whoever was courteous/brain-addled enough to volunteer for the night shift at the registration desk was not equipped for advanced bureaucratic technique to properly charge me, so he waived me through.
Five years pass, and I'm back at OTR. I walk back to the tents and tarps, explaining happily that my family was not dead. I walk over to Vendor's Row, and the free soda coolers by that, and the giant campfire by that. It's a cold OTR, so I warm up a bit.
I come back to the campsite, and they've come looking for me again. This is a third time they're looking for me - possibly a fourth, since I'm hearing reports from different people who are at camp at different times. This can't be for just $10. They've worn out $10 in tread on the golf cart alone.
I run over to the registration area, and the guy I need to talk to is in attendance. He has a huge cigar, which is working like citronella to keep the bugs away. He explains to me that there's a discrepancy in my membership funds. I offer to pay $10. He declines. He then goes over his side of the transaction - inheriting a lot of paperwork, from a group that's not too inclined to care about paperwork, and researching delinquent accounts.
"We've been looking for you for five years now," he says.
I've been a very hard guy to find. In five years, I've never moved or changed my phone number. I've had the same email, and publish a monthly caving newsletter that had my address as the return. My contact information is in the NSS directories. I've registered at three OTRs.
I bring some of this up, and he waves it off. "I'm not prepared to look that deep," he says. Nonetheless, I've been hiding out like D.B. Cooper for five years. He then says to square the account, he would like to receive a $10 check. I say I've got cash. He would prefer a check. You think he'd be wary about accepting another check from known credit risks like me.
I didn't bring a checkbook, so he reluctantly accepts the cash. He takes four minutes to write out a receipt for the $10.
For the rest of OTR, people come up to me and say security is looking for me. I assume these are old messages getting to me, but for all I know, security is still looking for me. I could owe interest on that vast sum I stiffed them out of.
Maybe I should send them a $10 check in 2010, just in case.