Dive Weekend" Chapter 2 Claustrophobia!

Chapter 2: Claustrophobia!

After returning to the dock our Hero changed and waited on the other divers to return. While waiting he disconnected his now empty tank and returned it to be refilled. He also changed into street clothes and waited for the others to get back. The dive leader said we had an hour and a half for lunch and to be back at the classroom at noon. The D, Curtis, and Larry went to lunch while Reggie stayed behind and tried to figure out why his dive computer was not working properly. The D does not know what a dive computer does other than tell you the depth that you are at but he does know that it looks like birthday cake sitting on your arm. They are HUGE!

After lunch they returned to the locker room and then assembled back at the classroom for another short briefing about the second dive. On this second dive they would be going under rock ceilings and a few caves that have names like “The Grand Canyon”, “The Chapel”, and “The Cathedral”. “Big deal” he thinks “As long as I don’t have to jack with my mask again I’m golden!”

Back at the dock after the briefing, putting on a wet wet suit is no picnic, nor a walk in the park. It’s like taking a frozen condom and trying to put it on your bird, NOT easy, (What? You mean ya’ll don’t freeze your condoms? You should, they will stay fresher longer.) On the second dive, The D is committed to being the first diver in the water. He rushes, has Reggie check his gear and makes his way to the waters edge, and jumps in the water.

The water still takes his breath way. But the freak out is only at level 3 instead of the max level of 10 as it was in the previous dive. After everyone had gotten in the water and made their way to the rally point the dive leader gives the all clear hand signal and they start to descend to about 25 feet below the surface. As he descends our diver sees the size of the cavern that they are going to pass thought and gets a little freaked out. “Cavern? That isn’t a cavern, that’s more like a mouse hole”. The freak out level is now a solid 5. As each of the divers pass thought the “cavern” it’s clear that it’s big enough for any average size person to fit though. “Dam it’s a good thing I’ve lost 55 pounds” he reminds himself. As he is deciding weather to pass thought the hole he reminds himself “Shit this is stupid, getting freaked out about a little cave. So what that there is no where to surface if my tank sprouts a leak, or if a rock falls on my head or, God forbid, there is a total collapse of the cave. I am a Marine and I can do anything, so lets just get the fuck moving and show this cave who’s boss!” (When the fuck did The D become claustrophobic? He’s not afraid of small spaces. Except for the crawl space under his house but that’s not because of the confinement it’s because of all the nasty little critters lurking under there.) With that little speech his confidence is at an all time high for the trip so far. He resumes his usually stellar attitude and marches thought the hole.

At the first safety check he learns that he has only 500 p.s.i of air left in his tank, which according to the safety briefing, before the first dive is, only about 5-10 minutes of air left so he is a little considered. The dive leader separates him and another diver from the rest of the group, like a teacher separating two problem children from the rest of the class. He must surface and swim back to the dock. He has to cut this trail short again. He surfaces along with another diver and a safety diver and they swim back to the dock.

He is disappointed that he has to cut another dive short and talks to one of the safety divers about the amount of air that is put in to the tanks. Maybe he is just not getting a full tank? The safety diver assures him that every tank is filled to capacity, every tank has the same amount of air in them. He tells him that some people take unusually deep breaths while diving and suggest that this is what he is doing. He suggests that in the next dive he concentrate on taking shallower breaths and try to breathe normally. “Breath normally? I’m under 25 feet of water how the hell am I supposed to breath normally. Jerk. Besides I like to sound like Darth Vader when I breath.” He thinks as he is waiting on the rest of the dive group.

As the rest of the group arrives they all go back to the locker rooms and change back into street clothes.

They went back to the hotel and decided to meet back in the lobby at 6:30 to go to dinner. He really wanted to see the final score of the KU vs. Nebraska game, but just as they were arriving back at the hotel, Aphrodite texted him the final score of the game. Man, that's an ass-whipping, but he is glad he did not watch the game because he thinks blowouts like that are boring games.

Curtis, Reggie, and Larry had dove (dived?) in the mine before so they knew the lay of the land and were talking about this place to eat for dinner that had all you can eat ribs. Hell yea, The D was defiantly down for a truck load of ribs, especially after a day of diving and an awesome freak out episode. They arrive at the establishment of which, he forgets the name, but he does remember that it was just south of Boone Terre, maybe Farmington. Either way it makes no difference. There was about a 5 min wait to be seated, not too bad for what looked like a mom and pop run restaurant.

They all sat down and ordered our drinks ice tea for everyone, except The D, he doesn’t like iced tea, sweetened or unsweetened, its nasty either way (but not as nasty as pickles). The D is the difficult one and orders a diet Coke, his fav. The waitress name was Jenna, just like the porn star but she did not look like her at all. They all agreed that they are here for the all you can eat, at $10.95 is just like a limp penis, you can’t beat it! He loads up his plate with 2 ribs, 2 pieces of chicken, some pulled pork, some deep fried cat fish, and an ear of corn on the cob. All of which were very tasty once they were in his tummy. As he was finishing the first plate off, and deciding on whether or not to get another plate full, something wonderful happened.

Larry came back from the salad bar with what looked like pudding on his plate. Larry was talking about the days dives or whatever.

“What is that?” The D points while interrupting rudely.

“Is that pudding? Is that vanilla or tapioca?” The D commands.

“Umm, I think it’s vanilla.” Larry answers cautiously and then tastes it.

“Yup, vanilla” he informs The D.

“Where is it? Is it on the salad bar? Do they have more? Did you take all of it? Do they have chocolate?” The D questions but does not wait for the answers.

He must know more about this pudding situation, because if there is one thing that The D loves in this world is chocolate pudding. Chocolate pudding is one of the top 3 things that he loves in this world. Not the top 3 foods, mind you, or even the top 3 favorite dairy based products, it’s in the top 3 favs of everything! If there was a suit made of chocolate pudding it would be the only thing he would wear. He loves chocolate pudding so much that it is actually a prerequisite for a woman to know how to make a it (and make it well) to be placed on the “potential wife list” which is a VERY selective list.

He makes a b-line for the salad bar knocking down some old broad, and screaming “Move Bitch!”, to get to the salad bar before anyone else hears of this pudding, thusly avoiding the stampede to said location of the pudding. He surveys the bowl situation, oh, hell no those bowls won’t do, entirely too small. The D falls back on his Marine Corps training and overcomes and improvises, and goes for the classic Daffy Duck slice.

[For those of you that do not know what a “Daffy Duck Slice” is, allow me to elaborate. A Daffy Duck slice is when you slice a price of cake (or whatever) but instead of taking that smaller slice you take the larger slice, or the remainder of the cake. It’s quite entertaining at a kids birthday parties when you slice the cake and leave the little piece for all the kids to fight over. Saying “O.K. you little fuckers have at it!” And walk off with the big piece of cake. Hours of laughter right there let me tell you.]

He takes a small bowl and begins to fill it up. He then takes the smaller bowl, that is now full of chocolate pudding. He places the smaller bowl where the larger bowl used to be and takes the larger bowl back to his seat. He turns to the next person, who is an 80 year old grand mother type of person, in line who is quite shocked at what she has just seen transpire in front of her and he says. ”What? Its all you can eat? Go fuck yourself ya old Bitch.”

While shoveling in the chocolate pudding into the open orifice on his face The D reminds everyone in the restaurant that “It’s all you can eat, you slack jawed yokels, so stop staring at me or I will kill you all!” He then laughs “Muwahahahahah, It’s mine it’s all mine!!!! MUWAHAHAHAHA!!!! Starts to cough and passes out with his face in the pudding. Death by chocolate pudding now THAT, is how I want to go.

After dinner they went and played a couple games of pool and had a few beers at a local pool hall. The D is not a good pool player he never has been and doesn’t play it enough to get good at it much like golf. He likes to play it but get very frustrated when he doesn’t play well. The rest of the crew was constantly complaining about the people smoking and how smokey it was in the bar. As a former smoker it really was not that bad, the smoke doesn't bother him. Most likely because both of his parents smoked and his mother still does, and if you ever speak to her about quitting she will murder you. “It’s my life and it’s my body I’ll do what I want. I tell you kids (we are all in our 30’s and she still calls us kids) what to do , you don’t tell me what to do, so SHUT UP!”

They were all pretty worn out from the late night last night and getting up at the crack of dawn (dawn is a bitch by the way) this morning so they called it quits by 9:00 and headed back to the hotel.

To Be Continued…

Next Chapter 3: The Reckoning!