Crane Lake, Minnesota 1986

It was a hot summer night, my friend Derrick and I were bored, we had been looking around for others in a party mood at the small number of bars around and we’d had a few drinks, but it was a boring dead night so we decide with beers in hand and a cooler in the trunk to drive down the road to visit our friend Jay to see if he wants to go on an exciting boat ride with us to somewhere wonderful that hadn’t yet been determined. When we got to Jay’s place there were no lights on and it looked like everyone was asleep inside. It was late so we crept quietly around the back of the large house so as not to disturb any other occupants. It’s an extremely dark overcast night with no moon or stars, I can’t even see Derrick walking in front of me. We get to the back of the house and we spot a faint light on in Jay’s room, the windows open and the TV‘s on, we whisper-yell through the screen.
“Jay! You awake? He pops up from the couch.
“Yeah, I’m awake! Who is it?” He strains to see us in the darkness.
“It’s Derrick and Carole! Let’s go for a cruise in the boat! Get your ass out here! Come on, we’ve got beer! Lsss-go! Hurry your ass up.”
“What the hell are you two up to?” He says chuckling while he talks, because he knows we’re usually up to something and then things happen.
“We’re here to get you, let’s go! Boat ride… beer… and then skinny dipping!” Derrick says. Jay still laughing while he talks says.
“Really? Skinny dipping? Carole you’re going skinny dipping with us?”
I step closer to the screen and answer. “That’s the first I heard of thaaa……” and a deep rumble was heard….
Derrick and Jay burst into loud laughter thinking I fell down, again… because I do tend to fall a lot and they think it’s hilarious. Derrick reaches down to help me, but I’m not there so he waves his arms feeling around and he can’t find me. While straining to see in the darkness, Derrick says.
“Carole, where are you?” No answer, then he says.
“Shit! Jay! I think this time she’s knocked herself out!” and now they’re laughing harder, but Derrick still hasn’t found me, he stops laughing and says loudly.
“Carole!!!” Still no answer, so now he steps back and looks around and says seriously.
“She’s gone!!! What the hell? Carole!”
No answer.
“She was right here a second ago!” He says confused as he quickly spins around looking for me.
“Carole! Where’d you go?”
“She didn’t even finish what she was saying…” Jay says.
“She’s not here, she’s gone… Carole!” Derrick interrupts completely perplexed as he widens the area he’s searching. Jay hurried outside and now they are both looking out around in the trees absolutely astonished how I was “there one second and gone the next.”
“This is crazy. She can’t be gone! She was right here…” says Derrick.
“Well, she’s gone now! Is she messing with us? She must be messing with us. CAROLE!” said Jay sternly.
“Okay, you won and you’re very funny, you can come out now.” Derrick surrenders.
In the meantime…… I can hear them and can tell they’ve moved away from me, thinking that I’m up in the woods, and I haven’t won anything, actually I’m a stupid loser that’s stuck, really stuck. Suddenly I’ve found myself jammed deep down a hole… a very small hole… I can’t move, and it hurts really bad when I try, I can hardly breathe because I got the wind knocked out of me and now my chest is compressed and every time I exhale it gets more difficult to inhale. My knees are wedged tight against my chest, my toes are pointed down with my heels pressed into my butt and I’m a little light-headed when I think “Now what the fuck did I do to myself?
Why am I in a hole?

And how deep is this fucking hole?” I wiggle my feet and touch nothing. Scary.
I can barely make a sound that they can’t hear because they keep calling for me and saying things like “She was right here!” I’m trying to talk, but I’m squeezed in so tight that very little comes out, my left arm is wedged in and I’m still holding my near full beer which I can’t drink, and I wonder “is this hell?” After about five long minutes of them searching I hear one of them step near me crunching small sticks and I manage wiggle my right arm out and I reach up and touch his foot, Derrick jumps back startled and yells,
“What the hell?” Then he realizes it’s me and he bends over and can barely see me jammed way down this stupid ass hole and he just loses it laughing. He calls Jay and they both are looking down at me and they start laughing hysterically again for a good minute or longer and then they say.
“Carole, what are you doing down there?” I think to myself, stupid ass holes… and this stupid ass hole.
Not doing a whole lot… I make an attempt at talking because there are many things I want to say to them at this point. They finally quit laughing, and realize I’m in trouble and they start to painfully tug me by the armpits out of an old, deep, narrow ribbed metal window well that had the window cemented up and as they struggle to get me out, they re-scrape my back, especially my knees and shins that had been scraped falling in. I’m bleeding, hunched over, and I can barely walk, ouch, and they’re still laughing, (me too kinda) ouch, with one hand holding my lower back, I lift my beer and take a very large half a can swig. I hadn’t spilt my beer, actually no matter what happens to me I rarely spill my beer, it’s a gift. I may beat the hell out of my body, but when I’m done I still have my beer to soothe me. We’re all standing around the small window well straining to see down into it and Derrick says.
“How in the hell did you get in there?” I don’t answer and say.
“Does it have a bottom?” because this was my major concern while I was in the flipping hole for all I knew it could have been a well! And I don’t understand why this shit always happens to me?
Things just happen. I don’t have to go looking for trouble, sometimes out of nowhere it just grabs me by the ass, pulls me in and holds me tight.