Digging a Hole to China

   Do you remember as a kid when you thought that if you dug a hole and kept digging, you'd end up on the other side of the Earth, perhaps in China?  I was afraid that was going to happen to me one day when I was about nine or ten years old.

   On the east side of our house, between the outer wall and the driveway, was a strip of dirt where, near to the side steps, my mom grew irises.  There was a patch of bare dirt, though, that never seemed to grow anything.  Maybe something got dumped there years before we moved into that house, I don't know.
   Anyway, one Sunday afternoon I had been playing with the garden hose which had a nozzle on the end.  The nozzle was cylindrical and tapered, like a skinny cone, and you twisted the end to change it from a wide spray (which I imagine I was probably supposed to be using on the irises), to a forceful blast, good for knocking things over and blasting pebbles down the driveway.
   I pointed the powerful stream down at the bare dirt spot and made a little hole, shooting mud and debris backwards.  That was kinda cool, I thought, and I wondered how deep a hole would I get.  So I kept spraying, making a splendid muddy mess.
   Fascinated, I stuck the nozzle end of the hose into the hole I'd started and noticed that I really didn't need to hold onto it because it started inching its way downward.  This was really cool!  A self-digging hole!
   Mom had the kitchen window open and I could smell the fried chicken was almost done.  Boy, was I getting hungry.  Still, I watched the hose as it relentlessly moved deeper into the hole it was making.
   Finally, it was time to eat.  Of course, being a kid, I didn't realize how muddy I was, and I wiped my feet before I came into the house.
   "Stop right there!" my mom commanded as I stood in the utility room.  "Rinse all that mud off before you come to the table."
   I glanced down and saw that my bare legs were splattered with mud from the knees down.  At least I had the forethought to wear cutoffs instead of jeans, I thought.  My arms were pretty muddy, too.  I turned to head toward the bathroom.
   "Outside!"
   I hadn't taken a step yet, but Mom, being a mom, was a mind reader.
   I went back outside and grabbed the hose, thinking to pull it out of the hole and using it to rinse off.  Meanwhile, my family had sat down at the table and were getting ready to eat.
   The hose didn't budge.  Funny, it went into the hole so easily.  But now it was stuck.  I went around to the faucet to unscrew the hose and rinse off there, but the hose had pulled itself taut and I couldn't unscrew it.  It didn't help that my hands were slippery from the water and mud, which made gripping the end of the hose problematic.
   "Mom?  Dad?"  I said through the window that overlooked my hose-hole.  "I can't get the hose loose."
   They came outside and saw the mess I'd made. 
   "You get that hose out of that hole and clean up before you come in to eat."
   They went back in and I continued to struggle with the hose.  I went to the garage and came back with a shovel, hoping to loosen the dirt around the hole.  Funny thing about loose dirt, gravity, and water - it wanted to accumulate in the hole and make more mud!
   So I started to dig.  Soon I found that the hose didn't go straight down.  It turned.  And it turned again.  I had to make a wider hole as I dug deeper and sideways.
   My sister's voice drifted through the window, in a sweet sing-song kind of way that she knew would irk me, "Mom, can I have more mashed potatoes?"
   ARGHHH!!!  She was already getting seconds, and I hadn't had a chance to eat anything!
   My digging became frantic.  The hose twisted and turned on its journey.  I began to think that I was going to be digging all night as the late afternoon shadows grew longer.  I'd starve!  I'd end up in China - a muddy starving boy from Oklahoma!
   My mom came out at one point with a camera.  To them, this had become a great source of amusement.  She took a few photos of me, now caked in mud and up to my knees in a hole that kept getting wider and deeper.
   I would dig, then pull on the hose, grateful for any time it budged.  But the mud closed around the hose, which made it more difficult.  At one time I thought that I could turn the water back on and maybe it would shoot the mud back out of the hole, thus widening it and make it easier to pull.  Unfortunately, the hose didn't agree with my childhood logic, and instead of coming out more easily, it tried to dig itself in more deeply.
   I don't know how long I dug.  Finally, however, I managed to loosen things up enough that I could pull the hose out.  And then rinse myself off.
   "You do realize that you need to fill in that hole," came the words I didn't want to hear.
   Finally, with the hole filled, and with aching arms and back and the beginnings of blisters on my hands, I was allowed to come inside.  There was still food left.  At that point, though, I imagine I would have been grateful for a peanut butter sandwich.
   I also learned, many years later, that water prefers to take the path of least resistance when it travels though the soil, which explains why the hose twisted and turned.
   I haven't dug a hole with a hose since that day. 
   Never made it to China, either.