You might be a caveahollic if...

[self-deleted_user]

...you enjoy seeing how many ways you can morph your body into small spaces.

(add your own!)

[trogman]

You ride by the city park and notice a concrete culvert, and you catch yourself wondering how far it goes, and what is in there.

Actually, before I ever did any real caving, I used to explore the drainage culverts under Hattiesburg, MS. We would walk through them smoking cigarettes and thinking we were cool. Those were the days! I was about 11 or 12 at the time.

Trogman

[rlboyce]

... after visiting a cave for the first time, you disregard all common sense by going to a second cave. And then a third. And then a fourth.

..., when asked how many caves you've been to since you've started, all you can tell them is you can't even remember half the caves you've been to in the past month.

[self-deleted_user]

oh damn I wish that last one was true! I still have count of my cavetrips! Actually I think I might start a journal, just for funsies and while it's still early enough. I mean how cool would that be to have a list of like, every cave ever been to? I can be like 80 years old and tell the stores by reading them!

...actually yeah I'm gonna do that.

[NZcaver]

... you break into the crawl space under the rental property you just moved into, because it's the closest thing to caving you're going to experience for a while...

[self-deleted_user]

...you fantasize about figuring out how to rig a rope to drop off your balcony (which is rickity, hence the rig issue, base is fine but the fence part is really loose, I wouldn't dare lean up against it even....would bringing it through my sliding door and rigging it inside somewhere...sofa leg or something? work?) to drop down and scare your neighbors then quickly climb back up

[jsniffin]

... have a friend sit on a chair to see if you can fit under it.

... want to take the spare bed in your dorm room and lower it to see how small of a space you can fit in.

... want to make the circle of chairs in a cave rather than a church basement because it makes as much sense as getting drunk at an aa meeting..

[wyandottecaver]

all true.....

Know what a Prusik knot is and have tied and used them.

You evaluate your new vehicle purchases based on
1)their ability to hold and then be cleaned up after holding muddy gear and people.
2) Whether the color clashes with your yellow bat sticker

You carry a roll of garbage bags under your driver's seat

Own 5 pair of boots, 10 pair of jeans, and 20 long sleeve shirts which you claim are "still good" but all of which contain at least 1 hole and smell funny.

use your fake smile when someone gives you a $10 wallmart light for your birthday

Ruin your sunday clothes when you spot a "steamin hole" on the way home from church.

Spend 2 days digging through a garbage dump because a friend of friend talked to their grandpa who thought there was a cave there 70 yrs ago.

own more "rappelling rope" than your fire and police departments combined.

[Chads93GT]

You find 3 new pit caves after work..............(I did today ;)

[Bill Putnam]

... you long for the smell of cave dirt.

[self-deleted_user]

... you long for the smell of cave dirt.

... you long in particular for the smell of the caves in Mendip, England because they smell /awesome/ (tenzin beck can confirm this - it is so strong it stayed on my gear after deconing it...TWICE.)

[MUD]

...your wife leaves you because you love caves more than you love her.

...during your sister's wedding, you're 378 ft. underground, 1.7 miles from the entrance of a cave, 275 miles away in West Virginia.

...your caver brother-in-law is laid to rest, with a bat sticker on the casket and cave mud inside with him and his gear.

...your mother has been calling you Cavemud for 37 years!

[NZcaver]

... virtually every casual conversation with a stranger turns to caving within a few short minutes ...

... you consider other outdoor sports just another way to pass the time between caving trips ....

... you consider sex just another way to pass the time between caving trips ...

... you spend all your spare time on this forum between caving trips ...

[caveflower]

everything you own has a bat on it.

you'll buy anything that has a bat on it.

[trogman]

oh damn I wish that last one was true! I still have count of my cavetrips! Actually I think I might start a journal, just for funsies and while it's still early enough. I mean how cool would that be to have a list of like, every cave ever been to? I can be like 80 years old and tell the stores by reading them!

...actually yeah I'm gonna do that.

Yes, Amy, I would encourage you to do that. I wish I would have when I started caving. Now, if someone asks me how many times I have been to Tumbling Rock, I just say: hmmmm.....more than 25, I am sure of that. A friend of mine, Lin Guy, keeps meticulous records of all his trips. He is about 60, and he amazes me sometimes when he says things like "back in 1974, so and so and I went to such and such a cave, and explored this area of the cave." But it's all because he keeps a journal. I suppose I should go ahead and start one myself.

Trogman