The Blues

That Sink(hole)ing Feeling

On June 28, 2011, in Australia, News, by Rosie

Sinkholes are nature’s way of reminding us that we live in a place that could well open up, at any given moment, and suck the living daylight out of our environment. Or our city freeway. Or our backyard.

Weird, frightening cookie cutters that they appear to be (and I use the term ‘cookie cutter’ thanks to a mate from the UK who is similarly amazed by the entire sinkhole phenomenon).

Hello. My name is Rosie and I’m a Sinkhole Spotter.

I mean, really?

The scientific and natural people I’m fortunate enough to know remind me that they’ve been occurring since the dawn of time and they are simply a natural depression in the earth’s surface. They happen. They’re all environmentally there, part of our planet, not a reason to spazz around and call out ‘OMG, what the hell is that huge, circular thing appearing in the ground.’

Because that would be hysterical. And very unscientific.

I am that person. Sinkholes are a law unto themselves, it seems, and I reserve the right to be slightly hysterical about them. If not hysterical, then just a bit freaked out. What lurks down there? It must be more than some stray toe nails, surely not a bunch of washed out hair and the remnants of shampoo.

They are simply odd. They come along uninvited, drink your tea, confiscate your dog (for some people, this might be good!). If they want to pop down in a street in your neighbourhood, apparently they do! If they need to dip into a lovely section of beach you’re visiting, hey presto! Welcome to the sand, you freak! If they want to open up, swallow your car, gurgle your domestic things, they do. I don’t care if they’ve been part of the world since the biggest bang or the bangiest big, I don’t like ‘em and the sheer depth of them freaks me the frig out!

That’s why I became a Sinkhole Spotter.

Recently, a sinkhole threatened to galoomph under my nose undetected. It’s an Australian one too, so I should have been doubly aware of this monstrosity fumbling away at the earth beneath our toes (or wind beneath our wings – but this is not as appropriate when talking ‘sinkholes’). Thanks to Mon, we (at Sinkholes Inc) were alerted about a localish hellhole in Queensland.

Parents are concerned about their children’s safety in the above situation. Um, okay. So the spreading, lurking, oceanic sinkhole might raise a parental alarm, especially if allowing tiny tots to swim in the bottomless, fathomless SINKHOLE O’ DEATH?

I’d just go home. For goodness sake! Why stay near a sinkhole if you can go to the Daintree? Or the Barrier Reef? Or to Brisbane? (No inappropriate jokes about QLD or Brizzie, thanks ; )

Even though this Aussie sinkhole has that nasty element of water attached to the revolting, cookie cutter giving way of the earth beneath our wings, the sinkhole that is forever impinged in my mind is that unholy one in Guatemala City:

I wonder if the bloke in the accommodation right on the cusp of the sinkhole realized how literally his words would be taken when he replied to his spouses question of ‘where will you be tonight?’ with ‘I’ll be round.’

Hmm. Pull the plug gently next time you exit the bath, please.