The Mud Drop

Ellie was walking in a dense jungle with a huge heavy backpack and was feeling more and more irritated by the minute. This was not how she planned to celebrate her 18th birthday.

"Do we have to keep on coming here Dad? It's so hot and humid! Plus I'm almost always walking in a muddy slush. Yuck!"

Her father looked back at her, smiled, and just said "You wait and see my little mud drop...patience always pays off."

"What on earth are you talking about?" asked an infuriated Ellie, smacking the mosquitoes which had landed in her arms unsuccessfully.

"No use talking about it little mud drop. You have to see it to believe it."

Just then Elie tripped and fell face first in the slushy muck. "Aargh! Eeeyuck! Dad I fell down! There are these dirty mud drops are over me!"

"Your bones aren't broken. Get up and keep walking. Come on, we can clean up later. Hahaha - mud drops on my mud drop."

Elie got up and continue trudging along after her father, knowing now that nothing will stop him from continuing walking to where he was walking to. No tears, fuss, or even broken bones for that matter.

After a two hour walk into the jungle, they came to an even denser part where it was almost impossible to walk through. But her father was prepared and hacked through it all and then they came to a small black muddy puddle.

Elie was about to fall into it, before her father grabbed her and pulled her back.

"No! No! Little one! You are not falling into the black eye of death. But now we go fishing."

Ellie was terrified. What was her father talking about?

"Come and help me set this equipment next to this black pit. Took me months to locate one of these of this size."

She obediently did as her father asked her to do and waited. She knew her father will speak when he was ready and not before. Plus he was a geologist and a scientist, one of the best in the world. Sure, he was a bit obsessed with his work and would wander different parts of the planet for his land research.

The equipment was a mini rig with strong air plugs for legs. They set it up so that it had very a firm sturdy solid place around the pit to stand and then the sucker when in the black muddy pit.

"Now we wait for what comes out of it. Here's a mosquito net for you to sit inside. I'll wait outside near the pit."

"Dad...what is this?"

"It's a tar pit, my little mud drop. Just wait and see what comes out of it. These go very deep."

A month later, Ellie joined the college to major in geology and earth sciences follow her father's footsteps.

The small tar pit ended up being very deep indeed and it coughed up quite a few fabulous things. A perfectly preserved small dinosaur and her eggs, and scrapping on the sides they were lucky enough to find many precious rocks and an especially huge diamond rock...it looked like a huge black mud drop as it came out. Her father on inspecting it said it was the largest the world has ever recorded. Then he just said, "Happy Birthday my little mud drop!"