The Undiscovered Country of Stupid Questions: A Guilty Confession

Many years ago, when planning a trip with my wife to Missouri’s cave country, I connected with a member of the National Speleological Society. He was a great guy and helped me with the information I needed. He was so helpful, he even offered to take us on a private tour of some of his favorite caves. It turned out that he worked at a large commercial cave in the area and we arranged to meet him there after his shift.

The plan was simple: we’d meet him after his shift, but it went sideways when we showed up an hour early. On the morning of our tour, my wife and I were running well ahead of our schedule. We asked for our host at the front desk and were told he had just taken a group into the cave. Naturally, we bought tickets and jumped in on the tour, having missed just the introductory entrance talk.

Our host, completely unaware of who we were, was doing a fantastic job. He was a seasoned guide with a wealth of knowledge, sharing fascinating facts about the cave’s history and geology. He was, frankly, too good. He had the whole group hanging on every word. Which, naturally, made me decide it was the perfect time to play the part of that guy, the tourist with the impossible questions.

Our host talked about the size of the cave several times. I used this hook as an opportunity to squeeze in a question. “How many miles of the cave are still undiscovered?”

He looked at me. A long pause hung in the air. I could see him mentally shuffling through his well-practiced tour script, trying to find a polite way to respond without calling me an idiot. I could see him silently weighing: Do I correct this fool or bury him in a rockfall? He handled it beautifully.

“That’s a great question!” he said, with an earnest smile. “The thing is, if we knew how many miles are undiscovered, well, they wouldn’t be undiscovered anymore, would they? What we can say is that cavers are still mapping new passage all the time.”

Nicely done. I had to wait for my next opportunity. It came not long after as our host was telling the tour group how far below the surface the chamber we were in was.

“Is the entire cave underground?” I asked.

I got that same look. Another pause. He was eyeing me suspiciously now, hoping I wouldn’t open my mouth again. I could almost hear him thinking, Really, dude? You’re asking me this? But he kept his cool.

“Yes, caves are underground by definition,” he explained patiently, as though speaking to a small, exceptionally slow child. “Though the entrances might open on cliff faces or hillsides. Think of it like a house: the front door is on the side of the building, but once you’re in, all the rooms are inside.”

At this point, I knew I was on the suspect list. He was watching me.

My final opportunity came as the tour was ending. He reminded the tour group that everyone was welcome to enjoy the park’s grounds and trails until dark. The facility closes at sunset.

“Do you close at sunset because it’s too dark to go into caves then?” I threw out.

I’m sure he had had enough of me at that point. “Caves are dark 24/7. They don’t have a sunrise or sunset. We close at sunset for people’s safety and because our staff needs to go home, not because the cave gets any darker.” Delivered with professional calm and a saintly amount of restraint.

When we finally met up after his shift, he gave me the critical side-eye and said, “I knew you had to be a caver. No one else would come up with questions like that.”

Guilty as charged. We laughed about it for a long time and then had a fantastic day touring wild caves in the area.

Asking the Question

I tell this story because September 28 is National Ask a Stupid Question Day, a holiday invented by teachers in the 1980s to encourage students to ask questions without fear of sounding silly. It’s a day to embrace our most ridiculous curiosities and, perhaps, get a little laugh. This holiday is a reminder that curiosity is never dumb and sometimes the best conversations start with the most ridiculous questions.

So go ahead, lean in. Ask something astonishingly absurd, obviously obvious or wonderfully weird. The world could use more laughter and besides, someone just might surprise you with a brilliant answer.

And if you need a starter, ask if a tomato is a fruit, does that make ketchup a smoothie?