Kevin's Excellent Adventure

Years ago, when my wife Anne and I had a little oil company, we drilled quite a few wells in Garfield County, Oklahoma with another little oil company from Norman. They had a geologist named Kevin and he was a wild man. We learned as much on a Monday after completing a well the previous Friday.

When a well reaches total depth, most oil companies run an electrical survey into the open hole. The survey records a “picture” of the zones intersected and gives a mathematical portrait of the productive potential of each zone penetrated. That Friday, the log indicated we had found a highly productive zone that could make us all wealthy.

Logging, for some unknown reason, rarely takes place during daylight. This well was no exception and it was ten at night when the last log popped out of the hole and we began celebrating. Kevin had an override in the well, a carried interest, and was in line to make lots of money.

Kevin and Bruce, one of our employees that also had an override, had brought along a cooler filled with ice and beer. Already lubricated, they started in on a bottle of Jack Daniel’s after seeing the log. Anne and I went home to Oklahoma City to celebrate in private. Kevin and Bruce headed for the mean streets of Oklahoma City.

Bruce somehow managed to straggle home before dawn. Not so Kevin. He took a taxi to Will Rogers Airport and bought a ticket for Acapulco in Mexico. He arrived the next morning, beginning to sober up and already feeling much like warmed over death. He only wanted to get a room and sleep for twenty-four hours. It was not to be.

Some dignitary, the Queen of England or some such, was also visiting Mexico and there wasn’t a single empty room in the entire resort. He spent the night at the airport, catching a plane back to Oklahoma City where his anxious wife was waiting for him.

No, Kevin didn’t get a divorce. He did get an earful, though. The well came in like gangbusters and we were all happy, and somewhat assuaging his wife’s ire. The next time we logged a well, she accompanied him to the well and didn’t let him out of her sight.

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