Congratulations on Finding the Ark of the Covenant!

Remember when we were all young and idealistic and it was thought of as odd for a politician to be involved in a sex scandal or a priest to touch kids? These were the salad days when movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark got every single detail wrong and still inspired poor saps like you to pursue a career in archaeology which, as it turns out, is a lot more boring than you thought.

For the most part it consists of hanging out in dig sites, dusting off pieces of ancient pottery and trying to hook up with whichever undergrad seems loosest that week. It has its rewards, but swinging through ancient ruins on a whip isn’t one of them.

Today your occupation will start to make up for that, however, when you’re hurled into a desperate life or death race with a group of white supremacists to find the Ark of the Covenant. You specialize in Greek and Roman ruins so you’re not even entirely sure what the Ark is, but as a rule if white supremacists want something it’s probably bad for everyone else so you’ll pack your bags and depart Malta on a charter flight - destination: Tikrit.

Tikrit will be a war torn hell hole, and as a white guy you’ll be constantly shot at. Luckily the white supremacists will have the same problem and since you’re in much better shape than they are you’ll have no trouble at all reaching the Ark long before them. But since you’re a wimpy academic type and you didn’t think ahead enough to bring even a single TA with you you won’t be able to lift or move the Ark anywhere. So the white supremacists will eventually find you and the Ark and then you’ll have a problem.

See you’ll be able to convince them that you’re a wizard and that you’ve placed a spell that will destroy the Ark if they don’t use the right password before opening it, but instead of respectfully negotiating with you until you give them the password they’re going to just beat you senseless until you tell them a random word. Then they’ll head into the other room to see if it works or if they’ll have to beat you some more.

You’ll know that they realized they could open the Ark without issue when they start screaming endlessly and begging for mercy. After a while the room will go silent and you’ll consider entering and seeing just what the Ark let loose. After careful consideration, though, you’ll realize that the most recent Indiana Jones movie was pretty awful and that the film series you love isn’t really worth risking your life over. Which is smart, because the giant snake monster that lived inside the Ark would totally have fucked you up if you’d gone in there.

Congratulations on Finding the Ark of the Covenant!