The Next Survivor - NOT!

My husband works an evening shift – 11:00AM to 8:00PM - so he isn’t up to date on all of the reality television that we used to watch together.  One of my favorites, Survivor, is quickly winding down to its final episodes and I was recapping all of the lack of strategy that was going to lead to the inevitable conclusion of this season – Benjamin "Coach" Wade being named the next sole survivor.

I could tell he was starting to glaze over about half way through my tirade.  He hasn’t watched any of this season so he has NO idea who I’m talking about other than the two returning contestants.  But I don’t care… my only interactions today were the dude at the gyro stand (I still am boycotting grocery shopping) and my three dogs and they don’t have very good conversational skills.  Note I didn’t say they don’t have ANY conversational skills… but that’s an entirely different blog post.

Lady, I don't give a crap about how
creepy Brandon is

When I finally finished, the following conversation took place:

Husband: “I think YOU should try to get on Survivor.”

Me: “Uh, are you NUTS!  No. Way.”

Husband: “Why not?  I think you’d do great.”

Me: “Are you serious?  I’d KILL people out there.”

Husband: “I disagree.”

So now I will present to all of you why I would not last on Survivor.

I am TERRIFIED of wasps, bees and spiders.

Don't worry, I'm more scared of you
than you are of me.  hahaha... yeah,
I'm going to sting the crap out of you.

And by terrified, I mean hyperventilating-and-screaming-while-running-around-waving-my-arms terrified.  I once had a bee buzz me in church and my response was not the restrained waving it away.  I began to flail my arms wildly screaming, “get it away from me!” eventually running out of the sanctuary into the parking lot.  Luckily for me, it was a boyfriend’s congregation, so I really shamed his family instead of myself.  Yeah, I am a REAL catch. 

Don’t even get me started on spiders.  When I was introduced to the urban legend of how you eat a pound of spiders in your sleep per year, I didn’t sleep for days.  Even when I learned that wasn’t true, I still can’t sleep if I know a spider is in the room with me.  I scratched myself for hours after watching the movie Arachnophobia.  In fact, this whole last paragraph has me twitching and scratching.  Great, now I won’t be sleeping tonight.

My point is this, every, and I mean EVERY episode of Survivor has menacing shots of spiders and flying insects.  And if I’m being honest, I hate bugs in general, so I would be miserable.  Have you seen some of the bug bites the contestants get?  Not pretty.

I HATE camping.

Somehow I don't think zipping up the tent
would have made a difference here.

I’ve been camping once in my life.  I wasn’t thrilled with having to sleep on the ground with nothing underneath me but a sleeping bag and a thin sheet of nylon.  I’m not good at hiding my disgust so my opinion of “the wild” was made well known after the first night.  Actually, now that I think about it, this was the same boyfriend as the bee-in-the-church story.  Man, dating me must have been torturous.  Then you’ve got the whole communal bathroom thing where you have to find your way in the middle of night in darkness to pee – with strangers who may or may not be one of the mountain men from Deliverance.

Life on Survivor includes sleeping on the sand with not even a mosquito net to keep the critters off of you at night.  And a bathroom?  Get out the shovel and make sure you’re not wiping with poison ivy, my friend.  Of course, you could see a monkey or two during your morning dump, but there’s a good chance he could be the little bugger from Outbreak and then I would be responsible for the plague spreading throughout the Midwest.

Hi, don't worry about me.  I just want to eat your flesh.
No seriously, am I cute or what?

I dislike being dirty

This one could actually be up for debate with my husband.  When I threw this out as a reason, he rolled his eyes.  Hey, I have armpit hair down to my navel and I haven’t showered in 4 days not because I LIKE it.  It’s because I’m really REALLY lazy.  You think I *like* the way I currently smell?  It’s just that there was a Godzilla movie on during my scheduled shower time and I didn’t want to miss it.

I've been licking my butt for an hour so
I didn't have to smell you anymore

But seriously, I do like being clean, or at least have the option to be clean.  I can’t imagine having sand in my butt crack and not being able to get rid of it.  Or not be able to brush my teeth when I get a nasty taste in my mouth.  And I’m a girly-girl.  I would hate to see myself on television without my hair done, makeup perfect and nicely dressed.  In fact, I’d most likely not be able to watch myself.

I wear my emotions on my sleeve.

This would be my ultimate undoing.  I actually can handle annoying people for long periods of time, especially when I have to, but if pushed far enough, I snap like a twig.  Once the twig has snapped, I’m like a loose cannon.  Even I can’t tell you what I’ll do next.

I know for a fact that gingers
have no souls.
South Park told me so.

For example, take Cochran, the “loveable” nerd from Harvard.  He loses challenges.  He is worthless around camp.  His self-deprecation starts to grate on your nerves because you sense he really isn’t trying and is instead, attempting to be cute.  His tribe tried everything to get him to engage, but he always ended up whining in camp and in confessionals.  Out of patience, they finally told him what they really thought… and he immediately went to the other team, cried about how they were all big meanies, and voted them all out. 

That would have been me. 

I get it that not everyone is able to adapt socially to every situation.  I also get it that he was totally out of his element.  However, you can’t do the same thing day after day and expect different results.  And you can’t expect a group of people – people who are having your stupidity possibly cost them a million dollars – to have infinite patience.  And remember, HE WAS STILL IN THE GAME.  They were keeping him around, for whatever reason, so do you really want to bite the hand that was feeding you?  I’d like to think I wouldn’t be as snarky as they were, but who am I kidding… I probably would have been the ringleader.

P.S.  The other team voted him out as soon as they were done using him... effectively putting him out of the game EARLIER than if he had stuck with his original tribe.  I hope he's a better lawyer than a player of Survivor.

And then there’s someone like Brandon.

Man of God or sociopath?
You be the judge.

Let’s put aside that he’s the nephew of the villain from the last two seasons.  Even he didn’t want to copy his uncle’s game play (it didn’t win him a million dollars anyway) and was intent on restoring the family’s good name.  Very quickly, you realize that there is something VERY wrong with this young man.

It started with the young women of the tribe and one in particular.  They were going about their day-to-day business not paying him any attention.  Actually, this is one of the few seasons of Survivor that there wasn’t massive amounts of flirtation going on (at least on camera – apparently one marriage has ended due to a relationship that started during the game).  Brandon would hide in the trees watching them swim and gather things from the beach.  He began giving confessionals calling them temptresses and crying about how he had to stay pure and a good Christian – he couldn’t stray… AGAIN.  It all came to a head in several tribal councils where he cried and then lashed out viciously against these women who had NO IDEA what was going on.  It was beyond creepy and quite unnerving.  All of this is woven in with him constantly leading prayer circles and a lot of Jesus talk.

Had I been on his tribe, I would have started off by telling him that temptation only exists if the women WANT to have sex with you and believe me, they don't.  What you’re dealing with is obsession and has nothing to do with the women of the tribe.  Then, I probably would have then made fun of him for his hillbilly accent, just because I get mean when I snap.  Not only would I have been voted off, the production staff may not have found my body in the jungle after he cut my throat and put me in a shallow grave.  I can hear Mark Burnett now, “What the hell!  You guys didn’t get that on camera?”

Seriously guys, we need to pray for a place to hide the body.

So I think this is a pretty definitive list of why I should not be on Survivor.  Feel free to discuss my neuroses in the comment section or talk about this season of Survivor.  My dogs can probably use a break from my jabbering.