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| "Sweet Jesus where's the car!?!?!?" |
The other night I watched that sorta-new survival reality
show “Naked and Afraid,” where a guy and a gal are dropped off at some exotic
location to survive for a few weeks with no clothes, minimal tools and a camera
crew taping their every move.
It’s
OK. The participants are indeed naked, but the only truly scary part was during
the horribly awkward and stilted conversation the two people had when they
first met, wearing nothing but their birthday suits and a smile.
Tangent
alert! The episode I watched broke one of my cardinal rules: It proclaimed to
be “Uncensored,” but was, in fact, censored. I saw no boobies or man parts or
lady parts. Why? Because they were blurred out. If I can’t hear a lady drop the
“F” bomb while waving a nipple around, then you have no right to call your show
“Uncensored.”
Not
that I really wanted to see any of those things. Our heroes weren’t exactly
lookers, but it’s the principle of the thing.
Anyway,
early in the show, the participants are graded in three areas essential to
making it through the show in one piece. They are graded using a 0-10 scale on:
Outdoor Skills, Experience and Mental Toughness.
Those
three scores are then averaged together to give you the Primitive Survival
Rating (PSR), or how good the person is likely to do on the show.
That
got me thinking. What would my PSR be? I’m already fairly confident I’d be a complete
disaster on the show. I have way too many body issues for me to ever get over
being naked in front of a stranger and there aren’t enough poisonous snakes,
giant spiders or killer plants in all the jungles to make me forget that.
But
still, let’s see how I’d stack up.
Outdoor
Skills
Yeah,
there’s not a lot here. I’m wildly inconsistent when it comes to starting fires
and I’d definitely need matches or a lighter or some napalm just to get the
thing started in the first place. I can walk for a while without getting tired,
and I can carry a moderately heavy load on my back. I can also sharpen a mean
stick for roasting hot dogs or marshmallows on.
So yeah, suck it Les Stroud.
Grade:
1
Experience
I used
to go hiking and camping quite a bit back in the day with a friend who also
happened to be an Eagle Scout. Of course, that just meant he did pretty much
everything tough, while I wandered around collecting wood and getting giddy
every time I saw a chipmunk. Still, some of the knowledge had to come my way
through osmosis or something. Also, one time, I went kayaking and another time I
went white water rafting when the river was easy.
Grade:
2
Mental
Here’s
where things get interesting. I’m a complete basket case. I have some pretty
bad OCD and I hate being dirty more than anything. For years that kept me from
going in the ocean because I couldn’t stand the feel of sunscreen or the way
saltwater feels after it dries on you. I also have a bit of a loner streak and
prefer to do things by myself rather than work with a team. That’s usually
better for everyone, because if I’m working with a team and something doesn’t
work as planned, I tend to get frustrated and take it out on them. When I’m by
myself, I get frustrated at myself and no one’s any the wiser. On the upside, I
typically don’t complain much, I usually just internalize it. So that’s good. I
guess. Or maybe it explains why I blow up when I get frustrated? God knows.
Grade:
4
So let’s
see, that gives me a PSR of 2.3.
Yeah
that’s not good. The lowest one on the show I saw was like 6 something. So I’m
not tough enough and too crazy for “Naked and Afraid,” I can’t cook so “Top
Chef” is out, I don’t take steroids and I’m not a horrible racist so no “Big
Brother,” I’m in a relationship so no “Bachelor.” I’m running out of reality
shows.
I guess
it’s back to hoping “Murder in Small Town X” one day gets picked up for a long-awaited
second season. I can roll with solving some spooky mysteries and even better no
one watched that show but me so I won’t have to worry about getting camera shy.
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