I couldn't believe I had actually been picked to be on this season of a nameless dream version of a knockoff of Survivor. The journey was a little odd because I was a second alternate that they brought in after production had already begun so, presumably, somebody or bodies had quit the show in the first day or two.
On our dunebuggy in to camp, the producer mentioned the contestant I am replacing quit because they couldn't deal with the conditions and that they felt I stood a better chance than the first alternate.
Not a very promising way to enter this situation but, hey, whoring my likeness out had limited prospects to begin with.
Its immediately clear why someone left once I reach camp. 'Camp,' in fact, was little more than a ring of old, dead bushes wedged between two giant dunes with no resources nearby and no structure to speak of. Just some miserable, hot looking people laying around.
I figured my arrival might herald some hurrahs or welcomes or at least some degree of acknowledgment but the producers' dunebuggy was well on its way out of camp before anybody gave me more than a glance.
Asking them why there was no shelter and nothing happening was not the right choice. It probably should have been obvious with the 120 degree temperature that nothing would ever happen as long as the sun was up here but I was excited to get my feet wet. Trying to be more mindful of the situation, I asked if there was anything my fresh body could do to better the camp.
This made the camp's division clear. They explained that all of the supplies to make a camp and make life bearable here were buried somewhere in one of the dunes around camp. Some wanted but couldn't continue digging out of exhaustion and dehydration. Others wanted to focus on more practical matters but since there were no resources within a reasonable distance, resting for a challenge and hoping for the producers to intervene and make life possible in this miserable place seemed to be the chosen way.
Not being one to turn down a physical challenge and not wanting to be the only one who hadn't tried, I said I would go digging. I might have taken the silence I received as a warning that this was a bad idea but I didn't.
I spent the next two or three hours in the sweltering heat, arms elbow deep in hot sand, trying to detect anything that felt out of place. Making my way up the dune, then back down, and up again and down again. I don't know if you have ever seen some really big sand dunes but these were monsters. I quit when I felt about as bad as everybody else looked, having found nothing. I reentered camp to the raucous applause of nobody and went to bed hungry, thirsty, exhausted and pissed.
When I woke up I thought for a moment I had to deal with another day of it but fortunately I woke up in my bed instead. I still felt hungry, thirsty, exhausted and pissed, though. I don't know if I was like a dog chasing rabbits in its sleep or what because I'm still a little sore but I got some fast food and coffee and watched some tv where somebody else got to be the miserable one.
No comments, yet...