Thursday, September 23, 2010

Bear and Emma

little kid has been watching a lot of Man vs. Wild lately. It's a show where they drop some guy off in some horrible location without any supplies and he lives like he's going to die at any second, even though we all know there's a camera crew and probably a medi-vac helicopter on hand at all times.

I wasn't sure about the appropriateness at first since I don't watch this sort of thing myself, but he loves nature shows and after watching him mimic making a camp fire and listening to his plans to collect fresh water next time we go on a weekend camping trip, I decided it appeared to be okay.

He wanted to continue watching it through lunch so I set up a lunch tray in front of him. I walked back by a moment later to witness him eating a turkey sandwich while watching Bear Grylls scoop the brains out of a crispy dead rat. Hmmm, I thought as I wondered about lasting damage from this.

"'at's a dead rat, mumum," he told me. He seemed fine. People hunt and stuff. One day he'll probably be one of those people. It still seemed alright for him to watch, plus I wasn't up for the fight of trying to change it to Diego.

The next time I walk by, Bear Grylls is floating around on some homemade raft. He's moaning about how dehydrated he is and how urgent it is that he gets water. He has a leaf and some sort of hose set up and I thought, "I should watch how he gets water, just in case we ever get lost at sea in the boat." (This is something I worry about sometimes. Too much Shark Week.)

"This water is rancid," Bear informs us, "It's full of bird droppings, it has a terrible odor..."

"You should ask your cameraman for some of his water," I thought. "We all know you're not about to die out there on that raft, you freak."

As I mentally tune back in, I realize Bear is pulling down his pants. And he's talking about enemas. And how the colon is able to absorb water and that it's one way around the gag reflex (not around my gag reflex! I'm gagging just thinking about it again!) and I realize that dude is about to give himself an enema with rancid bird turd water. It's all blurred out but still.

I was frozen, waiting for little kid to comment, knowing if I leapt for the remote that I'd call even more attention to how bizarre and wrong this was.

"Mumum? Why's he got his pants down?"

"Who? Him?"

"Yes."

"I think he's peeing. He probably had to pee and didn't want to get his pants wet."

"What's a emmana?"

"An Emma? That's a girl's name."

"What? What girl?"

"Yes, he was talking about a girl who had been ship wrecked and lost at sea. Named Emma."

He looked confused and I was relieved when I realized Bear's pants were back up, that he wasn't going to die of dehydration and that this conversation was over.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe it's a good thing he didn't catch the episode where he strips naked to cross a river in the snow :P

There have been a few news stories of kids getting lost in the woods and using some of these techniques to survive till they're found.

I wonder if lk will change jobs now. Maybe something a little more rugged???

(I haven't slept well in DAYS so I know I'm completely disjointed - sorry)
-Jamie

Jennifer said...

So pooping uncontrollably helps when you're dehydrated. Hmmm... That seems really counter intuitive to me.

Anonymous said...

@Jennifer - you have to watch it! It looks like he's pinching to keep it in, too :P
-Jamie

jennyandcompany said...

nice save mama, but thanks for the image - blech.`

Edie Mindell said...

I thought you couldn't explain to your son what the man in the show is doing. I though you'll be frozen and could not even utter a word.:-) You pulled that one girl.:-) If that happened to me, I think I'll fake a fainting spell.:-)

Anonymous said...

My son and husband love Bear Gryllis, I tolerated the show, until the enema. That was one step too far for me. Fortunately, my son wasn't in the room when that episode aired originally. Ugh. Vomit.

Anonymous said...

Nice one... LOL!