If I remember correctly, February 2nd commemorates the 5th anniversary of me flying home to revel in my failure of being one of the four remaining Beauty and the Geek participants in the mansion. Okay, technically, there wasn’t much revelry—even if Scarlet and I had won the $250K, we wouldn’t be allowed to revel in our victory lest the producers take the money away and slap us with a big, nasty lawsuit. I wouldn’t think that going from victorious to penniless would inspire any festivities, but that’s just me.
The thing I’ll remember most about that day isn’t waking up in a hotel bed instead of my room in the mansion. It isn’t eating normal food instead of brand-name food with duct tape covering up the brand names. It isn’t even passing out on the airplane before the stewardess could tell me how to buckle my seat belt for the flight home. Nope, the thing I’ll remember most is getting off the plane.
Like most airports, MSP has arms you walk through that extend from the gate to the airplane. The plane stops, the arms stretches out, it gets hooked onto the side of the plane where the door is and it’s a gentle slope up to the terminal. I don’t know exactly why the slope is there, but I know I didn’t like it when I got back home.
Consider: Two days previously, I spent hours hiking/running through the mountains, getting dehydrated, overexerting myself, abusing my body, trying (and failing) to win the outdoor challenge. I slept outside under the stars that night by choice—Scarlet eventually offered to let me stay in the tent, which I probably should have accepted ’cause it was cold out there—and spent the next night in a hotel room after leaving the mansion. Consequently, my muscles hadn’t had much time to recover and were still very unhappy with me.
I knew they were unhappy because as I tried to walk up that gentle slope, my hamstrings were so tight that even though I was taking short, tiny steps towards the terminal, I felt like I could fall down at any moment. My legs would lock up, I’d tip over to the side and THUD!
I’ll stand behind my statement of “Never say die”, but at that point, lying on the floor and saying “Ow ow ow ow ow” would have been totally acceptable.
5 years! I wonder what has happened to everyone in the interval? I got you and Chuck as friends on Facebook. I see Mindi is on Facebook, too and married – with a baby no less. I wonder about the rest.
Bill was a fan of a show that had been off the air for years and years. I wonder what happened to him. And Scarlett – and Caitilin.
As for me, I ended up getting inspired to start my own blog – after reading yours and perhaps commenting too much on it.