Here's What's Wrong With Society Today

Greetings, fellow Hillmombans. Thank you for gathering here for Emperor Hillbilly Mom's latest stump speech. Pull up a log and get comfortable. I sometimes digress.

Last night, I watched a new show on NBC. It's my kind of show, a reality competition, with Bear Grylls. In case you plan to seek it out on the internet, or catch a rerun on NBC, I must inform you that Bear Grylls keeps his clothes on. And that product placement is alive and well and padding the Gore-Tex pocket of Mr. Grylls. Money makes the world go round, after all. And negativity, self-righteousness, and stupidity will bring it to a screeching halt.

This show takes ten teams of two up in the mountain wilderness of New Zealand, and sends them on treks with specific duties for each pair. Right off the bat, you know that all teams are not created equal. Two urban women are not on par with two outdoor dudes. But the whole group is supposed to work as a team so they can survive. They begin by stripping down to their civvies and wading/washing down a glacial runoff stream. I love how Bear pronounces glacier as glassy-er. Bear has provided food for them at the end of the day, the only catch being that they have to find it.

Here's the first glaring example of stupidity. After taking off their clothes to cross that stream, a big strong dude jumps right into a glacial pool with his clothes on to retrieve the deer carcass that Bear has so thoughtfully left high and dry on a log inside a cave. Second glaring example of stupidity: two other dudes are smart enough to strip down, but when they get that deer, all three of them try to walk along holding it up out of the water. Seriously? Does it matter if a dead deer gets wet in glacial water before you skin it? Wouldn't it make more sense and take less energy to float it along in the water? You have to weigh your options, and choose wisely, rather than rushing willy-nilly into a first inclination.

Now the negativity. The deer dudes climb out of the water. They are purple. One of the older guys tells the other folks that they need to give these guys a piece of clothing to warm up. And they look at him like, "You're crazy!" So the purple deer dudes shiver and stay purple, especially the one who has to put his wet clothes back on. Way to support the group, folks. It's not like YOU had to get in the icy water. Give up a shirt. You would have thought they were being asked to find some sheep, shear them, card the wool, knit a sweater, and supply these guys with clothing for the rest of their lives.

The self-righteousness takes a bit more explanation. The two urban women are on the FOOD crew. They don't know what to do with a dead deer. "Do we skin it, I guess, before cutting it up?" So a couple of hunter-type guys volunteer to field-dress the deer if the urban women will take their place making SHELTER. Sure. Only one little tarp lean-to gets set up in spite of there being two or four more people on the SHELTER crew. The deer is cut into thin strips. Everybody roasts some on a stick, thanks to the FIRE people being efficient. THEN it starts. The urban women go to bed, along with the rest of the FOOD crew. Folks around the fire start to complain. "Look at that meat. It's going to waste. They should have roasted it all tonight so we could have some in the morning. I can't believe they went to bed. THEY are the FOOD crew." And then every body goes to bed, leaving that pile of meat chunks laying there on the rocks.

Really? You are so petty that you will call out the FOOD crew for waste, yet you will not lift a finger to cook that meat when you know you're going to need it the next day? Bitten-off nose spiting face here! You're going to be just as hungry as they are tomorrow. In the very least, you could wake them and say, "This meat needs to be cooked tonight." Of course the next morning, the urban women say, "Why didn't somebody tell us. We had no idea." Yeah. Way to help the group survive, you sorry prisspots who knew but did nothing. Protein is a terrible thing to waste.

Human nature. I'm doing MY job. I'm superior to you. Bear Grylls won't vote ME out, because you are worse than me. Never mind that we're all going to starve.

That, my fellow Hillmombans, is what is wrong with society today. Or at least with the contestants on the new Bear Grylls reality survival show.