The Gauntlet part III

 

First off, I will try, to the best of my abilities, to refrain from making any comments on “the medical place” that have been run into the ground.

 

Medical Place.

 

There.  I’ve done it.

 

The episode starts off with a quaint beautiful day in the lovely community of Telluride.

It’s probably a Wednesday or Sunday. I’m thinking.  It’s an interview day.  Some people choose to go rent mountain bikes because after 5 days we were banished from using the provided bikes from the lovely company Huffy.  The resort had an array of phenomenal bikes available for rent at the golf shop (of course).  I was too broke to enjoy such amenities, but alas, lets fast foreward to the fall.

 

I was in the resort waiting 30 minutes for my interviews, plus an extra hour for my interviews.   By the time I got back, the camaramenan had already left; leaving me, and a lonely PA guarding all the Gatorade in the Garage. (I’m going to have to write an entire article on the house itself.)   Apparently one camaraman left to see Trishelle at the… HOSPITAL (whew, that was easy)  while the other group, I swear to god, went next door to watch a rerun of Sex in the City with the shady neighbors….for 5 hours.  A 50 year-old Cuban Gun Dealer from Miami with a spitting resemblance to Ron Jeremy, and his 40-something-platinum-blonde-leather-skinned wife with a pair of ta-ta’s that were nicely paid for by the significant other.  Now, I’m not here to judge people or make any type of assumptions…at all.  But, I chit chatted with them for maybe 5 minutes. When I asked him what he did he said," I own a little gun shop in Miami” followed up immediately by,” It’s Legit!”  I’m not making this up.  I’m thinking of opening up a little legit gun shop myself.  Apparently, I’ll be able to afford a 2.5 million dollar vacation home in no time at all…

 

So the lovely day in Telluride starts off with an accident!!

 

OK. I would like to send my regards to the lovely designers/planners/welders for stating that “Huffy bicycles are fun, easy to ride, comfortable, and built to last” according to their website.

 

They forgot to mention that,"…Huffy mountain bikes are quite possibly the biggest adrenaline provider in terms of instilling such fear and panic when riding their bikes that one can become sterile.  After 5 days of riding the bikes. I would say 16 of the 18 bikes were broke beyond repair. Dave, Latarrian and I went biking and the chain split on Dave’s bike, and Latarrian’s handlebars ripped off 3 minutes later.  Everyone else had some other nice experience as well.

 

Trishelle though, was riding a very sturdy Gary Fisher when everything happened…um…Gary Fisher the bike.  I know mean joke.

 

Ok, think of Trishelle; now think of Becky (the early years) of Rosanne.  Eerie huh?

 

The Mission:

 

Disqualifications: Myself, Adam and Abe. I clocked Matt during the fourth round I think. Hence my disqualification.  We both went after the ball and I wound up being bumped into the air and both of our arms flailed in the air and my elbow clocked him on accident, I got possession of the ball and he went to the ground.  Amazingly one of the errant balls went right to him so he got one too.  I was ruled that I tackled him on purpose and was disqualified.  Matt agreed that I should have in fact tackled him, and he actually told the judge that he felt it wasn’t malicious or intentional.  I still got the boot . So I got disqualified.  Adam had a false start.

 

Meniscus tear: Anyone know what a meniscus is?  Basically, the Saran wrap sheath around muscles and tendons, I’ve torn mine basically three times.  Honestly, 90% of the time unless you’re old or going through puberty you don’t even need to go to the hospital.  You just ice it, it’ not detrimental at all for the most part.  It’s nothing compared to a torn or strained tendon or ligament.  I strained and tore my MCL junior year in college and still played soccer, I could barely move laterally and couldn’t punt the ball the last 6 games of the season, but I still could function well, and didn’t wear a brace.  Not saying this to make myself sound cool. I’m stating it to show that it was  waaaaaaay over blown.  But since Tonya’s a health-care freak and no one’s involved in athletics they think that it’s the worst thing that could have happened since Pepsi clear.

 

We all got scratched up: If you noticed, none of the athletes complained.  I’m talking like those who have played competitive sports.  It was actually kind of fun.  I hadn’t gotten a strawberry on my ass since ’98   Adam’s shin cut was by far the best injury of the week.

 

I will now go on a little tangent on what real people consider athletes and what reality people consider athletes. It’ll get back on track with how everything goes down   It blows my mind on this on all levels. 

Let’s take Brett Favre (quarterback of the Packers), Aaron Brooks (quarterback of the Saints) and Johnny Damon (outfielder for the Red Sox).  Now besides maybe Johnny Damon, none of these guys look like professional athletes, just guys who look decently in shape.  None of them would make you boggle at they’re body.  Aaron brooks looks like the awkward 8^th grader who sprouted 8 inches during the summer but only gained 10 pounds, but he could have played D-1 in a multiple sports such as; basketball, football, and track.  In high school, Johnny Damon joined the track team a day after his baseball team was eliminated in the district tournament.  Two weeks later he was the state champion in the 200 meter dash.  Brett Favre looks like he hangs out with my dad at the bar.  Give him a baseball and he throws it 95 miles an hour.  Give him a football and he’s a three time MVP.  My point is, these guys are real, true life athletes, they have the physiology to physically excel at anything they choose to do.  Most people in high school knew a guy like that.  A guy, who played football for three years, then decides to “try” wrestling to stay in shape and winds up going to state 12 weeks later.  But this is completely different from the reality TV point of thinking.

 

Hardly anyone out of the 28 cast members were real athletes, no one really played organized sports for me to consider them as an athlete.

 

 The Real World group as a whole considered David one of the most athletic guys simply because he was built like a tank.   But real athletes know that a great physique means absolutely nothing.  Honestly, Nathan and Alton are the only real athletes on their side.  Nathan was a decathlete in college.  D-1 no less, but no one even would consider him one cause of the presence of Hulk and Thing on their side (Mike and Dave).  David, nothing against him, didn’t have any type of athletic ability whatsoever.  And Mike, he didn’t play any sports in hs.  He ran cross country for a year or two I believe. (disclaimer: Cross country is one of those things that I consider a borderline sport.  I’ve been to two different high schools and taught at 4, and the schools with ranked programs are athletes, as for the others, it’s a group of kids that just run. )  Latarrian and I snickered at they’re inability to throw a football, they threw like girls.  Alton is one of those x-treme athletes.  I really don’t consider those guys athletes, but I’ve seen Alton learn new athletic things in a miraculously short amount of time, so I’ll give him athelte status.

 

Latarrian, Myself, Darrell and even Adam are primed experienced athletes or have had athletics as a major part of they’re life.  Rachel apparently was one of the best basketball players in the nation in high school, but I googled her and couldn’t find anything so I can’t say anything.  But what I’m getting to is that many of those people who are making decisions on athletic abilities have little idea what they’re talking about and even less when it comes to teamwork.

.

Flashback time:

The day before on our day off, the girls from my team gather around the little grass area catching some rays.  Katie is leading the discussion and apologizing for her behavior the last couple of days.  She had two or three days to apologize to everyone but waited until the day before the mission to actually do so.  Her excuse is the ever popular excuse “I was drunk” on why she bitched at everyone and told RW our strategy.  It wasn’t that our plan was secretive, just the fact that she told them out of spite and that is what angered anyone.  It was pretty much a given that she was going to be the overwhelming choice to be voted into the Gauntlet. But she had a plan…..

 

This is where being in the bubble has it’s advantages.  The LA people all hang out with each other for the most part whether they like each other or not.  It’s a very odd symbiotic creature the bubble is.  Like a man-a-war, it’s a little group of creatures that create this ugly creature (with a Bubble head go figure). 

 

Katie talks to the girls and apologizes and is totally sorry for what she did.  And a group of girls actually accept the apology because, some of them have done something completely similar in terms of pissing off someone and fakingly apologizes to them.  It’s scarily true.  But anyway.  From what I hear Katie proposes the idea to the girls to not vote for her to be kicked off.  That they need to band together and vote for a guy to be voted into the gauntlet, because if they don’t, the RR guys will just be voting in the girls over and over again.  If the girls vote Katie off, that’s potentially 3 points that could go to a boy, and weakens the unity of the girls’ survival.  Most of the girls agree and some don’t.  Sarah and Cara I know are uncomfortable with this idea.  Roni’s smart.  I don’t blame her at all.  She’s just going with the group that has momentum at that time.  It was decided that I was the best guy to be voted for.  I have virtually no connection with any of the other cast members there.  I’m not in the bubble and I severed the ties with my cast mates that were there. I’m the easiest pickings.

 

The girls denied an alliance…..

 

There were 5 people that gave me 3 points and Katie none, even though she was the first one out of the mission that day and cussed out all RR’s the night before.  You think theres a decaffeinated conspiracy brewing in the percolator at all?

 

In my interview the night before, they had asked me if I thought Katie had enough pull to get me voted into the Gauntlet.  I laughed out loud and compared her litigation skills to those of the tv show, Night Court.

 

I had to eat my words with a side of fruit cup.

 

 I don’t remember much of the rest of the interview except saying,

 

“I haven’t seen this much dissention since my testicles dropped.” I’m pissed that they didn’t use it.

 

And thus begins that night that everyone seems to sit me down for a “The way the world works” speech from every single person on my team.  Ok.  I’m exaggerating, but I’m using it for emphasis.

 

Later that night everyone’s drinking ...it’s the Norm.  He comes to me, swollen nipples and all.  He contacted some type of virus with Elka that makes your lymph nodes swell.  He advises me on the strategy that I should be partaking in.  That there needs to be another group to battle the evil forces of the V-Rachael group that is infecting our group.  I explained to him that I don’t really care. If it was any other type show like ASurvivor or Big Brother with a lot of other things at stake, I’d be a lot more devious and shady, but it’s just a MTV Challenge, and plus there’s a Gauntlet to save yourself.  I was confident in all the events that the Gauntlet had so I really didn’t mind.  And I said I was basing my voting on performance, and I would tell them up front if I voted for them or not.  I wouldn’t go back on my word.

 

The V-talk.

 

My pet peeves. I’m a pretty simple guy.  Nothing ever annoys or bothers me. I just have three things that get me going.

 

1. Interrupting:  It’s rude.

2. Displaced Anger: treating other people like crap because of something your boss/boyfriend/girlfriend/best friend said or did something to you that day.

3. Forcing yourself onto someone: religion, swerving in traffic, putting they’re problem on to you etc. 

 

It’s pretty simple.  Then V talks to me later that night. She denies voting for me or saying there is not any type of conspiracy while interrupting me numerous times.  I don’t remember much of the conversation but this part of which I found hilarious.

 

She lectures me on how to properly work in a team environment.  That I have no idea on how to function in a group, which is completely true since I’ve played organized sports year round since I was 5, played college sports, almost played professional soccer, coached premier soccer for 4 years and taught school for 3 years.   She explains to me how a team is supposed to function and operate.  I immediately tried retorting but again, the interruption.  She interrupts me while I’m asking her if she knows that she interrupts pe….

 

“Yes, I know.  I do it all the time.”

“It’s rude”

“I know. I don’t care.  You have to deal with it.”

“But can’t a team not fully function if no one is allowed to have a comple…”

“I interrupt people it’s part of what I do. Now do you understand me on how a team is supposed to operate?”

 

Yes. It actually happened just like that.

 

Medical place.

 

As I’m getting voted into the Gauntlet, I seem like such a chipper, strapping guy when I’m going into the gauntlet.  The Rozelle headband was my F-You to the team mates that voted me in.  I was going to write “Et tu Brute” on my back, knowing that only 3 or 4 people would have gotten it,  and those were the people on my side.  Those who didn’t get it would find out eventually somehow.  Upon the advice of Dave and Sarah I didn’t do it.  So I just used the Headband.  I’m not mad. Gandhi has his own method of protest, and so do I. Thank you ’85 bears.

 

The “shirtless” thing was a last second idea.

 

If you catch it right. I jump right on all of Tanya’s pieces to make it hard for her to get the pieces.  Yeah.  I’m a dick…and I win.  Go me.

 

 

So I’m going to end this recap with this.

 

So my roommate gets a package in the mail from her grandmother.  She’s 78.  Within this package is a present for me, a puzzle.  My roommate calls to thank her.

 

“…You know I like Steve a whole lot more now that I have seen what he had to deal with.  I always thought he was too much of a smart aleck….but he’s so not as obnoxious as these other people.  Those other young people are driving me crazy.  That one Katie girl?  She has such a mouth on her. I’m so grateful I’m not her Grandma; I’d be having fits trying to talk to this girl. She needs a good dose of God.  You know if she goes to church?”

 

(Deep breath)  MEDICAL PLACE!