Man vs Wild

This weekend Ryan discovered the Discovery Channel's Man v Wild. It's a show that drops a guy out into the wilderness (the middle of a desert, a rain forest, an island) with a camera crew and watches him go.

The guy's name is Bear. Really. I'm not kidding. Ryan is now his biggest groupie. About ten minutes into the first show Ryan had already set the TiVo to season pass this thing - and I'm pretty sure it was in the middle of a marathon, so you can imagine the weekend I had.

On numerous occasions I was sitting in the den on my laptop and Ryan pounced into the room with a big grin on his face regaling me with stories of Bear's heroics. His tales either started with, "My man Bear was..." or were told in an enthusiastic Australian accent.

I've now seen someone eat maggots, raw eggs, snap a fish's spine with his teeth and put a urine soaked shirt on his head. It's been an adventure.

Ryan is convinced that now he is an expert in survival. I'm tempted to believe him. After all, I would not know what to do were I being pursued by a Grizzly Bear - but Ryan would. He spent the entire weekend telling me that we are now ready to be stranded in any possible climate with just a water bottle and a shoe string. He's even gone so far as to proclaim that he needs a new set of hiking boots for just such an occasion.

It was all very darling and he was wicked excited - more than prepared for anything that he should come up against in the wilds of nature. Then, this morning when he was putting on his contacts he got the saddest look on his face and make the most heart wrenching sound of disappointment. "Oh," he said, "I couldn't be Bear. I wear contacts."