My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [26]
Here’s the thing—if I were to make it onto Survivor, my main goal would be avoiding the Shame Rattle sound effect. Ever notice that anytime a contestant says or does something particularly stupid, the producers overlay this little chucka-chucka-chuck noise? Happens on The Bachelor and The RR/RW Challenges and The Amazing Race and Hell’s Kitchen all the time, plus tons of other shows. Producers use the Shame Rattle as a way to highlight a contestant’s lack of self-awareness, but they also love to lay it over failed feats of athleticism. Personally, I love the Shame Rattle, but since my plan is to sit out on the running events, I’ve got to be extra-fierce in the water-based ones, lest it rattle for me.
I’ve always been a strong swimmer, so imagine my surprise when what looked like a gentle tide grabbed me by the shins, pulled me under, gave me a ten-billion-gallon swirlie, and then threw me onto a bed of jagged rocks and broken shells so forcefully that I skidded almost all the way back to our beach camp.
Huh, I thought. Perhaps the three Bloody Marys I slugged down on the plane made me a bit wobbly. Jeff Probst would mock me mercilessly if I only tried this the once, plus the Shame Rattle would sound, so I should go in again.
I’d waded in up to my ankles when another teeny wave suddenly turned white and not only knocked me ass over teakettle but also wedged buckets of sand in my every orifice.53 Next to me, Angie was receiving a similar beating.
Oh, ocean, I mused, I’ll best you yet. I’m just out of practice.
This time I dashed into the water full force, mouth wide-open à la Braveheart, which is exactly how I ended up swallowing a hogshead full of briny water, seaweed, and possibly one dead jellyfish.
Sixteen increasingly unsuccessful tries later, I hauled myself back to my group of girls, battered, bloody, and wearing what felt like a diaper full of sand, whispering only, “Ocean—monumental fail,” before collapsing into my beach chair.
If we were on Survivor, I’d have to hike to the freshwater spring to get the nonsalt variety, bring it back through the jungle, boil it, and then wait for it to cool. But here, all I have to do is ask for one of the million bottles of Dasani the girls packed. Sometimes real life is even better than reality television.
Moments after my surrender, the lifeguard put up two huge red flags on either side of where I’d been attempting to swim. He must have been sitting in his tall chair the whole time, thinking, “The big, tan, sturdy one keeps getting knocked over. Hey . . . I wonder if there aren’t some riptides right about here.”
Point?
I’d rather be getting ten thousand violent sand enemas right now than standing on a New York City sidewalk that’s so hot it’s melting the rubber on the bottom of my sandals in the minute it takes Poppy to get her bags out of the car.
We all stayed at the beach last night, but today we’re in the city proper. I have my Travel Channel meeting this afternoon, and the other girls have their own agendas. Poppy mentioned something about her devoting her day to “spending quality time at the mother ship,”54 but that still counts as a plan.
We were all going to sleep at Wendy’s brother-in-law’s loft in Chelsea, but when we got there, we discovered it was smaller than we’d expected. Sensing we might be cramped, Poppy invited me to stay with her at the Colony Club.
“Um . . . okay. How much does it cost?” I asked. Given her taste in three-hundred-dollar scarves, I was a tad cautious about the lodgings she might choose.
“Nothing because it’s on me,” she replied.
“Then I’m totally in.” Given her taste in three-hundred-dollar scarves, I was a tad delighted about the lodgings she might choose.
I was ten years old the last time I was in New York in the summer. I recall skipping down streets, the sun at my back, delighting in how abandoned the city was, the majority of the residents having left the island in pursuit of sand and surf. I remember how calm everything was—there was none of the festive chaos we’d encountered the previous fall when