Hot Dog Halves

Ever play Anchorman?

It's a brutal, relentless, unforgiving drinking game...and it's a hell of a lot of fun. Of course, it's been nearly twenty years since I've last played, but there's good reason for that...

Right out of college, sixteen of my closest friends rented a couple houseboats for a relaxing, fun-filled, blow-off-some-steam five-day vacation on Lake Shasta. We stocked up on food, sun tan lotion, cards...and beer. The first four days were wonderful: sitting around campfires, floating and swimming in the lake, barbecuing up dogs and burgers...everyone getting along, everyone laughing, everyone enjoying themselves.

But on the morning of the fourth day, someone realized that we had barely made a dent out of the clearly overly-optimistic supply of beer that had been purchased. This was unacceptable. That morning we sat around discussing what could be done to fix this serious problem.

"So what?" someone chimed in, "What's the big deal about bringing a bunch of extra beer home?"

This person clearly was never going to be invited back again.

But I knew there was only one solution. "No problem," I calmly stated to the group, "...Anchorman."

The faces looking back at me said it all: confusion, agreement, trepidation, elation...and pure, unadulterated fear.

Immediately, half the group declined to participate; but we only needed six people to play. One by one, six people raised their hands: they were "in."

In Anchorman, you take a large cup, fill it with two beers, and split six people into two teams of three. There are three quarters: one team starts by trying to bounce a quarter into the full cup. If they make it, the next person on their team goes. If they miss it, the other team goes. The team that makes the third quarter in wins, the person on that team that made it is "in control", and the other team must now drink the full cup of beer.

But wait, it's not quite that easy.

The person in control picks the order of drinking, including the final person to drink, or the "anchorman." The first two people that go can drink as much - or as little - as they want, but no matter what happens, the anchorman MUST finish whatever is left by the time it gets to them.

I'm sure you can see where this is going...

Of course, in the beginning of the game there is always noble camaraderie, team pride and complete, proactive support for each other. The first two people drinking will many times finish the entire cup before it even gets to the anchorman, resulting in high fives, pay-it-forward gratitude, and relief.

But this doesn't last long.

After a few straight losses, inevitably the first two drinkers will apologize, take a single sip, and pass the cup along. Suddenly, the anchorman is faced with having to finish 22 ounces all by themselves. And then one of the first two drinkers is decreed anchorman, and it's payback time. And the cycle repeats itself again, and again, and again.

Now look, I'm not going to get into the gory details of an episode that I'm not proud to pass along to my kids; we've all been down a similar path one way or another, and (hopefully) we've all learned from it. In the end, I'm very happy to say, I was fine. That, however, was not the case for four of the remaining five other players.

One forcefully fed trout off the side of the boat, one cradled a large salad bowl for hours - deep in dry heaving hell, one falling face down and unmoving in the reeds along the shore where two of us pulled her out in the nick of time...it was not pretty.

But one guy - a large guy with a seemingly endless chasm of beer-guzzling ability - seemed to be...OK. He had been cocky during the game, talking trash and then backing it up with insane displays of drinking prowess. He seemed invincible...and when the salad bowl girl went down hard, his booming laugh could be heard from far away.

After all the "excitement" had waned around two in the morning, five of us found ourselves on shore sitting around the campfire, trying to get our minds around everything that had so crazily occurred that evening. Suddenly, in the midst of the soft conversation, our big friend with the seemingly inhuman ability to imbibe who had been falling asleep with his chin on his chest, sat up straight and projectile vomited the six to eight hot dogs he had eaten immediately after the game had ended.

They stacked in a pile at his feet, sounding like wet fish flopping on a cold linoleum floor.

Shocked, startled and disgusted, we were suddenly aware that the amorphous mound of ketchup and mustard tinged half-eaten bun and hot dog goo was exactly that: half eaten. He had - literally - bit the dogs in half and swallowed them without further chewing. You could actually see the pinched end casing and bite marked hot dog halves poking out of the mess.

This was violence personified.

But in the offensive and all-consuming silence surrounding us in the immediate aftermath of this apocalypse, one sound, slowing building, filled the air.

"Heh-heh. Heh. Heh. Heh-heh. Heh. Heh-heh. Heh. Heh..."

We turned, and there, slumped in a lawn chair behind us, was salad bowl girl, hating life, but suddenly laughing like Beavis dying a slow, painful death - a pitiful, revengeful, vitriolic, evil snicker, perfectly encapsulating the horrifying joy she felt at watching Hot Dog Halv (or just "Halv" for short - his nickname forever after) take his licks and sink even lower than she was.

Friends, Parvati is Halv.

I know many of you are going to disagree with me here, but hear me out...

Was her double immunity idol play one of the most amazing things to ever occur in twenty seasons of Survivor? Undoubtedly, yes.

Was it a brilliant move to give the Villain tribe a definitive numbers advantage? Seemingly, yes.

Was it fun to actually watch as JT's preschool-aged brain attempted to grasp that he had suddenly entered the sad ranks of one of the dumbest Survivor moves ever made coming back to bite him? Outstandingly, yes.

But - give all credit to Probst who called Parvati on it just before the vote - all it was, was Parvati taking care of Parvati and ensuring the spotlight shined on her...for the moment.

Do you really think Sandra and Jerri are going to pledge their everlasting loyalty to Parvati because of this?

No, no, no, one thousand times no.

This is a game, and most of these people do seem to understand it. Now, had Parvati approached Jerri and Sandra before the vote and shared with them her idea, attempting to get them to on board with a trusted alliance...it might be a different story.

But she didn't do that. And not only was it a surprise to Jerri and Sandra, but do you really think Russell is going to be OK with Parvati making decisions outside of his influence?

A million times no.

Jerri and Sandra, while thankful to survive another day, will - rightfully - think that Parvati was saving Parvati's ass, and using them to do it. They were tools, pawns, game pieces; they didn't ask to be saved, and they won't feel indebted. And they shouldn't. Because had the need for Parvati to backstab them and vote them off in order to keep her viable be needed, they'd have been gone in a heartbeat.

Sandra needs to stop being so afraid to talk with the Heroes; what's wrong with openly aligning with them when your old tribe has you last in their pecking order?

And Russell? How will he EVER trust Parvati from here on in? He gave her his idol to implement his strategy. I can't envision an existence in which Russell would be OK with the ends justifying the means when the means haven't come directly from his immense ego.

No, this is all going to implode in the next couple weeks. Parvati blew it up for this episode, but she showed her hand too early. She spent her wad. She coughed up her hot dog halves.

Entertaining? Yes. But hot dog halves aren't a strategy, they're gut reaction resulting in a lifetime of ridicule and a one-time, snapshot memory.

I predict Parvati will go the way of those mustard-laden halves from long ago: consumed by vile, scavenging creatures in the dark of night.

I'm betting that Russell is a big fan of hot dogs...

Until next week,

PB