Warnings of a Dateline Diet

I was raised on a steady diet of investigation television shows such as 20/20, Dateline, and Unsolved Mysteries. The reports of Barbara Walters and Stone Phillips infiltrated the message that the world is not a safe place into my young and impressionable brain. My parents watched these shows with me and my mom would occasionally have her own little "Life Lessons" commentary as a sidebar to my education regarding the world.* I like to think that I learned important things that make me the street savvy girl I am today. I know not to lay on the top comforter at a hotel and to clean off the television clicker in a hotel as that is the most germy thing in there. I know to avoid chain letters that say they are Oprah Winfrey endorsed. I'd like to think that my investigative television education played a role in my avoidance of ever being slipped a roofie or joining a cult. But...

Every time I find myself in a questionable situation- even if it is just a solo taxi ride- my brain instantly flashes to what this scene of my life would look like if it was re-enacted for something like Unsolved Mysteries. Every movement I make is narrated by Robert Stack and an impending if not super cheesy soundtrack follows me as my world is suddenly taken over by a B-rate actress and the probability of death. Some of my friends say I have a morbid side to me. I might point my finger to investigative television for that.

So Ben and I joined the masses of "cruisers" a few weeks ago and spent a week at sea bouncing around different islands in the western Caribbean. It was beautiful and we were joined by a group of friends (and my mother) that made the trip absolutely amazing. To get to the cruise ship, Ben and I had to take a car, plane, train, and two shuttle buses.

We caught our last shuttle some time after the sun went down and it was just Ben and I in a little shuttle that we barely met. The man in the van was chattering away with the enthusiasm of a three year old girl and this was very distracting (and fatiguing). It was when he said "Now don't worry, you are safe with me. I realize that this is a strange, barren place we are driving through with no lights or other people around" that I suddenly realized Ben and my surroundings were pretty creepy. We were in the middle of nowhere and Robert Stack began narrating Ben and my situation. I imagined the shuttle van guy to be crazed- perhaps something out of No Country for Old Men- and I envisioned the B-rate actress who played me to have a very bad haircut. Maybe she wasn't even blond. The accuracy of this re-enactment would, of course, be alleged since Ben and I would be too dead to tell the story and ensure historical accuracy. This all happened in a matter of seconds and then our shady, terrible hotel (another story for another time but I will tell you I never took off my socks ever- thank you investigative reporting) appeared on the horizon and we were safe. The B-rate actress disappeared and all was well with the world. At least, for a little while.

*Thanks Mom