April 17, 2001


What gear would you take with you on Survivor?

Your Gearliness: I understand that each "contestant" on Survivor was allowed to bring one personal item. Now that's Survivor II is almost over, what one piece of indispensable gear would you have taken with you if you were on Survivor. Also, has CBS accepted your application for Survivor III yet?

— James Meredith New Jersey

Alas, to my continued shock and dismay, CBS has not yet called me for "Survivor III." Oh, wait...phone is ringing, so it must be them. Hold on a second...

Nope, wasn't them. It was the Fox network, though, and they want me to appear on "Temptation Island: Gear Mania." I'll be marooned on an island with old, crummy (i.e., last year's) gear, and various vendors will appear and tempt me with the coolest new stuff. If I knuckle under and abandon, say, my well-worn pair of Montrail boots, I then have to hike ten miles in boots that look great but are right out of the box. Sounds painful.

Anyway, what would I take as the one personal item? That's pretty easy, I think. But I could only stand to watch snippets of the show -- could it be anything, or did it have to be something truly "personal" like a change of underwear? If it was open then I would take a multi-tool. It seems to be that would be infinitely valuable for all sorts of things, from carving new tools of some sort, to picking splinters out of my hide, to bopping another contestant with it. I don't think it matters a heckuva lot which one -- Gerber's Legend ($100) would do nicely, as would the Leatherman Super Tool ($50). The pliers on either of these would be extremely handy.

By the way, if haven't already, check out Outside Online columnist Bill Vaughn's weekly satire on the show, it's a real hoot. Certainly more entertaining than watching the contestants duke it out for a million bucks.