Nekkid and Afraid

When my online bestie traveled hours upon hours by car to come visit me at my home in the Blue Ridge Mountains of West Virginia, I promised her it would be like nothing she had ever experienced before.

And I wasn't kidding!

Her first full day at my home found us driving into town for some snacks for our WV-themed movie marathon. We nixed the idea of watching Deliverance but Mothman Prophecies was totally on the list.

Because she had never visited this part of the state for any length of time, I drove so she could look around. Having made the trip into town a countless number of times, the scenery passed by me in a blur. Neighbors went on about their daily lives with no concern as to whether anyone else was about.

This became super apparent when my friend blurted, "Was that guy peeing off his front porch? Oh, my God! HE WAS PEEING OFF HIS FRONT PORCH!"

"Yes," I replied. "I supposed he was."

We still giggle about my neighbor's lack of propriety and my having built up a blind eye to local shenanigans after a lifetime of living in the area.

When the television show Naked and Afraid came out in 2013, I avoided it. Finally, in 2016, I spent a day binging it with my husband. We joked that it was as close as we'd get to watching porn as our sons were then 18 and 19, and I'm as much a prude around them as I am crude around him.

So, imagine my surprise when the next day, we visited the emergency room after my husband started experiencing chest pains. Although many things played a factor in this change in his health, I still joke that it was an overdose of nudity. All that blurred out bare skin on the television screen was too much for him to handle.

Later that night, in the ICU of a neighboring hospital, he relaxed in the bed with a cocktail of heavy-duty medications running through his veins while I worked away on my laptop. The nursing staff was super supportive and went above and beyond in helping with anything we needed.

One of the friendliest of the nurses set me up with unlimited tiny cans of ginger ale and apple juice and made sure I knew how to work the remote for the television. She even left the channel on a show she highly recommended--Naked and Afraid.

Although I'm pretty sure some of my neighbors would have no problem surviving 21 days in the wilderness without clothes, I'm not one of them. This girl needs her creature comforts--coffee, fuzzy slippers, and clean underwear, thank you very much.

I'm not an adrenaline junkie. The most extreme I get is hooking into an open WiFi connection to write articles like the one you're reading now--and I wouldn't even do that without clothes--but I have all the respect in the world for those who can shed their inhibitions, both literally and figuratively, to enjoy life outside their comfort zone.

What about you? Could you shed your clothes to spend 21 days in the wilderness? Are you a fan of the show? Let's discuss in the comments!