Packing Your Bag for The Amazing Race

I'm always amazed by people on reality shows.  They go out there and do things you'd never imagine.  The way they carry themselves, the way they act, so much of their whole persona amazes me.

Let's start with a little hypothetical today.  You're on The Amazing Race.  You know that you're going to be going all over the world – cold places, warm places, and everywhere in between.  You really don't have a ton of space to pack clothes, so need to really focus on the important stuff.  Oh sure, you know that other teams are going to have space (and you probably do too, or at least a second pair of shoes) for some pretty big boots, but what about the rest of your bag.  I think that sweatshirts and t-shirts and jeans are probably the way to go.  How about skivvies though?  What are you going to wear undergarment-wise?

Perhaps you'd pack some long johns, after all, the odds of visiting a cold place aren't all that remote and you can buy long johns that roll pretty tight.  If you're a man, after you've made that decision the question pretty much boils down to whether you prefer boxers or briefs, and you're going to go with the one you prefer.  If you're a woman, things can be more complicated, I get that, really I do.  I just don't think that, were I a woman, I'd make the same choices Jennifer and Christie did. 

Jennifer opted to save space in her bag (I'm guessing that was the reason anyway) by going commando.  Christie – I'm not sure if it was a fashion decision or a space one – went with a thong.

Now, as I mentioned above, you're on a reality show.  Yes, it's a reality show that tends to demean people less than the average one, but it's still a reality show.  Would you really be going commando?  There was every possibility of being forced to change or get semi-naked mid-leg, so I'm not sure, unless you're something of an exhibitionist, why you'd want to do go without bottoms.  As for things, they just don't seem comfortable, so unless you were on a fashion-based reality show I'm not sure why you'd choose them either.  Wait… maybe the point of the thong is that they are uncomfortable, maybe Christie figured they'd help quicken her pace.

Okay, thongs maybe we've come up with a reason for, but not going skivvy free, that I don't get.  And, Jennifer got what she deserved when last night's trip to Siberia required her to run almost a mile and a half in skivvies, which the producers apparently lent her.  So, I guess the makers of the show were prepared for such foolishness, and I guess I should have been expecting such a stunt. I just wasn't, I simply wasn't.

I'm not going to ask any of you out there whether or not you choose to go commando on a regular basis; that's a personal decision of yours and not one to which I need to be privy.  What I would like you to sit there and consider though, is even if you had a tendency to not put on a traditional bottom layer of clothing, were you going on a reality show and going to be seen by millions of people, do you think you might, just maybe, consider actually wearing some sort of undergarment. 

Bill Cosby used to do a great routine about mom's always wanting to know that if their kid was in an accident if they were wearing clean underwear.  The idea being, I think, that you should always be prepared for the world to see you in your skivvies.  In my mind, parents would be far more disheartened to learn that you had to borrow underwear on national television than wore a dirty pair.

There had to be space in Jennifer's bag for underwear, there just had to be.