Outwit, Outlast, Outeat

I don't know how many of you have seen the movie Alive, but for those of you who haven't, here's the basic plot:

A Uraguayan Rugby team suffers a plane crash in the Andes Mountains in 1972. No search team is coming to rescue them, and they need to gain strength to find help for themselves. Unfortunately, they have no food left. The only solution: to eat the dead. (Based upon a true story.)

The movie forces people to ask themselves the question, What would you do in this situation? Would you eat the dead or not? On our way home from softball a couple of weeks ago, Matt and Justin took this idea a little further. Sure, it started innocently enough as Justin affirmed that he would want all of us to eat him if he died first. Matt concluded that he would indeed have no reservations about eating Justin - his former roommate of many years. I was a little less certain about eating Justin, and Lauren was just absolutely appalled that our drive home had taken such a terrible turn.

They theorized that if they found themselves in a similar situation, you know that everyone would just be hoping that the fat guy dies first - absolutely willing him to death in the hopes of food for all. But, wait, maybe we want the most muscular person to die first - more meat, less fat. After only a couple of short minutes, the question of whether or not to eat the dead was no longer the issue - these guys were beyond eating the dead. They were now eating AND mutilating the dead without hesitation.

I'm not sure who started it, but they began imagining all of the ways they could use the various bones and appendages of the person they had just devoured. At this point Lauren and I were begging them to stop, assuring them they had taken it far enough, we were turning up the radio to drown out their discussions about using the jaw bone as a saw, and adorning their bodies in the carcasses of their comrades - like the indians would do, they claimed. After enough complaining, the conversation finally took a turn...

Matt and Justin had now jumped to the following scenario: you are alone, with no friends left to eat. At what point do you decide to eat your own arm? I found myself trying not to laugh at this point. It's one thing to talk about eating another human being - a dead one, at that - but to begin eating your own body, while you are still alive (obviously) is beyond imaginable for me. But, Matt and Justin were very easily capable of imagining it. I don't know if the rest of you have thought this through, but here are Matt and Justin's pointers for anyone considering eating themselves:

1. Eat your left arm first (if you are right handed).
2. Next, after making certain that there are no berries left to scrounge or any method of saving yourself by foot, move on to the legs.
3. Make sure you leave the other arm, otherwise you will be unable to cut up the rest of your body.
4. Take it slow, pace yourself.
5. To eat your second arm, is to admit defeat.

How any one person, not to mention two could begin to devise such a plan is beyond me. We all laughed as they imagined the rescuers finally showing up to save you, and finding the savage survivor with nothing but a torso left.

In conclusion, should any of you find yourselves on vacation with Matt and Justin, you better hope you are not the fattest or the most muscular, you better not give up, and you better be willing to Outwit, Outlast, Outeat.

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