I can't let this go any longer. I must confess: I find nothing miraculous, heroic, exciting, or dangerous about the Chilean miners' rescue or predicament.
Six of the Chilean miners, shown here in terrible shape and broken spirits in complete darkness underground.Somebody stop me when I'm over-simplifying this, but 69 days ago 33 ppl got stuck underground. They couldn't do anything about it so they just sat around and continued to live. Engineers drilled a long ass hole to them, and from that point on they had all they needed to survive (and more – video chatting with relatives, come on!!). Then they got in a rollercoaster and rode it to the surface, with absolutely no risk of "virgin" rock caving in. (Why do they always put "virgin" in quotes in news articles when referring to this rock? Do we distrust the rock, but roll our eyes and go with it anyway, like a hot 19-year-old?)
After reaching "precious sunlight" (seriously? The sun will be available for billions more years, let's not embellish. Plus, bears hibernate up to 100 days, and I've personally gone a week without emerging from my dark bedroom during a programming disaster), the miners await the harsh realities of life on top of the Earth: FAME AND FORTUNE. WOE TO BE A TRAPPED MINER!
Rescued Miner #23: I THINK I'VE GOT THE BLACK LUNG, POP." *COUGH* *COUGH*
Journalist #6,349: That's actually, from a movie… Zoolander… have you, seen it?
Rescued Miner #23: Haha, you got me. After they lowered the Blu-Ray player last month, we've been watching it non-stop. Remember the part where Matilda tells Hansel the files are IN the computer, and then Hansel and Derrick start banging on it to break it open?! Luis nearly shit his pants, man! They had to lower a case of Febreze down there just to air the place out, hahah!
Journalist #6,349: ….
Rescued Miner #23: I mean, uh, you know, wow, it was all we could do to survive down there. Pretty dark and stuff when you turn the TV off.
So anyway, the miners are almost all out (28 of 33 as I write this). Don't you wish everyone was as excited to see you after staying late at work? The only way things could get any more exciting is if one of them stubs a toe on the way up. Actually, please god let one of them decide to stay down there. I'd love to see a standoff between one guy and the rest of the world for how long he can get them to feed him food and attention.
If none of this has convinced you what a "made-for-media" event this has become, read this paragraph from the Associated Press:
"As trying as their time underground was, the miners now face challenges so bewildering that no amount of coaching can fully prepare them. Rejoining a world intensely curious about their ordeal, they have been invited to presidential palaces, to take all-expenses-paid vacations and to appear on countless TV shows. Book and movie deals are pending, along with job offers."
If you have to refer to enduring free presidential trips, exotic vacations, and movie/book deals as BEWILDERING in comparison to the challenges required by a supposedly historic survival and rescue, well then, my friends, I'm ready to get mine shaft on.