Crash Test Girl

by Kari Byron

  Reading those poems now is mortifying in a good way. Besides the hilarity of how bad they are, they provide truth and comfort. I’ll probably look back at sixty on my forties and say, “You were still an asshole! You still didn’t know anything!” and I’ll love that, too. The promise of lifelong learning, even if it’s just how big an asshole I am, is a gift that never gets old. I know most people prefer being young, but I adore being in my forties. I love the humility that comes with it. That’s where I am now, and it’s a really nice place to be.

  * * *

  We had to rush, so we walked all downhill, no flats, on trails and stairs, overheating in shorts during the day and freezing in long pants in the evening. We stayed in a village on our second day of descent. I woke up at dawn, and got down off my cot, but I must’ve taken a weird step and my knee popped out of the socket. It was blindingly painful. I might’ve blacked out for a second. In my mind, I’d been telling myself, “You can do it!” But my body said, “I’m taking you out.”

  First, I had to get my knee back in the socket. I lay on the floor, grabbed my knee, and punched it back into place. I put a neoprene brace over my swollen knee while gritting my teeth so hard I thought they might shatter. I used some scarves to immobilize it as much as possible and fashioned a broken tree limb into a crutch.

  We set off and every step was agony but we had no choice but to keep going. We were still high on the mountain, didn’t have the money to pay for the rescue, and I was otherwise healthy. I’d set the goal of hiking Annapurna, and that meant down as well as up. No matter what, I was going to accomplish my goal. I might’ve been delirious by that point. I was definitely a bit outside my body, as if I were in a storybook. When I was just about to give up, two butterflies appeared in our path as if leading the way, and I said, “I’m taking that as a sign!” Butterflies as spirit guides? Why not? It was Nepal!

  Another sign: We heard that a wild tiger had been spotted. I bet trekkers are delicious, so we decided to move faster. For days, I’d hop twice on the crutch for every one step on the “good” leg with the beat-up bloody foot. I remember stopping at cold water streams and sticking my knee and feet in the water to numb the pain.

  I silently cried a lot and just when I started to give up completely—“I don’t think I can go any farther!”—this horrible storm came in, with lightning and thunder, and I hobbled as fast as possible to the next village for shelter. Ahead of us on the trail, a middle-aged woman was walking along with ski poles for balance. I watched her get struck by lightning right in front of me. It was like she turned to stone and then fell over sideways, hitting the ground like a statue frozen in her pose. Her friends grabbed her now-limp body and carried her to the closest camp. She was sobbing all night long and every time lightning would hit the tin roof she would scream in terror and my heart would jump. I felt really horrible for her (but also kinda wanted her to shut up already). It was like being trapped in a tenth circle of Dante’s inferno, drowning in agony screams.

  In the morning, Dawn and our guide asked if I needed to rest for another day. I looked down at the sobbing woman, and said, “No, I’m good.”

  As bad as it was for me, it was worse for someone else. As long as I could limp, I would. I kept going and we got out of there on time and in one piece. I felt great about the experience, and now drag it out whenever I feel overwhelmed.

  You have no choice but to be brave and keep going.

  The Red Sea

  I learned to scuba dive in Fiji. The first time I went under with the mask on was terrifying, an instant sensation of drowning. I panicked immediately and swam to the surface. I tried again, and luckily, I was distracted by my dive master’s long snot booger that moved and bobbed underwater. I was laughing in my mask at how disgusting it was, and forgot all about drowning. Once I got over my initial fear, I swam with sea turtles and fish and fell in love. Scuba diving is addicting. Once you get a taste, you want to do it again and again, and go deeper each time. I’ve had the good fortune to dive in Australia along the Great Barrier Reef, in Bali and Thailand, and in the Red Sea in Dahab, Egypt.

  While backpacking in Egypt, Lisa and I were on edge to begin with. To get from one side of the country to the other, we’d had to go with an armed caravan. Men with serious weapons were everywhere and you got a very real sense that you took your life into your own hands just being there. Two very American-looking young women, traveling through the desert, weren’t exactly inconspicuous and we caught many looks that frightened and startled us.

  I met this guy, a super-hot Parisian wearing a dive suit, on a beach. He was with a friend of his, a tall, sexy Dutchman. They told Lisa and me that they were scuba masters and asked if we’d like to go diving. We took one look at them, and glanced at each other, grinning. “Sure, we’d love to go diving with you,” I said. They told us about a spot that was deeper than we were certified to go, but we lied and said we could do it.

  “You have to swim through a four-foot-wide coral cave, straight down the whole way,” said the French guy. “There are two openings into a lagoon, but if you miss the first one, you can’t turn around because it’s too narrow. You have to keep going to the second opening.”

  I just nodded, thinking, I can do this, perhaps crossing the mental line between bravery and stupidity.

  So we plunged in, and swam headfirst into the tight tunnel, my tank scraping against the coral. The guys started gesturing at us, and I realized they were trying to say that we’d gone too far and missed the first opening. To get to the second, we’d have to descend much deeper than I’d ever been. While swimming the thirty feet to the second opening through the increasingly narrow passageway, I came very close to having a panic attack. As it got darker and darker, I thought, I could die in this tunnel.

  Finally, the second opening appeared and we swam through it into a wide-open space with an incredible wall of fish and coral. We were probably the only four people for miles and it felt private and special. Lisa and I were blown away by the lush, jaw-dropping beauty, like a van Gogh or Kincaid painting. We followed the guys around until our tanks were nearly empty and we had to swim back through the tunnel and up to the surface.

  Sharing these intense experiences—a death-defying dive and the dramatic reveal of a beautiful, hidden world—was romantic as hell. When the dive masters asked us to dinner that night, of course, we said yes. Lisa’s Dutchman showed up in hipster glasses and a casual timeless style, and my Frenchman was shirtless in Thai elephant MC Hammer pants, and more yarn necklaces and bracelets than I was comfortable with. My date sure did present differently in civilian clothes; I will never forget the devilish grin Lisa gave me when we saw what he was wearing. In the end, I still made out with him, mostly just to get him out of those awful clothes. I didn’t see him again after that, but he is locked in my memory forever. I’ll never forget the sense of danger about Egypt itself, the dive, trusting strangers, and seeing the most thrilling natural beauty I’ve ever beheld.

  REVEALING YOUR TRUE SELF TO OTHERS IS JUST AS BRAVE AS RISKING YOUR LIFE

  The Cut of Cheese

  On MythBusters, we did an episode that answered the question, “Do pretty girls fart?” To test it, I was required to pass gas on camera. I think they threw in the word “pretty” to make me do it, thinking I’d be flattered, as in, Oh, you think I’m pretty? I’ll do whatever you want!

  They could have called me a goddess, I was still reluctant. I’d vomit on camera, sure. But fart? I had my dignity! Eventually, I agreed to take one for the team. It was just a little toot. I’d done worse.

  They handed me a pair of what Jamie called “farting panties.” (FYI: I can’t stand it when fatherly men say the word “panties.” It freaks me out. I made him call them “bloomers” or “underwear.”) The knickers were outfitted with a hydrogen sulfide meter with an alarm and a microphone that was rigged up to a PA system for the entire building. If I let one go, everybody would hear it. I was very tense, which I learned is a fart blocker. Adding
to the stress, a bunch of executives from Discovery decided that they were going to tour the building that day. So it wasn’t just like a few of my friends. There was a big audience standing around, waiting for me to release gas.

  * * *

  BRAVE HEARTS

  As an artist and now an author, I draw inspiration from others. If you are ever in search of a brave woman to admire and emulate, explore the work and life stories of these artists who unfailingly turned their female hearts into their art:

  Frida Kahlo. You know about her iconic flower-crowned self-portrait. What you might not know is that the Mexican artist/icon had polio as a child, causing her right leg to be shorter than her left, and that she survived a horrific bus accident at eighteen. Her pelvis was impaled by an iron rail that broke the bone, along with her collarbone, vertebrae, ribs, and both legs. She was in casts and bedridden for months, and lived with back pain and fatigue for the rest of her life. Many of her self-portraits explore her misshapen, damaged body, and what she endured. She also suffered through her two marriages to Diego Rivera, a passionate painter, who cheated on her constantly (as she cheated on him). Her later years were defined by health woes and heartache, but she pulled her canvases into bed, worked through her problems, and expressed her pain and passion in glorious, surrealist dreamlike pieces. For more about her life story, watch Frida, starring fellow Mexican artist Salma Hayek.

  Simone de Beauvoir. The French author and philosopher wrote The Second Sex in 1949, and it’s been the introduction to feminism for three generations of women, and counting. An activist and thinker, de Beauvoir pushed everything in her life through the filter of feminism, including her lifelong relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre. They never married. They weren’t faithful. Their relationship didn’t fit the traditional mold and no one was going to dictate to her what she could and couldn’t do as a writer and a lover of men and women.

  Anaïs Nin. French-born American Nin was a bohemian free spirit in Paris and New York, writing, seducing, living, and exploring emotions throughout the mid-twentieth century. She wrote deeply personal essays in her diaries, which she kept her whole life, and erotic story collections Delta of Venus and Little Birds. Her romantic life was as prolific as her literary output. Nin was married twice (both men at the same time for a while there), and took many lovers, most famously Henry Miller, who inspired her erotic writings. For me, reading her work in college was like watching a beautiful flower unfold. She wrote about fetish sex and bondage, “abnormal pleasures,” themes I’d never heard about before, with such grace. She is credited as the first female erotica writer, defying convention and social dictates in her work and life. Although her name is not in the title, the movie Henry & June is about Nin’s sexual awakening with Miller, and it’s pretty hot.

  Eva Hesse was one of the most influential postminimalist sculptors of the 1960s. Her brave use of experimental and unconventional materials like latex, fiberglass, and plastic created haunting sculptures that illuminated women’s issues while refraining from any obvious political agenda. Her impulse to manipulate material but let it guide its own form inspires me today. Art was her heart. She was a juggernaut in a primarily male-dominated movement.

  * * *

  I had a wave of flashbacks to my coin bra high school moment, except this time, I was humiliating myself on purpose.

  OWN IT

  They fed me cabbage and beans. I did jumping jacks. And nothing was happening in my high-tech undies. They were getting frustrated with me, and piling on the pressure to produce.

  Adam was almost yelling at me. “You have to produce something!” And just then, in the final seconds of the show, I released a tiny “Chanel No 2” emission. (We had to call it that because the network decided we couldn’t use the word “fart” on TV.) Everybody cheered. I wanted to stand proud, but I just started giggling, and saying, “Oh my God, my parents are going to be watching this show. This is what I’ve become!”

  Farting on TV was embarrassing, but even more, it was liberating.

  Once you fart on camera, you own it. Everyone knows you do it. We all do it. That’s why fart jokes are funny. I claimed the moment, and I knew everything was going to be okay. How could I ever be afraid to look (or sound) like a fool again?

  Why was I ever afraid of that?

  I had this idea in my head, that dignity meant hiding your humanity from the world. If you looked foolish, you lost your credibility. You don’t see news anchors farting on camera, or even showing a zit. That would be too human, and, therefore, denigrating. Until that episode, I don’t think I’d ever farted in front of my husband. I clung to the illusion that hiding the smelly, funny, icky parts of being human was how you put your best self forward. But everyone poops (as the book says). Everyone farts. Our audience enjoyed hearing me do it. When I freed myself of that so-called dignity, I became relatable on a new level. I was able to relax and be myself. I didn’t even realize I’d been holding back a little until then.

  My fart was revolutionary, the first in a shift toward human realness and grittiness on TV and the internet. Since then, we’ve seen the rise of #nofilter YouTube shows, and reality TV stars crying and looking like hell on camera. Being publicly unpolished is now acceptable, even desirable, because it’s relatable.

  Now freed from repression, I farted at will at the shop. After that, if Tory and Grant got in a fight on set, I’d ask one of them to pull my finger and then fart to break (wind and) the tension. A little gas was nothing to be afraid of.

  BRAVERY IS SAYING “YES” EVEN IF YOU AREN’T SURE WHAT YOU’RE DOING

  Head Rush

  I was at a cocktail party for Discovery Channel and met Debbie Myers, the head of Science Channel at the time. I found her inspirational, a strong woman in a power position with incredible passion for her job and working for the hugely important cause of getting kids into science. She doesn’t have a science background either, but learned the importance of it and how cool it is.

  We talked about losing interest in science as a teen, and how a TV show for kids could reach that wavering audience and prevent it from happening, and build interest in their parents, too, so they could be reawakened to the wonder.

  * * *

  LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS

  I did have terrifying moments on shows that still give me the chills. Besides the scorpion Sleeping Beauty test, these experiments also shook me to the timbers and tested my courage on MythBusters and beyond:

  Snakes. We had a python on the set (maybe for the scorpion episode?) and I held it for a photo. It started winding around my neck and choking me. I was scared shitless, but I didn’t want to admit it, so I just stood there while the snake throttled me, with glassy eyes and a smile. My tongue was dry and my whole body was tense, which was a signal to the snake, “Oh, good. Prey.” Shortly after they took it off me, the snake bit the handler!

  Sharks. For our Shark Week episodes, we continually came up with reasons to bait the water and swim around nose to nose with huge specimens, even at night a few times, in watery darkness, to see if they were attracted to flashlights! While filming in the Bahamas on our first shark trip, I was struck with how lucky I was to be on the show and to dive with sharks on a random Tuesday. Overwhelmed with gratitude, I went up to Jamie who was relaxing on a lounge chair, and started tearing up, okay maybe blubbering a bit, “I just want to thank you for this. I can’t believe this is my job and that I’m here.” I basically threw up my emotions on a guy who just didn’t go there, ever. He looked at me like he was touched, but more uncomfortable. He said something like, “Good having you here” and escaped. I still have a real soft spot for Jamie for giving me my first chance.

  Chinese water torture. I hated this one. Early days, we tested dropping water on your head for a long period of time. I said, “What’s the goal here? To prove torture?” I was going to be a good sport about it, and let them tie me down, which I also thought was not good for the experiment. It added another variable, and sure enough, my arms st
arted cramping. I thought about climbing the Himalayas, and getting through it, but I wound up just losing it. It was torture! I lasted forty-five minutes. I had this moment of dread and thought, We are messing with some dark shit. Do we really want to put this on the air? We brought in a guy who had been tortured as an expert, and he said, “What are you guys doing?” I wish we didn’t air it, but we did.

  Adrenaline stunt. In Thrill Factor, we did an episode in Las Vegas and went on a ride that was a decelerated jump off a hundred-story building. The experience was only a couple of minutes but I built up a ton of anxiety the whole week before the shoot. I would be sleeping in my bed and wake up with a jolt about jumping off a building. I had to remind myself, You’re safe in your bed. It’s okay. I’d be putting on my makeup, think about it, and my heart would start hammering away. I was more afraid before the leap, by far, for far longer, than I was doing it. I learned a valuable lesson about anticipatory dread, aka anxiety: Don’t worry until you have something to worry about in the moment. For the actual jump, I was smiling and giggling (what I do when nervous), so it looked like I could handle it. I wasn’t thinking about being brave as I stepped up to the edge. I reminded myself that I’m just a lifelong student, learning every day and every way how not to let fear stop me. This was just one more challenge, in a long series of them, to fling myself into the unknown. So I did.