First of all, let's just establish the fact that being a miner probably sucks a whole lot of ass. I say "probably" because even though I have never been actually been a miner, I do remember after one particular episode of my adolescence where I was most certainly acting like a piece of shit, my father told me that if I didn't feel like pulling my weight at school that I could go work in a *swear word abbreviated with M-F*-ing mine and see how much I like it. The message didn't really resonate, because as fate would have it I grew up to be that same piece of shit but with more consistent facial hair, however the message I loosely gathered from my father's expletive laced lecture was that I actually wouldn't want to be a miner, because being a miner fucking sucks. Being a miner sucks for a number of reasons; your job is to get shipped into caves and deep holes to dig up expensive shit that you don't get to keep. Its dark, presumably stinky, and particularly dangerous. On top of the backbreaking work for little pay, it also sucks to be a miner because most of them have unreasonable curfews, you need parental consent for just about everything fun, you can't buy ciggarettes, and adults naturally never really take you seriously. It really sucks being a miner! (homophone joke, check)
Now that we've established that it sucks to have to be a miner, let's break down what makes the story so unimpressive to me. These 33 copper miners spent 69 days trapped almost a half mile underground. This particular mine was a safety inspector's wet dream, and 8 workers have died on site since 1998. What I find odd about the whole story is that everyone forgets to mention that these 33 idiots got their dumb asses stuck in a fucking hole for more than two months. I've done a lot of stupid shit in my short existence, for example once I dropped the family cat down our laundry chute just to scare my poor mother (success), but I never got myself stuck 2000+ feet below the surface of the earth. Going one half mile into the ground and using giant tools to violently shake the earth above you when every safety inspector and their mother has deemed the mine completely unsafe, is, actually a really stupid thing to do. You may think that it wasn't really up to them to decide because it was an essential function of their job, but I think that claim could be easily refuted by pointing out that they maybe they should have chose not to work in a fucking mine. "Well Chile has an enormous mining industry that represents about 1/3 of their national income, and thus employs a significant amount of Chilean natives". Hmmm, well then maybe those guys should have had the foresight not to be born in Chile. How's that for logic? Eat your fucking heart out Socrates.
No matter how you choose to look at it, these guys, adults mind you, spent 69 straight days dicking around in a hole. You know what happens if an American kid spent a prolonged amount of time sitting in a hole? The kid's parents get a call from his school counselor telling them that their son is going to start getting picked up in a considerably shorter bus in the morning.
We were constantly being informed as to the developments of the rescue efforts, and how the 33 men trapped beneath a half mile of earth were doing. What we forget to mention is they got to spend 69 straight days presumably not working. 69 days in a row with no work? Under any other circumstances that's called taking the summer off. Not half bad if you ask me, especially when you think about the fact that they probably haven't had a day off in a long time, being that their Chilean and whatnot. Also, its not as if these guys were trapped on a mountaintop and forced to eat the weak and wounded, they were pretty much just hanging out. While they were down there they were able to watch DVD's and Chilean soccer games on a 50 inch projection screen all day. Literally, that's not even a joke. Where I come from that's called Saturday. And, amongst many other things that were sent down to them from the surface was a set of speakers and iPods so they could listen to and enjoy their Ricky Martin or whatever. (But Joe, these guys are from Chile, Ricky Martin is from Puerto Rico! Chilean, Puerto Rican, its all just semantics. You say buh-ree-toe, I say buh-rih-toe). 69 days in a mine, where the daily routine consisted of A.) not having to mine shit, which we have already established tends to suck, and B.) spending said days off listening to music and watching DVD's and soccer games. Sounds like a vacation to me. Now a lot of people would say that being stuck in a copper mine away from your loved ones and in constant darkness isn't exactly an ideal vacation, but for fuck's sake these 33 guys aren't exactly the Kennedy's either. Its not like they're used to hopping a jet to Acapulco for a week of fun in the sun and swimming with dolphins, they work in a fucking mine in Chile. Its really easy to see being stuck 2,000+ feet below the earth as a terrible thing, but let's nto forget that there are some perks, few but substatial, to living in subterreanean mine. First of all, they didn't need to worry about getting melanoma, which is comforting because it happens to cause more than 3/4ths of skin cancer related deaths. What a relief. In addition, these Chilean miners didn't have to worry about catching bed bugs (yucky) or getting mugged along the roads by masked banditos.
I think the reason why I am so frustrated with these dickheads is because it has become pretty clear that they're all going to get fucking rich from this. Before they were even on the surface peolpe were already sending them ridiculous amounts of free shit. Steve Jobs sent them all iPads, because that's totally practical and all. So far over 15 professional sports teams have asked them to be their guests at games. I can only assume that Ernesto or Osvaldo is a big Philadelphia 76ers fan (I made that up). Its only a matter of time until someone gets a book deal, and people pretend to be captivated by their survival story again so they can justify buying that Kindle they barely ever use. You'll never catch me reading it, and ya know why? Because it will probably be in Spanish, that's why, duh. To be honest this whole thing reeks of Sully Sullenberger, the US Airways pilot deemed a hero in 2008 for landing a commercial airliner in the Hudson River after the engines were damaged by a flock of birds. He reached hero status, promptly retired from the airline, appeared as a guest at sporting events, wrote a book, and now makes a ton of cash as a motivational speaker. Essentially, this guy got paid for having a select few moment s of clear-headed resolve. What he should have done was not hit a fucking flock of birds, a pretty essential and fundemental task if you want to be a commercial airline pilot. People were so astonished that he was able to get his shit together for a minute and land the plane in the Hudson, which may I remind you is 4,700 feet wide. Taking out the space occupied by the plane, landing in the Hudson River gave him a margin of error wider than 86% of a mile. Phew!
All I'm saying is that I'm not exactly blown away by your resilience when you got your own dumb asses stuck in a fucking hole deep beneth the surface of the Earth. I'm even less impressed by your resilience and will to survive when you got to fiddledick around for 69 straight days, listening to iPods and watching soccer games on a 50 inch projection screen. Plus,, I'm glad you couldn't mine any more copper, because copper makes pennies, and pennies are annoying and make your hands smell gross. So guess what Chilean Miners, not that impressed.
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