I still don't know why my friend Cheryl has applied to be on the TV show Survivor. But I have figured out that most people would understand her position better than mine.

“I want to push myself physically, mentally and emotionally as far as I can to win,” she wrote in her application, in answer to the question “What is your primary motivation for being on the show?”

“That was the hardest question,” she told me later, “because all I could think was, why not?” And why does she actually want to push herself in all those ways? “I don't know,” she said. “I do things like that.”

Cheryl is a 28-year-old psychologist who works with disturbed teenagers. She also makes mortgage payments on a house in Philadelphia, but won't be able to work full time once she sets out on a doctoral fellowship program at Temple University. So another reason she wants to get on the show is to straighten out the money problem.

“Winning a million would be the easiest way,” she said. “So, I could get along with people for a few weeks.”

And the thing of it is, I really do think she could win the darned thing. She's tricky. She bluffs well. She's hoodwinked me in little ways more than once. She once told me Jerry Springer used to be the mayor of Cincinnati. That's one of her lies, right?

But why push yourself “physically, mentally and emotionally”? Physically and mentally, sure, I already do that … usually on Fridays.

But reaching my emotional limits? I've already been 13 years old, thank you. Once was fine.

Still, Cheryl is probably among this nation's majority. The producers at Survivor expect a flood of applications. As Professor Michael Zuckerman of University of Pennsylvania's history department explained it to me (Click here for that interview), Americans have always had an easier time finding their identities through the mass media than in person.

And this is especially true of people who perform on stage, or have musical talent or, as an example or case in point, just for the sake of argument, shall we say, for instance, feel it necessary to express themselves though a newspaper column.

So I started filling out a Survivor application. It's due ... aw crap. A week-and-a-half ago. Anyway, here are a few of the questions:

Question 30, Describe your perfect day.
That's a tough one, because the perfect day would start with me sleeping until 3 p.m., then being transported instantly to another planet for about five minutes before being dropped off at a party with all my dead relatives. But in the mundane run of things, a days is perfect if I get through it without anybody looking at me wrong. Oops, hang on... Hey, buddy! Yeah, you! ...

Question 22, List three adjectives that best describe yourself.
Soft. Yellow. Cream-filled.

Question 37, What would be the craziest, wildest thing you would do for a million dollars?
Depends on when you get me. Right now, the rent isn't due yet, so I wouldn't do anything much beyond drinking warm margerita mix or waiting a long time at the post office. But catch me at the end of the month, and I would be willing to punch a million people and take a dollar from each of them.

Question 45, Why do you believe that you could be the final Survivor?
People who cross me have an unfortunate tendency to catch fire.

Question 44, What is your primary motivation for being on the show? What is your secondary motivation for being on the show?
Primary motivation: I want to prove that I could face rejection and walk away still knowing who I am. As Rudyard Kipling responded to Question 44 on his Survivor application, “If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too ... if you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone ... if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you ... yours is the Earth and everything that's in it.”
Secondary motivation: I want to betray every principle I have for a freakin' game show, and still lose.