Part 2: Competition

I don’t know when the idea came up. I don’t know how. Perhaps it was whispered in the back of the room. Maybe it was written on an unusual fortune cookie. Wherever it came from, it was soon accepted as fact.

There was to be a Tex Mex Challenge. Anyone could compete. The goal: complete one entire Tex Mex (including any residual sour cream and salsa). Fastest time wins.

The event would begin at 12:30a.m. The venue would be our usual booth, or one close to it. Gambling on the competition was declared to be immoral, but completely legal. If federal law makes gambling on a food race a crime, there was a quite a little crime spree that night.

It was winter. I don’t recall the month, but there was snow on the ground, so in Minnesota that puts us somewhere between October and April.

I arrived, with my posse, a little before midnight. Already the joint was bustling. We waited a while till our table opened up, and took our places on the north side. Those who weren’t going to compete ordered food and when it came they began quietly eating.

Before long the challenger arrived. He wasn’t tall, but he was square-jawed and square-shouldered. His eyes twinkled, and he looked relaxed.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey yourself,” I answered, without looking up from the table.

“You ready?”

“G’head. Order ‘em up.”

With that, there was a rustling of people. The waitress shuffled off toward the cook. People adjusted to get better views of the table. In short time, word spread throughout the town restaurant about what was going to happen. People I’d never seen before started gathering, speculating.

“I think the little one’ll take him,” said one.

“Awww! Yer plum crazy! The big fella’ll be eatin’ a slice of pie ‘fore he gets through.”

The talk continued and the sounds of frying increased.

“I’m going to run,” I said.

“But it’s freezing out,” someone gasped.

“Yes.”

“Also, why?”

“To confuse my body so I can eat faster.”

And out I went, in a thin short-sleeve t-shirt, into the sub-zero air. I took off down the block, waving my arms and yelling, “Woooo! Woooiuiii!” I’m normally a slow runner, but that night I was particularly slow. Lumbering, almost.

When I came back, I could see the cook assembling the giant breakfast tacos on our plates. I was breathing hard, and my nose was cold and red. I had the appearance of a hurried Siberian. The plates arrived, steaming, just before 12:30, and I took my seat to face my opponent.

The referee (a.k.a. someone) made a brief speech about the importance of fair-play and sportsmanship. Then, with a minute to go, we settled in to watch the clock.

Many thoughts went through my head as those seconds slipped by. What strategy would I employ? What would the challenger do? Would there be chewing? The time to prepare for an event such as this is not the thirty seconds before it begins. I realized, too late, that I was not ready.

And then the clock’s hands aligned. There was a crack as we tore our silverware from the napkins. For about ten seconds, maybe fifteen, it looked like the race would retain an element of civility; both of us were eating with a fork and a knife, chewing quickly and taking care not to slobber.

But then we dropped our utensils, and the race was on.

You really haven’t lived until you’ve plunged your hands into a steaming pile of potatoes, eggs, sausage and cheese. It’s not the texture or the consistency that’s so shocking; it’s the realization that you are shoving great mounds of food into your mouth with your open palms.

At this point, the crowd erupted. Everyone was chanting, “Go! Go! Go!” Some people were moaning.

We were more than halfway done, and still neck and neck. I decided if I was going to make a move, this was the time. I forced down a load of half-chewed food like you’d force an extra-large laundry load into the washer. Then, hoping to jump ahead by a handful, I scooped a pile of mush the size of a grapefruit in between my cheeks.

At that point I figure there was a solid tube of food (in various stages of digestion and chewing) stretching across my torso. And for a split-second it looked like it was going to work; I was pulling ahead. But then everything stopped. There was no more room. My body was a Pringles can and I had stuffed it full of soggy toilet paper.

The gagging reflex, though unpleasant, is one of our best defense mechanisms. It’s a contraction that results from tactile stimulation of the posterior pharynx. In other words, you can put a lot of crazy stuff down your throat, but when things start getting dangerous, your body makes its disapproval clear.

In my case, though, gagging was a deadly serious problem. That’s because I had food on both sides of my posterior pharynx (and other places too). Gagging just pushed more food against the back of my throat (food I had already “swallowed”), and that just kept the reaction going.

Meanwhile, I was beginning to have some difficulty breathing. It seems oxygen does not easily or swiftly permeate several inches of congealed fat and organic matter on its journey to the lungs.

All these things combined were enough to compel me to cease the input of food. It was all I could do to stop it from escaping. So I sat there panting, my eyes bleary, watching my reflex-less opponent finish his meal.

The whole thing took less than three minutes.

It was a bitter loss. And even though I recovered to finish just half a minute later, the agony of defeat wasn’t easy to digest. But then, neither was the Tex Mex. Nor are many of life’s inevitable failures.

There will always be someone stronger, smarter, or more trash-bag-like than I am. And if the best I could do was shovel down a huge plate of food in three minutes and thirty seconds, well that’ll just have to suffice.

And yet, though I’m a bit older and more sensible now, somewhere inside me there is still that desire to prove myself. To show that I will not be dominated by any man, woman, or pile of heart-attack food.

Give me a stack of warm cream cups, I will drain it!

Give me a plate of whipped butter, I will clear it!

My destiny is mine to control, and when I close my eyes and think about that fate, I see only one word…

Rematch?

This entry was posted on Friday, August 20th, 2004 at 7:56 am and is filed under General, Minnesota. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.