| Wings of Fire |
| Every male on the planet is born with a certain gene. It is passed down from father to son in each generation. No one knows how this gene works or why men even have it at all, but we are all inflicted. I'm talking, of course, about the gene that makes us want to prove ourselves. It will make us do just about anything just to say we can. This is why men never ask for directions, or never ask a professional to help fix something. When guys are presented with the oppotunity to show that they can do something they will take it no matter how stupid. I'm sad to say that even I have this gene. Occasionally it acts up. Whenever anyone serves me hot wings I usually eat about 15 or so without feeling so much as a tingle. People just never seem to make hot wings hot enough for me. It's not that I have an extreme tolerence for spicy foods, it's just that no one ever bothers to prepare wings really spicy. Wonderful told me one day that he was making it his goal to find wings that would be hot enough for me. One night he revealed to me that he had finally found some worthy of my time. A local resteraunt in my hometown features a hot wing challenge. If you can eat five of their wings then you get your picture on the wall. Let me give you an idea of just how hot these wings are. -700 people have tried the challenge as of August 2005. 68 have eaten all five. -You have to sign a legal waiver before you can eat them. -You are required by law to wear gloves while eating them. -The manager there no longer likes serving them because of what they do to people. -You will get someone saying "You can still turn back now" at least 30 times. -Some of the other wing spices are named atomic, suicide, and insanity. There is a note that says the insanity wings are for those who don't value their taste buds. What I ate was called beyond insanity. -The stuff coating the wings was essentially undiluted pepper spray. The stuff the cops use is diluted. So why would anyone take on something like this? Why to get their picture on the wall of course. By the time the wings came out I was seriously regretting my decision. I had been stuffing ice into my mouth for the past ten minutes and and it was getting kind of numb. One guy who had completed the challenge before had told me to just eat them as fast as I could before the heat got to me. So I took a deep breath and began to eat. The first wing went down just fine. Normally I pick every last bit of meat off the bones so Pecos and Wonderful had to tell me to put it down and go onto the next one. By the second wing my eyes began to water and I could hear my friends muttering that there was no way I'd make it to the end. The third wing went down and I still couldn't feel anything really hot. I finished the fourth one and the crowd around me was going "He's gonna do it. He's gonna make it." I thought about stopping because I was beginning to get uncomfortable, but with only one wing left I just had to go for it. The fifth one went down and I heard what I thought was cheers, but by this time I couldn't really see or hear. The reality of the room began melting away and the reality of what I just ate began to set in. Before I ate the wings the manager had told me to go outside because he didn't want me vomiting in his building, so I immediately got up and headed for the exit. An employee stopped me and removed my gloves and I rushed outside. By now my throat was on fire. It felt like someone had stuck a lighter in my mouth and flicked it on. I sent Wonderful inside to bring me my water and I began to chug it. The manager came out with a camera and told me to smile. Smiling was the last thing I felt like doing but I raised my head from the glass and managed to give a triumphant smile to the camera. Unfortunately the heat kicked back in and I had to return to my water. I was helped inside out of the scorching heat and given a glass of milk. Milk was supposed to help. I went through about 80oz. of milk, 40oz. of water, and 3 sugar packets (apparantly sugar helps too) before the burning subsided to a level I could handle. Needless to say I was sick the rest of the day. The wings had been about $5, but because I ate them all I got them for free. My milk bill, however, was about $8. Even now I'm still not sure what possessed me to do what I did. I can honestly say that eating those wings was the stupidest thing I've ever done in my entire life. Somewhere deep down I felt the need to eat those wings. I felt the need to prove that I could do it. So I did. My image is now immortalized on the wall of Foghorn's. One thing's for sure though...I'm not gonna be eating hot wings for a very long time. |