We used to be so damn goofy.
In the fall of 1969, I had friends who were in a fraternity at George Washington University. They had a game they played called the Eating Contest.
It’s not the same food as the picture, but you get the picture. To succeed, you had to eat 10 McDonald’s hamburgers and two Big Macs in 50 minutes without vomiting either during the 50 minutes or for an hour afterward. The only thing you could eliminate if you wanted was the pickles.
There was one catch that made it even tougher to accomplish. You were only allowed to have one 16-ounce soda to wash it all down.
If you look at all the stuff in the picture, the Eating Contest sounds like it would be a snap.
Yet all through that fall, no one ever managed to succeed at it.
There were all sorts of different strategies, from eating a lot as quickly as possible and then resting for 15 minutes to downing the Big Macs first and then trying the rest.
Nothing worked.
When you figure the equivalent of 13 buns, 26 pieces of bread, that’s an awful lot of essentially dry stuff to eat without much to wash it down with.
A couple of guys came close.
One got as close as having most of the last Big Mac jammed into his mouth but being completely unable to swallow it. Another looked like a cinch to make it till he booted all over himself.
If you’re wondering where I fit into this, it was only as a spectator. I was pretty skinny at 19 and I don’t think I could have made it halfway through that particular feast.
Gluttony was a sin even then — witness the great original version of “Bedazzled — but not one that seems to bother American college kids.
I have a feeling the contest might be more doable these days. When you see so many fat kids, you figure they might have gotten a lot more practice chewing, swallowing and digesting.
Because if there’s one thing I remember about all the guys who tried the Eating Contest in the fall of 1969, it’s this.
None of them were fat.
Just goofy.