25 in 25: #13 wing challenge fail

#13 was a very ambitious move. i decided all 5'3 of me was going to take on the pluckers "fire in the hole" wing challenge. that's 25 of plucker's hottest wings, eaten at your own pace. in my head, this didn't sound too terrible. it actually sounded feasible, but *spoiler alert* i failed.

i made an attempt to convince two others to join me on my quest to dominate 25 spicy wings but second *spoiler alert.* i failed at that too. (i got one, but not the other)

before making the trip to plucker's i did my research and searched for any kind of tips. everything i read was in regards to the spice. i like spice. i like spice a lot. but reading all the warnings made me fairly nervous. so taking a tip from a fellow wing challenger, i protected my lips. sorry guys, sometimes the perks of being a lady come in rather handy. i layered on lipstick trying to avoid the inevitable fire to take over my lips. it sounded like a great idea and truth be told, it worked like a charm

as jason, david and i entered plucker's, i gazed among the wall of glory. if you complete the challenge, your picture is taken and hung on the wall for all to see. that's where i wanted to be. feeling confident, i walked in and let the hostess know i would be taking on the fire in the hole challenge. the quizzical look followed by laughter shattered all confidence the great wall of wing eaters instilled in me. what little confidence i had left depleted after our waiter broke out in laughter, followed by another waiter's roaring laughter in the background. things weren't looking good.

at this point i was considering to back out. i was hungry. hadn't eaten a meal all day kind of hungry. all i wanted was a nice meal that i could enjoy. i knew that this was not going to be anything remotely close to enjoyable. but alas, backing out was not an option.

trying to get the madness over with, i ordered my 25 wings, jason ordered his 25 wings and david ordered delicious chicken tenders. thanks david.

the wings and the stache

let the games begin

i don't know if it was the hangriness in me coming out or what, but i was not a happy camper-- which is a rarity. the wings did not have an appetizing look. at all. i tried to imagine i was eating some delicious sesame chicken but that didn't work. so i took another approach-- the faster you eat the less you'll notice. it worked for the first 7 or so wings. i scarfed them down like it was nothing. one wing after the other. then my mojo left and it was all down hill from there. every wing after the 7th wing was torture. not because of the spiciness. to be honest the spiciness wasn't even that bad. it was definitely bearable. it was the wings. they tasted awful. (to be fair, they tasted awful in comparison to sesame chicken). and there were so many of them. my belly was calling it quits but my competitive mind wasn't allowing it.

i may never eat another wing

i looked over at jason and noticed he too, was struggling with this challenge. gotta be honest, this made me feel a heck of a lot better. as he called it quits, my goal quickly went from eating 25 wings to eat as many as jason did. he finished 12 wings then waved his white flag. i caught up shortly after.

this was when the mind battle began. i was contemplating ordering other food to get the awful wing taste out of my mouth then resuming my challenge. considering my belly could no longer hold any more food, adding anything extra to my 25 wings was out. then there was the idea of dousing my wings in ranch and enjoying the scrumptious taste of ranch dressing that every true texan can't deny. unfortunately the ranch masked little to none of the wing taste. that was out. then my mind got desperate. i realized if i combined my 12 wings with jason's 12 wings then there's 24 wings with only 1 wing to go. of course my guilty conscious would never let me actually proceed with the latter of my thoughts, but i went there and definitely considered it. my final and winning idea was to at least cross the half way point. the final bites, only half a wing, were brutal. every shred of chicken tasted worse and worse. my final number was 12 1/2 wings. 12 1/2 terrible wings. i tried to avoid looking at what once was the wall of glory on my way out knowing it was now my personal wall of shame. hangry + being a sore loser made a bumming combination. you win pluckers.