OT: The Hellfire Challenge and Me

Hi, I'm howtheyscored. You might remember me from such FanPosts as "Off-Day Fun?" and "I'll Stop Defending Nate Clements the Day He Starts Defending Against the Pass."

Sorry, a 49ers "highlight" just ran on ESPN. I know: watching ESPN was my first mistake...

Anywho... as some of you might remember from the Off-Day Fun FanPost, I've been planning to head down to San Jose and take on the Hellfire Challenge over at Smoke Eaters about two blocks away from San Jose State. Well, my girlfriend was headed down to San Jose for a grad school info-session, and the opportunity to tag along for the sake of burning a hole through my colon was just too good to pass up!

After the jump, I'll show you what happened. Or, if you're friends with me on Facebook, you already know what happened. And since this is a FanPost, you won't even notice the jump, anyway. But that's beside the point. And there's a poll at the end, so there's something for everyone.

First, we arrive at the fated destination. Destination and destiny have the same ancient root, and destiny has to do with fate, so I guess "fated destination" is vaguely redundant. But you don't care. You just want to see the next picture.

The challenge isn't listed on the Menu. It's kind of like ordering something Animal Style at In 'N' Out, except that you have to sign a waiver and there is a time limit. The waiver makes me sign away any responsibility for any "minor or serious mental, emotional, or physical problems that result from the challenge." That's not an exact quote, but the specific words "mental, emotional or physical" are. By signing the waiver, I also officially had to acknowledge that I am an idiot. Joke's on them, though: I had my fingers crossed when I read that part.

I've ordered the wings, and I am clearly excited about how delicious they are going to be.

It takes about 20 minutes between your order and the time you're served. I had some time to think things over.

The time is starting the second that I put this wing in my mouth. For those of you playing at home, there are 12 hot wings that Smoke Eaters affectionately calls "12 of the hottest wings on the planet." To complete the challenge, you have to eat all 12 wings to the bone in 10 minutes without anything to drink or any way to wipe your face or your hands. When the wings are done, you have to lick your fingers, and wait an additional five minutes before you can drink anything or clean up in any way. When you're staring down wing number one, it still looks pretty yummy.

This is still the first wing: Notice the lack of pain or concern on my face. That was a nice feeling.

I like this picture because it's gross. There's really no other reason to post it here. But I mean just look at the chicken skin hanging out of my mouth. Isn't that gross? Doesn't it look like I have some kind of horrific, open wound? Or like I'm eating people flesh? Man, it's gross looking.

Here's a close-up of the wings for you. These are NOT normal wings. These are wings swimming in some kind of hellish broth.

We're getting close to the homestretch here. Notice the distinct look of pain and concern on my face. Also notice my hands and my face. That stuff gets every-freakin'-where.

At this point, we're hitting the do-or-die phase. I'll be honest: you really don't feel the heat in your mouth. My mouth couldn't care less about those wings. They tasted good, but as far as in-mouth heat is concerned, I'd put it in a somewhat mild range. Of course, considering I was having trouble feeling my hands and my feet at that point, it's not inconceivable to think that I also was having trouble feeling my mouth.

But if not the feeling of heat, what do you have to worry about? There are a few things. You might not feel it in your mouth specifically, but you do feel it. The tracheal / esophageal areas are suffering a pretty constant state of burn by the time you're four or five wings in. The other physical effects are multiple. My hands began to shake, and they also went cold and numb (like I said). By the end, my feet had also gone numb. Let me tell you, I was not expecting that.

I also suffered the typical running nose and watering eyes. But the worst part while you're in the process of eating the wings is that the place serves you a massive amount of wings. You hear it - 12 wings - and it doesn't sound so bad. But these are full-sized chickens we're talking about here. The challenge is a full meal, and I was legitimately full by the time I was 3/4 of the way through. Take a full stomach, add weird circulation problems and gastrological agitation... yeah, the worst part is the nausea.

But you gotta fight through it. right? Right.

So I shove the final wing down my unwilling gullet. At first the only worry is "will it stay down?" Licking my fingers wasn't even an issue at that point. It was just like washing the rest of down. Vaguely refreshing to shove something semi-liquid down my throat after all that chicken. Chemically, shoving that semi-liquid down my throat was a disaster, but in terms of my gag-reflex, it was kind of nice.

Like I said: I couldn't feel my hands. So while I underwent the five minute waiting period, I stood up and shook them out to try to encourage blood flow. I know I look weird in this picture, but it would look even weirder if you could see that I'm doing the same thing with my feet.

See, you get all hyped up about the heat. And then the heat isn't that bad. Then you start to realize that it's the nausea that's going to get you. But then you stop eating and can just sit and focus on not vomiting. And then the heat gets you. And why does it get you? Because you're suffering chemical burns to the face. It was three hours after this that I had to walk around with a pink ring around my mouth. And there was a patch on my hand that I didn't wash well enough the continued to burn for the rest of the night. By the time a couple of minutes have passed into the waiting period, it really is just a trial of pain. Your face hurts. Your hands hurt. Your stomach hurts. And you want to spew.

I can definitely see why people have so much trouble doing this thing. But I'm not them! And yeah, I made the 12 wings, and I made the 5 minutes, and it was excruciatingly awesome.

But before I could get my shirt, I had to run to the bathroom to throw up. To be honest, that's probably the best thing you can do. I can't even begin to imagine the pain I would have been in had I let the whole thing - every ounce of incendiary chemical - run through my intestines. It's definitely best to puke after.

It's also definitely best to eat ice cream after. Technically, this is frozen yogurt. But after that, I only ate ice cream the rest of the day. That, and Rolaids. I'm not joking.

This is what victory looks like. It looks like a T-shirt. And me. I look like victory. Who knew that victory was so handsome? Well, I did. But, I mean, I see it every day. So of course I did.

But, oh, that's not all. No sir. Not by a longshot. Since we were in San Jose, we took the opportunity to head out to the Winchester Mystery House. I had no problems there (ate more ice cream, too), and thoroughly enjoyed the hour-plus mansion tour. The late lady of the house was cray-zy. Cray-zy rich, that is. Also, kind of a psycho. Very cool house. And then, I drove home.

Or, I tried to. About halfway back I began to experience what I am describing as an intense, localized burning sensation in my abdomen. It felt like somebody was putting out a cigarette in my small intestine. Except that the cigarette was not going out. I had to pull over to the side of the road, get out of the car, and lay down on the ground. The pain was accompanied by another wave of nausea, but both of them passed within a few minutes. I decided right then that it was a good idea to let my girlfriend drive the rest of way home. I sat in the back where I could stretch out if I needed to. I also got gas. Man, gas was cheap there, wherever it was.

See, there she is. Driving. While I try not to die in the back seat.

I was actually fine the rest of the way home. I don't know what the hell that sharp burning pain was, exactly. I suppose I can venture a guess, actually, but I don't know why it only happened once and why it was so unbelievably intense. After that, I barely suffered at all. I didn't even have asshole burn when I poo-poo'd. And I was looking forward to that part, too. I was hoping to facebook status update with "OH GOD IT'S COMING OUT!" But all of you who are friends with me on facebook know that didn't happen. Poor me.

There's also a video, and a poll. Here's the video (you know where the poll is):