Scott's {ultra-generic} Ramblings: Mary Ann vs. The Burrito

Mary Ann has all kinds of reasons to loathe me--most recently, a cataclysmic gastrointestinal event. Now, I'm not in any way implicating myself, but I'd have to agree that I had at least a little part in it.

I'd gotten Mary Ann addicted to RSS feeds at the start of the semester. And by feeds I mean a couple.

I'm pretty sure Mary Ann has a dozen or so RSS feeds now in her Google Reader, enough to eliminate most of her free time. She's worse off than I am in this department: sometimes I say F it all and press the -Mark As Read- button, but she doesn't. This poses a personal challenge to her on feeds like Fark.com.

This item showed up in my reader: Vegas casino rewarding customers who can eat a 2-foot, 6 pound burrito with unlimited rollercoaster rides, effectively getting their burrito back to make the next one

Now, anyone that's ever had a meal with Mary Ann knows that the thing Mary Ann likes most about a meal is seeing the plate. Clean. No food left. Naturally, the idea of a 2-foot, 6 pound burrito intrigued me--but I knew someone it would intrigue more...

At this point in time, it almost seemed to be a creative work of fiction. The article didn't even have a picture (yet, no "this thread is worthless without pictures"? {probably because it didn't pertain to females}) After seeing a few more blurbs, and doing a few Google searches, it seemed that it may have been a possibility. All sources indicated that the beast lurked at the NASCAR cafe at the Sahara. For free* (caveat), one could engorge him or herself on said burrito. Were it to be completely consumed, two unlimited roller-coaster passes (yeah, I see the irony in this as well, and it kind of makes me a bit queasy. The 'ride' lasts 46 seconds in what I deem is an almost constantly accelerating vomit inducer) and a t-shirt proclaiming your conquering of the burrito are provided. Heart resuscitation, sadly, is not gratis.

If it wasn't finished, it would cost only $19.95--a mere pittance in the burrito weight per unit dollar value scale. Also included was a pink shirt in which a picture was taken, indicating that the patron was, in fact, a weenie.

Earlier I indicated that I knew someone who would be intrigued. Perhaps I was wrong--maybe infatuated? I let her know, probably via clicking 'email' in Google Reader. History was well in the making.

The initial post was February 27th. Mary Ann was hungry then, as per usual, but her thirst for burrito blood grew increasingly day by day. I hadn't found solid evidence of the existence of the burrito yet, but plans were in the making.

Thursday, March 5th - Mary Ann answers a question in Baragar's geometry class correctly (perhaps one of the few times she's ever even chimed in, amongst all the geeks, nerds, and dweebs that hoard chair real estate). I receive a text message, "I was so excited! I almost blurted out 'burrito!'" If we didn't find out about this culinary debacle soon, we would be forced to create it ourselves. At about 2:30am late that night, I got a cryptic email message starting mid-thought with ellipses:

"... so we cut up the thing into quarters, it would be like I was eating four 6-inch burritos, each weighing it at a pound and a half. I think putting away the first and second will be easy. The 3rd, I think, might give me some troubles, but if I can get past that, I'll be home free chomping down the final fourth. I'm kind of hungry now so maybe if I don't eat until like Saturday..."

Now nobody wonders why we love Mary Ann...

Friday, March 6th - The following text messages were exchanged:

Scott: Tomorrow I'm calling to verify existence of the burrito. Hope you're hungry!

Mary Ann: I will be ready to take on the burrito if it exists.

Scott: Sedona and I agreed that if the burrito does not exist, it WILL. We will make it.

Mary Ann: I appreciate all your effort to make sure this feat is made possible, but if it doesn't exist, it probably wasn't meant to be.

Saturday, March 7th, 'A day which shall live in infamy' - Sedona and I had, as usual, stayed up far too late Friday night. I'm pretty sure there were some tiki-style drinks at Cooter's involved. Amanda pages me early in the morning, letting me know she's taking a test, and wanting to know if this 'thing' is going to go down (yes, I realize that can be taken in more than one way, and no, I'm not at liberty to use the <- Backspace key). It was a mad scramble to see if all parties were go. I quickly texted Mary Ann to ask when we should do this (it was her tummy after all, not ours). Another heartwarming response, "How about a late lunch? So there's lots of time for roller coaster rides IF it exists and IF I finish it." I asked if noonish was okay, and paged Amanda back (in the hopes that her exam would be done in time to join us), and I trodded down to Sedona's room to tell her the plans (she responded 'yes', but I'm pretty sure she and I were of the same sleepy-unconsciousness). It was on.

Amanda happened to finish her exam early, so I informed all parties to rendezvous at the pagoda (look, if you don't know what the pagoda is by now, you haven't been keeping up with my blog). The existence of the burrito was still in question, and I began to panic--what if (for Fs sake) there was no burrito?

I made a mad scramble at the pagoda's desktop computer terminal, and was instantly satisfied. A Google search for the NASCAR cafe brought me to their site. The phone number provided was not working, and was the same that Google had provided me with. I didn't realize it at the time, but it wasn't open yet. A quick lateral and I was at the Sahara's site. I didn't get a different phone number, but I was given a menu, at the top of which was:

The Bomb Burrito FREE*
A 6 LB, 24 inch Monster Burrito! (regular price $19.95)
*Ask server for details

Details indeed!

There was no stopping us. Amanda arrived and I hopped in the shower. Sedona rousted herself. Mary Ann arrived while I was putting on my finishing touches (hairspray, makeup, whatnot). Sedona and Amanda were hell-bent on taking Mary Ann's measurements, but were bested by lack of tape measure (no, I don't have a tape measure, why would I?). She was a good enough sport to hop on the scale--she texted her 'starting weight' to herself. Shortly thereafter we piled into sparkry-brue, and were off into history.

We arrived at the Sahara at about 1:15pm. We stopped to look out the parking structure, to see the roller coaster we'd been chatting about so much. 23 seconds to the top, 23 seconds back (both cocaine and hookers, we noted, were cheaper than the $10 entrance fee for 46 seconds of fun {again, value per dollar}). We made our way into the bowels (joke?) of the casino to where the Nasty-Car stuff was. Sure as shit (joke?) signs pointed to where contestants would sit to eat "The Bomb". (joke?)

We were seated at a table towards the back (we looked like trouble). The menu was filled with much heart-stopping plaque-filled food, and gallon-and-a-half size beer tubes extending toward the sky. Sedona and Amanda were going to try the gargantua-nachos (not its exact name, but, it's what they got). I decided that a 'lighter fare' option would be good, and got the Monster BLT (complete with a full pound {pre cooked weight} of Applewood smoked bacon and bacon-infused mayonnaise {jesus, I think my heart just cried a little, merely reading that}).

A sample of the menu (sans mega-beers) is available here.

Mary Ann? Yeah, you know what she ordered. The waitress got big-eyed and indicated that this was not a regular-portion burrito. We all raised eyebrows and started nodding that we knew, and that Mary Ann was capable.

We had chosen poorly. Not the food (okay, maybe that too), but location. We were told that the contestant had to sit up front, in the clearly designated spot. We were not allowed near. We were reseated (at our request) to a table nearer the spectacle. Mary Ann was led to her barstool, and waited. She was also told that she had 90 minutes for the feat. She was surprised and slightly agawked, but didn't put up a fight.

Our food got there in minutes. Not fully cooking the bacon is one sure-fire way to make the food come quicker. Not using real cheese on the nachos is also speedy. Mary Ann's took forever. Seems it takes a good while to prepare (what with building permits and finding a thermometer long enough to probe a 2-foot burrito).

A text message went across the ether (again, bouncing from here to Missouri and back, to make it 20 feet away to my phone from Mary Ann's). "22.5 minutes for each quarter..." My heart fluttered a little (in a good way, not in a "jesusfuck, the fat man's about to consume a pound of bacon" kind of way).

Those sitting at the table were almost done with their food. It wasn't fair. We were almost done, and she hadn't even started yet. I couldn't/wouldn't eat all the bacon. There were two kinds of lettuce (?) sprawled everywhere from lack of structural integrity, and only a small testing of mayo was used. Fries disappeared casually towards Amanda, and only one chip was necessary for me to deem the nachos unfit (I think Sedona was right in conjecturing that the cheese was lactose-free 'pasteurized processed cheese goop'). Sedona and Amanda were troopers, leaving only about a half-pound of what must have been several pounds of layered travesty.

A precession appeared from the kitchen while the manager announced over the intercom what was about to happen. The chef brought out a pallet with a burrito on it (look--words just don't do it justice, that's why I'm only saying 'burrito'. What, didn't 'pallet' bring anything to mind?).
The manager counted down from 5, and it began. What had been a quiet event suddenly turned into dozens of people surrounding Mary Ann to get a glimpse of the burrito and take pictures. You'd be amazed at how many NASCAR fans suddenly became fans of Mary Ann's undertaking.

Our food had been cleared away in the first 10 minutes. I took pictures at every 10-minute mark so that people could see progress in the pictures. She was a trooper! The secret of the burrito came out, quite literally: jalapenos. Mary Ann wouldn't stand for them. She had a few (they were pickled, and slightly hot, but not of taste fitness for her), but she started to make a pile/mound of them. She inquired as to whether or not she had to eat them, and was told that she didn't. I'm pretty sure that they wanted her to finish it--so that the first person to finish The Bomb was an adorable young female, not a slothenly wheezing obese greasy person from {insert state here}.

The first? you ask? Yes. It seems that in the brief history (the cafe had recently reopened) of the contest, nobody had finished. The executive chef (Tim Evert) visited our table to converse with us. Mary Ann was eating his 36th burrito. He indicated that most only got a quarter of the way through, and that the top two finishers ended up with about a quarter of it left.

Many strange people visited her. At one point I approached someone who was engaging her in conversation. I explained, "Sir, you are only allowed to ask rhetorical questions. She's busy eating. If she's talking, she's not eating." The manager had to do this on more than one occasion as well. Most were well-wishers with comments ranging from, "Are YOU going to eat that?" to "What is THAT?" and even "Are you gonna need a bucket?". The waitresses and hostess all told us that they were rooting, and even betting, on Mary Ann. They, too, wanted her to finish. We could only imagine the pictures and press coverage she'd get.

About 45 minutes into it, a text message bounced again to me, "It's starting to get cold... Bleh!" A bad omen from the front lines.

A gradual slow-down was occurring. Between the copious amounts of red enchilada sauce, the rice, the jalapenos, and the chilled meat--doom set in. But she was a trooper, and kept on keepin' on.

We ordered dessert. Well. You tell me--curly fries with pineapple and a drizzle of chocolate sauce. Is that dessert? It was on the dessert section of the menu. We ordered the half-pound variety, opting out of the full-pounder. What was odd was the temperature of the sauce. Not the heat, per se, but the spice. We think there had to have been chili peppers in it, a la Chocolat. Amanda noted, "These are retardedly spicy!" Again, we were ashamed to have not eaten all of them. We quietly covered up the unfinished bit, and hoped Mary Ann wouldn't notice from afar. She was too busy anyhow.

Towards the end, Amanda noted, "That's the saddest face ever." I couldn't tell from 20 feet away whether it was because she wasn't going to win, or because she was upset that it wasn't a quality enough/warm enough burrito for her to consume.

In the end... the burrito bested her...

Mary Ann ended up in third place of all contestants to date.

She donned her pink 'weenie' shirt and got a picture taken. When asked, she politely turned down the offer to take home the leftovers. She was in pain. She was probably one cat-vomit joke or hairball impression (you have both Sherman and I to thank for that!) away from spewing. Fortunately, there was a garbage bin nearby, but it went unused (also fortunately unused was the carpet, our shoes, concrete, etc.) At some points on the way out, Mary Ann was visibly shaking. She was upset and in pain.

As we all proceeded to leave I told everyone, "We didn't pay... So run..." It wasn't true, and none of us were in shape for running (joke? Yeah--probably that Mary Ann, even about to explode, was probably in more shape to run than the company she was with).

On the way to the garage, she noted, "I'm so dirty... I have enchilada sauce everywhere."

When we got to the car, I checked the trunk for anything that might be able to contain approximately a gallon of chunky fluids. I had a small trash can, but I didn't want its disgusting insides to inspire her. I found a small black cooler bag (meant for a six-pack) and handed it to her, to which Amanda noted, "That's not big enough," to which I snapped, "Shut the f... Oh..." when I realized she wasn't talking about my tackle. Sedona and Amanda offered her the front seat. Wise choice for them (to avoid splatter), and a decent choice overall--as the back windows don't roll all the way down!

We took surface streets home. Slowly.

We made it home without even a dangerous burp. There was a lot of whimpering. Whimpering, then silence as we tried to not make jokes--for fear she might pop. The topic of food was mistakenly broached more than once--and was met with more whimpering.

When we got home, another trip to the scale provided an end weight. Let me get math-y here for a second:

End Weight - Beginning Weight = Total Pounds Gained

157.8 lb - 153.4 lb = 4.4 lb

She had a net weight gain of 4.4 pounds. This is not taking into account the water she drank (3 small glasses {why was the only thing small at the cafe the cups?}) and the amount she sweat out (which had to be considerable!). So, all things considered, let's just agree that she ate 4 pounds of burrito.

I queried her (when I thought she may not upchuck and ruin/flood my papasan chair) about the contents of The Bomb. Apparently the meat was a shredded beef substance. What we didn't know until this point is that there were peas in it. Yeah, we were incredulous as well.

To round out this epic, I'll include some final quotes: