march 2008

Have you even eaten a super hot chicken wing?

I don’t mean a regular hot chicken wing, I mean the one with the friggin mushroom cloud next to the name on the menu.

It’s normally the last one in a long list where the first one on the list is hot and then there are like 8 degrees of additional hottness with names like atomic, or braveheart.

You eat it almost as a dare if not actually because someone dared you to eat one. Friends tell you, it’s ok, it’s not that bad, I had one a few months ago. You smother it in ranch as if that’s going to somehow help you.

It starts off easy enough, gone in a minute or so.

It was kind of hot but not terrible. Then slowly and with increasing intensity, your lips start to tingle and your pulse speeds. You begin to feel like your mouth is actually melting and no amount of beer, celery or wings of lesser intensity are of help. Your friends laugh as you begin to sweat and your face turns red. Five minutes in, it has only gotten worse but you are pretty sure that you have finally plateaued. Finally, your taste buds numb, your blood pressure slows and over the next 30 minutes you begin to return to a less red faced, sweat saturated state.

About that time, when your you feel fully revived and have convinced your self that the worst is behind you, is when another other ultra-mega-super-suicidal wing starts calling your name. Maybe a friend (if you still consider them a friend) reminded you it was there. Maybe you had experienced some kind of masochistic high from the first one. Either way, you seem to be watching it like Tyrone Biggums to a crack rock.

Whatever the reason, you cave. You put the wing on your plate and pretend that it’s no big deal. You tell your friends, I have already been through this, it’s no big deal. You take a deep breath and eat the wing fully convinced that you are somehow better prepared to handle the sweat, the pressure and the pain.

Then the reality of the situation sets in.

The first wing was bad enough, but now you have eaten another one on top of the former. You couldn’t have known at the time, but now it’s like 10 times worse than the first one alone. The 2 have somehow exponentially compounded their individual impact like a payday loan with a couple of missed payments.

You wonder, as your mouth ignites like a biblical lake of fire . . . what the frick was I thinking.

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I would like to formally introduce my second chicken wing.

Hunter Lee Schultz He is 3 weeks old now Was 9lbs and 13oz when born

Heather and baby are happy and healthy and we are adjusting well to our newly intensified life. =]

Here are some more pics.