Look At The Bones!

Last night marked the annual Glutton-Fest that coincides with my birthday each year. Glutton-Fest is a grotesque display of manhood, one might even say a right of passage to be accepted into the Stoddard household. The way that it works is Jonathan, Darin and I see how many teriyaki chicken wings we can eat. This annual event started out innocent enough many years ago, I simply just loved the chicken wings that mom made. So each year mom would purchase one family size package of chicken wings (I'm not sure how many pounds in one package). Now it has turned into her buying 12lbs each years just for the three of us. You would think that 12lbs would be enough that we ate until everyone said "Uncle" and the last person standing was the winner for the year, but no, the 12lbs don't last long and the whole charade turns into a display of a speed race rather than endurance.

There are a few rules to this madness though.

1. You can't fill your plate with all the chicken wings right off the bat.
   
2. You can only take a reasonable number of wings with each refill.
3. You cannot refill your plate until you have eaten everything that is already there.
4. When we start getting low on wings you can only take one at a time.

Each person has their own strategy. Jonathan likes to start out with the wing and not the drumstick. There is less meat on the wing but it is a more precarious piece that takes more effort to get all the meat off. The drumstick is easier to eat but there is more meat to get off before you can move onto the next one. So it ends up being six of one and a half dozen of the other. You have to come in with a plan and stick to it.

My plan this year was to come in with more speed. The problem with this plan is that there is a fine line between a good speed and just being rude and disgusting, there are other people around the table trying to eat after all.

(The carnage begins)

After the dust had cleared and the tray was empty, the counting began. Darin was done first and called out 36 wings consumed. I went next and to my dismay had come up two wings short at 34. Jonathan didn't bring his A game this year and came in a distant third with 25 wings.

(I look forward to this day more than any other each year)

There are a few people that without them this event would never go down. So let's thanks our sponsors.

• Mom - she does the brunt of the work, she has to buy the wings, skin them and make the marinade. There were 95 wings this year that had to be skinned.
• Dad - he mans the grill and makes sure that no wings slip through the cracks
• Kati - I'm just surprised that she even comes to Sunday dinner on this night, that's gotta be worth something.

Long live Darin the King of Glutton-Fest!