Let Them Eat Pie

There’s a series of events known as All Hall Brawl. This is another standard attempt to engage the freshman class in high spirited non-alcoholic socialization. In accordance with those rules the few days before it began the R.A.s would lay in waiting by the sign up sheet and immediately greet you by first name, a move which then demands a response, and tell you to sign up.

I was feeling restless and shortly thereafter ensnared in this awkward social web, and so I did my civic duty as the biggest person on Lander 3 and signed up for the pie eating contest. I would cast of my dignity and debase myself for the amusement of those around me, and I would do it without any sense of shame.

I prepared two days in advance. I didn’t eat anything and drank carbonated beverages at unreasonable speed. The later of those two is to prevent the former from causing your stomach to shrink. In short I had adopted my sense of warrior focus.

When the various contestants were lining up around the table it was made immediately clear to me that I was the only one who had brought any kind of warrior focus. I was the only one who had a sense of restlessness for the competition to begin, I was the only one who was both in the event and seemed spirited about it, and most dramatically I was the only one who refused a trash bag to cover myself with. It’s a pie eating contest, you’re supposed to be messy, and you wear your atrocious filth as a mark of Triumph.

The pie itself was chocolate mouse with whipped cream on top, and of a generally low quality. That didn’t really matter though. When it began I only spared enough attention to those around me to notice one thing. They would lean over and bit almost hesitantly at the surface of the pie, getting a reasonable sized bite and getting most of it in their mouth. I however lunged with reckless abandon getting an entire mouthful which I would swallow without chewing, and spreading a second mouthful over my face and torso. During the actual frenzy only a few thoughts occurred to me, most of my mind was devoted to blacking out my sense of pain and nausea. In chronological order they are:

I’m really glad this is an almost entirely fluid food. I can swallow it like a pill.

Oh hell, I can’t breath, I’ve got mouse I my nostrils and my mouth is still full.
The time for hygiene has long passed Max, blow em out and go in again.

Damn the crust!
Bite around the edges.
That works but not fast enough.
Grab the tin in your mouth and flip it over
Genius!

When it was over I was the victor. I was nauseous and out of breath and slowly swallowing a mouthful of crust that was approximately thirty times the size of my head, but I was Triumphant. For a brief while thereafter I was a hero I ended up laying down for the next hour and not doing anything related to serious movement until the next night, but I was still a champion.