A Date With the Dreaded “Day Changer” Chicken Wings

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of tossing chicken wings that are hot enough to kill children and the elderly down my gullet for sport. My father was mildly obsessed with spicy food and I suppose some of that appetite for unpleasantness was passed along to me. As a result, whenever I’ve seen people struggling their way through a spicy food challenge on television, my first thought is “what a pussy, those wings probably aren’t even that hot.”

Easy for me to say from a distance, though. All that cockiness isn’t really earned until I’ve tried it myself. This weekend, that opportunity presented itself.

When I saw the above placard sitting in front of me at a bar called Woody’s in Sioux Falls, I knew what had to be done. I had to eat some goddamn chicken wings. This isn’t the first wing challenge I’ve had the opportunity to participate in, but it is the only one I’ve seen that promised $50 worth of free booze for the winner. Free booze, free food and the opportunity to be reduced to a shivering, sweat and snot covered shell of a man by dead chicken parts? Sign me up. It was 11am, and I was ready to have my day changed.

The shirt was probably a poor choice.

I informed our waitress of my intent to subject myself to what would develop into about 15 hours of chili pepper fueled pain and aggravation and her reply should have given me some pause. “Right now? It’s probably going to ruin your day, sure you don’t want to wait?” No, I don’t. Waiting ain’t nothing but a shitty Dane Cook movie. Let’s do this.

And with that, I was regaled with tales of past wing war contestants who were so incapacitated by the plate of chicken wings I was asking for that they had to call in sick to work the next day. I was also presented with a list of rules.

It’s at this point that I realize any tactic I’ve ever dreamed would help me defeat a challenge of this nature is against the rules except for one thing. I’ve always assumed that, in a situation like this, the chicken wings would be much easier to deal with than those obnoxious little drumsticks. Confident that I’d found a loophole, I asked if I could have all wings and no drumsticks. Apparently, that’s also against the rules now, because they said no. Fair enough.

Up next was the waiver. Every heat related challenge requires you to sign one of these things. No worries.

Does “death” really need to be in all caps, though?

After a few minutes of prep time, I was ushered to a spot at the bar to face my esophagus scorching fate. A bucket with a Miller Genuine Draft label on it was placed on the bar next to me on the off chance that I needed to vomit in it while happy couples and families tried to enjoy their less life threatening meals just a few feet away. Honestly, I can’t think of a better beer to adorn the side of a vomit bucket, but that’s not really important.

I was once again reminded of the rules:

• 15 minutes
• 10 wings
• No napkins, drinks or bathroom breaks
• The first two wings must be eaten within the first three minutes
• No matter how fast you finish, you must wait the full 15 minutes before drinking or using the bathroom

With thoughts of all the free drinks I’d be winning swishing around in my liver, I accepted the rules and the wings were delivered.

With nothing left to fear but fear itself and a scorched colon, I tore into the first wing. I immediately knew I had made a mistake. I have a job, you know? I can just buy drinks. I don’t really need to shotgun lava soaked chicken to cover my Sunday NFL outings. What the fuck was I thinking?

That line of questioning was quickly jettisoned though. Not finishing the other nine wings wasn’t going to change the fact that I had already eaten one and would likely suffer dearly for it for at least the next few hours. Might as well see this is absurd decision through to the end.

As pain stricken as I already was after that first wing, my outward appearance was still relatively normal. So, just to be an asshole, I acted as nonchalant as possible about how hot the wings really were. I wouldn’t be able to keep that up for long.

Six wings and about five minutes in, and the pain was ridiculous. Sweat was pouring, my face was covered in wing sauce and snot and I hurt. It’s at this point that I’m pretty sure the vomit bucket will be used before I leave my seat. But I bury those thoughts and keep on. At some point, the wings stop being a problem, it’s knowing that even when you finish them you still can’t do anything to put out the fire that’s maddening. But I managed to use that to my advantage. With just three wings to go, I still had over six minutes to wait. Instead of pounding them down and holding on for dear life, I took a few minutes to get used to the pain. As bad as it was, I knew it wasn’t going to get worse, so I was able to persevere. I actually heard a woman on a television show the night before use those exact words when describing the seven months she spent in a full body cast. Here I was applying the same logic to a wing eating challenge. Realizing what a shallow prick I was for that temporarily took my mind off the pain also.

I finished the last three wings with about two minutes to spare. The waiting was almost unbearable, but short of literally shitting my pants so forcefully that it propelled me from my seat at the bar and through the wall into the bathroom, I wasn’t planning to lose. People were shouting words of encouragement. By this point, the heat was such that I started to feel a bit like I’d just smoked a joint. A welcome sensation if I’ve ever felt one. But I also felt mildly delirious. My entire body was shaking and my mind was consumed with thoughts of what all of this would feel like on the way out. I remember cursing the name of Aaron Rodgers. I don’t know why.

And then, finally, it was over. I was victorious, and I had the video to prove it.

Be advised, there’s a whole lot of awful in that video. Watching a fat man eat regular chicken wings is horrifying enough. It gets exponentially worse when those chicken wings are life threatening. But the ordeal (albeit edited down a bit) is captured above for historical purposes nonetheless.

The Aftermath…

Upon completing the challenge, I was congratulated and then given a single latex glove. “For when you use the bathroom,” a staff member explained. It was expert advice that I failed to heed just once accidentally. I spent the next 20 minutes or so cursing the very idea of external genitals. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

In fact, the next 15 hours or so were an exercise in making sure I didn’t touch anything sensitive. About three hours or so after the challenge I caught myself about to itch my right eye. I have no doubt that the resulting pain would have given me a stroke. I had to wear gloves to take my contact lenses out before I went to bed (sandwich bags actually, I don’t just keep latex gloves around the house). That was a full 12 hours after touching those demon wings.

But being cautious about what I touched was nothing like living with the chaos unfolding in my stomach. I was never able to get anyone to tell me what was in that sauce, but my insides were fully capable of telling me how badly I needed to get it out of me. I had hoped that these wings would strike me down with one gigantic batch of explosive, colon cleansing skitters. Instead, I spent the rest of the day intermittently shitting hot coal in very small but extremely painful amounts. I don’t care if you didn’t want to hear that, I had to eat the wings, you’ll hear my scatological talk and you’ll hear it loud and clear.

Thankfully, the painful aftermath came to an end at about 3:45am when I was rousted from bed by a feeling in my stomach that had me hoping against hope that someone would be waiting in the bathroom with the area already prepared for my work, because I wasn’t sure I was going to have time to get situated before the action started. But alas, I made it, and the last of those devil wings were gone for good.

As painful as the ordeal was, I feel I’ve emerged from it a better man. But that’s mostly because I still have $50 worth of free drinks waiting for me.

Adam is the managing editor at The Smoking Jacket and a glutton for intestinal discomfort. You can be his friend on Facebook or Twitter.