A long standing tradition has been upheld at Hope International University: Pig Out. Every fall semester this event is hosted by the RA’s to bring a little competition and enjoyment to the dorms to help relieve some of the stress of finals. The events from last year were exciting enough to watch that I attended again this year. Well that and the fact that this year, I competed.
Normally I wouldn’t be caught in an event like this. I despise puking! I will allow myself to endure hours of stomach pains just to prolong the disgusting feeling of vomiting, even though I know I will feel better after I do. So, competing in an activity that will more than likely make me puke, further more in front of a whole bunch of people, is far from appealing to me. However, my RA Angie called me an hour or so before Pig Out started. She had a lot of trouble getting people to sign up for events. I promote school spirit better than our cheerleaders, and it was crappy that she played the “please help promote school unity through doing this activity” card. Angie asked me to compete in the team event. So, on top of talking myself into competing, I had to try and talk three other girls into doing it with me. Reluctantly, I managed to rope two of my roommates (Hosanna and Tracy) and our good friend Ally into doing the event.
Teams are divided up according to the halls that students live in. Therefore, an RA represents each team. The guys compete against each other, and the girls compete each other. Four events take place for both the guys and the girls: three individual events and one 4 person team event. Round 1 for the guys was called “Nutty Professor,”consisted of consuming an entire jar of Skippy creamy peanut butter as fast as possible (water was not provided until the end). Round 1 for the girls was called “Sugar Rush” and the girls competing had to consume 11 donuts as quickly as possible. The winner of each round gets one point for their halls, and the winner of the final/team event receives two points. Amazingly, the girl (Liz) competing for our halls won the event! Round 2 was fun to watch as the guys competed in “Can do” having to chug a can of whipped cream while simultaneously chugging a can of cheese whiz. Round two for the girls was “Get your fill” and had girls consuming giant cans of raw pumpkin used for pie filling. That was the first time people came close to puking!
Round three opened up a new level of nasty. The girls competed in “Bye, bye Miss American” and consumed entire chocolate silk pies. This event lasted the longest as the girls couldn’t find it in them to finish. Sadly, the girl that was in the lead ended up puking after 3/4 of the pie was finished. She was the defending champ from last year, but just couldn’t handle it this year. Eventually, a freshman girl one, putting her hall in the lead with my hall down by one point. That meant that my halls were still contenders for the trophy. The third round for the guys was by far the foulest. “Last man standing” took “shooters” to a whole new level. Guys had four shots laid out in front of them, having to down all four within ten seconds. The guys went through three rounds, and whoever was left standing went into a face-off and had to combine all four shots into one glass and chug. The first one to finish was announced as winner of the event. Now what exactly did they have to take shots of?…
One shot glass contained black coffee, another pure lemon juice, another soy sauce, and lastly hot sauce. Three guys made it to the final round, and two of them had their heads in the trash can afterward. I cannot even imagine how painful it would be to puke up soy sauce, lemon juice and hot sauce. Poor guys had it spewing out of their noses!
The final round for the guys was unfairly simple. “Veggie tales” made teams of four consume a raw head of lettuce, a raw bushel of radishes, a raw potato and a bundle of cauliflower. Sure, give the girls the fat-calorie-packed events, and let the guys eat vegetables! My roommates were extremely cautious stepping up to do our event. Immediately I wanted to turn around and walk out, but I couldn’t do that to my friends. I knew they were participating because they love me. That in and of itself was motivation to step up to see what our event consisted of.
A jumbo bowl was given to us presenting four boxes of Mac-n-cheese, eight raw hot dogs that had been cut up, and one large can of sauerkraut. I have had mac with hot dogs before, and I know people put sauerkraut on their hot dogs, but never are the three mean to be eaten together! Our timer started and we were competing not only against the clock, but against five other teams for the trophy. Immediately the crowd errupted!
I stuck my hand into the bowl and gathered a little handful which I stuck in my mouth. Never in my life have I imagined eating vomit, but that’s exactly what this tasted like. Everything from the smell to the taste to the texture was unimaginably ronchy. I looked down into the huge bowl trying not to feel overwhelmed when I saw the mass that we were expected to consume. I was gagging on the first bite, how in the world was I going to consume the entire bowl? I tried to stay positive smiling at my roommates as I saw the pained expressions on their faces. I couldn’t believe that I had talked them into doing something like this! What kind of roommate and friend am I? Sure, lets all get together and vomit all over the place in front of the entire school! Wow, great idea Heather!
I remember that Hosanna was the first to dig both of her hands into the bowl to grab a huge handful and shove it in her mouth. All of the rest of us followed suit. I could hear people screaming and cheering, and I tired to focus on that rather than the sour acidic taste in my mouth. I had to not focus on swallowing because whenever I did, I gagged and came that much closer to puking. At the halfway mark, I thought to myself, “no way might we actually win this stupid thing!” That would have just been too bizarre. Our friends encouraged us by saying that we were in the lead. We kept eating and eating. Soon we had reached the bottom of the bowl and I started to feel some thread of hope that we weren’t enduring this wretched humiliation for nothing. We almost got disqualified for Tracy spitting a mouthful into the trash can. But we kept eating and eating.
After scraping the bowl clean, I got a feeling of relief until we were told to “pick up the scraps” that had fallen onto the table. How much more would we have to eat for crying out loud?! So all four of us began scraping loose noodles together that had fallen on the table; the same table that had been spilled on, spit on and PUKED on! We shoveled the last bites into our mouths as our friends cheering reached levels I couldn’t have imagined possible. We threw the bowl as we were announced winners of the events. We had done it!
After we threw out a few high-fives, all four of us rushed to the bathroom to vomit.
The sense of love that I felt for my friends was overwhelming. I remember telling them at one point in the competition that I loved them. I really meant it too. No one else will ever know what it felt like to consume that much sauerkraut, hot dogs and mac-n-cheese besides my girls. They were wonderful for even competing in the first place, and so wonderful for competing fiercely enough to actually win! We accomplished what seemed like an impossible task, and we did it together.
There is now a lovely golden pig on display for our halls for winning the Pig Out competition. Sure everyone else in our halls might laugh when they see it, but not my friends and I. We will look at it smiling, knowing that the trophy truly belongs to just us.
