If It Didn't Suck....

For some reason I was ruminating on white castle burgers. I sort of have a love hate relationship with them. I used to love them, they hated me. Then I hated them for hating me, then I had the craving, and well, time will tell if she was indeed a scorned lover or not, but this is not about me, no, this is about this guy Alex, and his crew.

A new situation in my life brought me to White Castle, I had just come from a meetup. Which I guess you can learn more about at if you'd like. And the craving hit me, so I went out of my way to get satiated.

The drive through line spanned the length of the parking lot so I felt I was better off just going inside. Wrong. After Alex and his crew ordered, I was next, and after we ordered we all waited and waited and...well you get the picture. Alex and his crew were actually a decent group of guys, or they were just fueling up for a night of revelry, I cannot be sure, though after what I witnessed, perhaps, Alex would be out of commission for a while.

After numbers were called, and burgers served, Alex comes back with a 30 pack box and sets it down on the table. His crew stared at him in disbelief, and proceeded to take out their phones and take pictures.

"Yo, I'm gonna put this shit on myspace!"
"Fuck that straight to youtube baby."
Alex began eating. Halfway through my food two teen couples say at the table between me and them. They were looking on, as was I but without no real curiosity until the bet.
"Yo I bet you can't eat all these in 15 minutes."
Offers were bandied about and it was settled that one of them would give him all the money in his pocket. After it was established that it was a fairly significant amount, the bet began. Serious eating took place. The couples, began timing them and talking in Spanish, all I made out was the words for "thirty hamburgers" in Spanish.

At burger 16, he looked like he was having some trouble, after conferring about the time he asked for a break and walked outside for a moment. When he came back he polished off a few more, and said he needed to go to the bathroom, another friend of his said someone would have to go in with him to make sure he didn't puke. Alex declined and polished off 4 more burgers. Time was running out. He got up to take another break.

"Yo bro, you asshole is gonna be burning like mother fucker for like a month." Laughter broke all around. One of his friends looked over at me. "You watching this shit too?" I nodded.

"You gonna see history in the making, he gonna eat all these shits or puke all over the table."

Alex got back to business. Another one of his friends were staking the empty burger boxes on the window sill making a greasy cardboard pyramid. Yet another took a few pictures of his handiwork.

"Stop dribbling the damn onions."

"Yo the pickles count do you better eat those."

At burger 24 time was running out, he was given 2 more minutes.

"Why don't you take two and squish em together," offered another cohort. Alex then dumped out the rest and managed to eat half of two burgers that had been mangled together in his fist. Time was up.

The couples got up and were disappointed he didn't do it. "Shit we just wasted our time here," one of the young ladies belched out as they left. They also said that they would look for the pictures on myspace.

Alex's friend offered to pay for just the burgers if he ate the rest, and he said he could not do it. Quiting just 4 1/2 burgers of his goal. His friend looked at me and said, "you almost saw history in the making."

"Better luck next time." I said and left.

As I pulled out of the parking lot, I witnessed Alex and his crew leaving white castle. Most of them were limber and agile and looked refreshed. Alex ambled along like a wounded panda, defeated, but not beaten. I know in my heart, that next time, and somewhere on youtube and myspace, I will see him victorious.