The Burning Rectum

2/19/07

As some of you may have noticed, there has been a scant amount of new postings here at Jett Fumes recently. This is due in large part to planning a honeymoon this summer, of which I think I'm finally finished. We decided upon Cozumel, and it's taken no small amount of effort on my part to find an economical abode we wouldn't have to share with all manner of indigenous life forms. So hopefully the postings will get back to normal now, for the six of you who even give a crap. Enough preamble; on with the show.

This weekend several friends and I went to the 26th annual Sertoma Chili Cook-Off at the Springfield Expo Center. It was my second time to the shindig and, much like last year, it was a ridiculous number of people wandering from booth to booth as they become bloated on beer and ass-fuel. If you've never been, it's really kind of a rip-off, financially, because it costs $10 at the door for all the chili you can sample. That sounds fine, until you realize each sample is about 2 tablespoons, and you're fighting like horny salmon moving upstream just to keep from being mowed down in the tide of humanity. Plus, about half the booths are out of chili by one p.m. or so. I doubt very much if I could even eat $10 worth of chili if it were sitting right in front of me, let alone when my face is in the armpit of a large, sweaty man in overalls. The beer is reasonably priced, so far as a captive audience goes, at $3 each, but you get the added joy of having two separate lines for the beer and the tickets to get the beer. I guess that's some way to get around liquor licenses, instead of just the most ass-backwards way to infuriate your patrons.

As one might expect, there is no shortage of rednecks and WT* at these sorts of functions. If you're not particularly discerning, you can spend several hours enjoying the mildly trashy eye-candy bouncing around the place in t-shirts that would be snug on an infant. Speaking of which, I was a little disappointed that one of the local strip clubs, Centerfolds, didn't have a booth this year. Last year they honestly had the best chili in the whole show, by my estimation, and the only bad thing about it was we made the mistake of trying it first, so every cup thereafter was kind of a let down. This year there was a buzz around the Springfield Fire Department booth, which was offering a "hot" and "mild" version of gastrointestinal napalm. Never one to shy away from inflicting pain on myself, I opted for the hot. I can honestly say that I have never in my life put anything that spicy into my maw. Two bites in I was sweating like Ron Jeremy doing calisthenics and was actively weeping. It was awesome.

By far the most interesting part of the Cook-Off is the bathrooms. Interesting in the same way that a week-old cadaver falling on the hood of your car is interesting. There are 3 sets of restrooms serving hundreds upon hundreds of people, so as you might have guessed, the mixture of rednecks, frat boys, booze and long lines makes a recipe for horrors all around. The wait to urinate really wasn't so bad, provided you didn't wait until your bladder reached critical mass before jumping into line. Near as I could tell everyone in line with me at the men's room had not taken this advice. I only had to go twice, but gods on high that was plenty. First off, the copious amounts of beer had loosened tongues to an uncomfortable level and there was entirely too much communication going on inside a place specifically designed to accept biological waste. I would say "I wish I had a dollar" for every time I heard "Git 'er done," but what I really wished for was a firearm. I must admit I felt a little bad for the guy who got a reaction from the crowd the same as if he'd just raped a baby right there on the changing station, simply because he had to do the less-expedient #2.

Every surface in the room was wet with mostly not water. Why would someone take a whole stack of paper towels and just piss all the fuck over them? I hate to guess. It looked as though someone had thrown a week's worth of trash on the floor and then just hosed it down with a power washer. I cannot fathom the chain of events which conspired to cause the following, but there was a hat on the ground with fecal matter spattered on the brim. I like to think some eager fellow in line just couldn't hold it and shat into his cap before casually discarding it in a puddle of piss.

Good chili, though.



Interesting side note, The Soup Nazi from Seinfeld was there signing autographs. It would have been a lot cooler if he'd been in full costume, but this is what passes for celebrities at a pepper and bean-based function.










*That's "White Trash" to you and me.