And to drink…meatballs.

2 Comments read Attractions, Masticating With Mellzah, Midwest, Ohio, Travel, USA

It’s dinnertime. You’re in Columbus, Ohio. You may have just had a single hour of free time for the first time in a week, and you and your boyfriend decided to use it to get pleasantly hammered after his parents indicated that they might like to move in with you at some point in the future. You’re hungry. Not just regular hungry. Drunk hungry. The sort of hungry that practically compels you to make bad decisions. It’s the perfect time to order the Thurmanator from the Thurman Cafe. Food challenges always intrigue me. Maybe it has something to do with my inability to eat in front of strangers, or perhaps I just love a good trainwreck, but I adore eating competitions. I could watch the Nathan’s Famous hot dog competition once a month. Many competitive eaters are attractive people with colorful personalities, and I like that, too. When in a proper mood, I can consume frighteningly large quantities of food, but even drunk hungry, I knew I was no match for the Thurmanator challenge: consume a burger with a pound and a half of ground beef plus ham, sauteed mushrooms, grilled onions, mozzarella, cheddar, and american cheeses, bacon, lettuce, tomatoes, banana peppers, pickles, and mayo, including all the fries, in under an hour. Jason and I split it, and it was still a monster. A MONSTER.

There’s simply no way to get it all in your mouth in a bite, unless you have the capability to unhinge your jaw like a snake, which I have long-suspected some of the IFOCE eaters can do. I cannot, so I ate it piecemeal with a knife and fork which was a new and startling level of decorum for me. So how did we do? We each managed to eat our own half of the burger, plus the side, plus an appetizer of fried pickles plus a beverage apiece. Not too shabby, but still not major league eating material. Each time the car hit a bump on the way home, I was fairly certain my stomach would rupture, so if you try this, maybe skip the appetizer. Maybe.

I hereby declare this day to be Snow Day, the funnest day in the history of Springfield!

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Western Washington has been deluged with snow, businesses and schools alike are closed, some people have lost power, and the governor has declared a state of emergency.

We made a snowman, little suspecting that we’d have our own snow-based emergency on our hands soon.

Frosty, no!

“The t-rex has been clocked at 35 miles an hour.” “Say again?” “We have a t-rex!”

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We recently made the decision that we’d be staying in this house for at least another year, thus revamping my interest in home decor–it doesn’t make sense to pound a bunch of holes in the wall if they’re just going to be more work to fill in a couple of months. But since we now have time and the inclination, we’ve gone on a furniture buying orgy, replacing the dresser with the middle drawer that wouldn’t open and the bottom drawer that wouldn’t shut (I am now going to attempt to fix and finish it in an exciting manner for guest bedroom storage purposes), ordering a new gliding, reclining loveseat couch to replace the couch with the annoying cushions that we hate, getting a new bookcase to store all of the books that have been piling up around the old one (and to prop up the old one and keep it from falling over because it had a “leaning tower” effect going on), purchasing a slightly banged-up demo dining room table for me to strip and finish to my heart’s delight (chairs are next), and one completely frivolous, useless thing.

We were drawn into the store by its assortment of kitschy crap–puma clocks, rattlesnakes poised to strike coiled around treasure chests, blinking jesus pictures–stuff that would be fun to give as gifts so long as you could see the recipient try to make an appreciative, thankful face after opening it.

And then I saw it, and knew it must be mine.

Playing it cool, I asked the shopkeeper if the price listed was his best price for that t-rex up on the wall, you know, whatever, and he knocked off another twenty dollars.

It was mine AND it was a bargain.

We could hardly fit it in the car.

It adds a certain touch of majesty to our home, does it not?