Mile 400

We drove into Vegas at sunset on Friday night, expecting madness. But since I think that maps are for weenies, we didn’t actually look for real directions to the Sahara, where we were staying. We just kind of aimed for the neon. So we took a lovely tour of the backside of several of the big casinos, until we got to the northernmost end of the Strip. And there, in all its Ali-Babaesque glory, was the Sahara Hotel and Casino. Camels glowed, tents flickered, and the promise of big winnings tried to lure us in. But we decided first to take a drive along the strip to see what was what. And that, dear readers, is when Max saw his life’s purpose.

En grande, hanging in spectacular challenge on the outside wall of the NASCAR café, which, conveniently (or not, según), is actually in the Sahara casino. And the NASCAR café offers a very special eating experience. A six pound burrito.

Let me say that again, just in case you didn’t really catch me the first time. A 6 pound burrito. That’s approximately 2.7 kilos, for all you metric  fans. It’s 24 inches, or 61 centimeters, and oh  man, is it big. I mean, just the amount of sour cream and guacamole and beans on the TOP was astonishing. But I’m getting  ahead of myself.

The deal with the 6 pound burrito is that if you can eat the whole thing – and everything that comes with it – within 90 minutes, it’s free, and you get your picture on the Wall of Champions. If you can’t, you have to pay the bill (about $20) and you have to have your picture taken while you wear a t-shirt announcing that you are a Weenie. That picture – of you with the t-shirt and everything you couldn’t finish – gets posted on the Weenie Wall of Shame.

So Max, with his burritobsession, and his determination and inherent competitive streak, decided that he had spent many years preparing for this moment. And thus, the 6 pound burrito was ordered. And lo, it was humungous. I mean, obscenely large.  Imagine your leg. Now imagine your leg is a burrito. Now imagine eating your leg-burrito. Yeah. I, meanwhile, ordered a measly green chile cheesburger, with curly fries. It was pedestrian, but entirely irrelevant next to the burritazo.

He started strong!  Half the thing was gone within 20 or 25 minutes. People started stopping by (he started eating at 11:55 am, so as lunchtime advanced more people were thinking food) to say things like, “OH MY GOD are you really eating that?” “Holy cow, look at that!” “Oh man, are you gonna eat that WHOLE THING?” Men looked at him with a mixture of respect and jealousy, and women looked at me with compassion and a touch of confusion. I felt much the same way.

Periodically, our lovely and wonderfully supportive server named Michelle stopped by  to check on Max’s progress. She, and he, and just about everyone were totally convinced he was going to do it! 35 minutes in, and most of the burrito was gone…massive tortilla(s), shredded beef, cheese, rice, salsa, guacamole, sour cream, all just disappeared into the crazy person across the table from me. (Oh, did I mention he was in a special roped-off zone so he couldn’t leave? And that there was a garbage can conveniently located within leaning distance of the table?)

To my eyes, most of the ingredients in the burrito looked really processed – the guacamole looked not fresh, the beans had that from-a-can look, and the whole thing looked, well, massively unhealthy. Not to mention unhealthfully massive. But he ate and ate and ate and…well, you get the picture.  Every so often, he’d say, “now this is the size of a regular burrito!” I think that happened about 3 or 4 times. And by  minute 50 or so, the burrito was gone!!

But.

Remember what I said about the stuff that came on the top? That was all still  left. And it was a lot. There was melted cheese, refried beans, sour cream, some pico de gallo, and, the worst part by then, sliced black olives. So Max ate bite after bite of this mush, looking increasingly hesitant. At about minute 60, he told the bartender who was checking in on his progress that he was starting to feel dizzy. Sure enough, less than 5 minutes later, se acabó. Done. Game over. A discreet exit to the restroom and a sheepish return later, Max was presented with his pink Weenie shirt and the loss was duly recorded. His picture will now join the hundred or so other burrito losers at the NASCAR café, where only two people have been able to win  this gargantuan gastronomic gamble.

If it’s any consolation, however, it turns out that Max was able to meet a couple of subsidiary goals. First, he actually finished the burrito itself – no mean feat. Or feet (2 of them!). Second, he was the person who came closest to finishing: since you can see how much everyone else has left, you can see where you fit into the spectrum of burrito weenies. And happily, Max is only a teeny weenie.

The last and perhaps most fulfilling accomplishment is that Max was able to eat more than Adam from the Travel Channel’s Man vs. Food show. There’s a picture of Adam and everything HE left at the NASCAR café, and you can see that Max ate substantially more than Adam did. Michelle told us that that program will air in August sometime, so I am looking forward to it.

As we were wrapping up, a girl about our age named Delany was getting ready to start. We don’t k now how she did, but I pointed out that the winner’s circle needed a girl…and she seemed to agree. So good luck, Delany, wherever you are!

The next couple of hours of the trip were,  I think, a tad uncomfortable for Max. An amaretto and some dramamine seemed to help, but all discussion of food was totally verboten for the next several hours, until we got close to Phoenix. But there was no more eating that day, understandably.

Oh, and in case you are wondering what happens when an anthropologist and a sociologist who both specialize in economic  stuff go to a casino, the answer is next to nothing. Turns out neither of us knows enough about the games to play, and since we’re grad students, we stuck to the penny slots. No winnings to report, sadly, although we were both big fans of the free cocktails….