Veritable Tantrum

It’s no surprise to anyone that the Internet is gaily obsessed with pizza.

The top suggestions when you type “pizza is” on Google are: pizza is knowledge, pizza is like sex, and pizza is a vegetable. If the Internet were a shopping mall, the food court would basically be one massive Sbarro that gives out complementary “pizza is bae” t-shirts with every purchase. Yep, that massive Sbarro right between the YouJizz store and spyware kiosk.

Pizza used to just be a flatbread with ingredients resembling stomach acid on top, but the Internet has made it something entirely new. It has transcended its physical form and become something illusory. It has become an IDEA, an idea encompassing many things, lifestyle obsession and white girl excess being among the most common.

I figured I’d do something to honor this pop culture absurdity. I usually never like to post or write about anything popular because I’m anti-establishment and don’t like to play by the rules. I’m essentially the Michael Jordan of being a non-conformist.

BUT I’m willing to admit my audacious love of pizza. Even 711 pizza, which, for the record, I DO NOT love more than their mini beef tacos. Those little bastards are arterially murderous masterpieces.

I already (kinda) conquered a bacon challenge, so why not make one more attempt at total self-annihilation? Anyone familiar with College Park, Maryland, knows it offers a spectrum of pizza joints scattered everywhere in between gourmet Travel Channel delicious and blackout drunk disgusting.

My two friends and I created this pizza challenge dedicated to our rathole alma mater. The rules would follow as such…

• Eat one slice of pizza from all five College Park shops that serve by the slice
• Shotgun one beer in the bathroom of each shop
• Complete these tasks within two hours of the first bite

We prepared by dieting appropriately leading up to that Friday. And by dieting I mean not dieting at all. The challenge sounds easy on paper, right? You know, because we’re MEN and we’d have no problem eating a classroom of children if the challenge presented itself.

Absolutely not. We made it to four shops and were ready to yawn in Technicolor after scarfing down only the third slice and shotgunning the third beer. It was the Titanic of food challenges; an avoidable disaster had we done a few things differently.

First and foremost, we should’ve cut the shotgun aspect out of it but NOT the drinking aspect. Shotgunning one beer at each place accomplished absolutely nothing because all the food in our self-proclaimed stomachs of steel wasn’t letting us get drunk. Instead of mixing beer and pizza together at the same time, we should’ve just gotten tanked before starting. My drunken alter ego can demolish pizza like the dearly departed Knox Boxes themselves. My sober, normal self, who goes by his Christian name Alex? Not so much.

I mentioned that College Park pizza is very diverse in its range of good slices and shitty slices, but I’m gonna take that statement back in defense of my failure. CP pizza is, for the most part, pretty awful. Half the places we visited (or two out of four) are known for their gargantuan-sized slices that are about a foot long and taste like a dog’s asshole. Another place we hit is also notoriously known for being shitty, and it’s only remained open for so long because it’s a spitting distance away from the two most popular bars. I’ll give you a hint: the name has “rat” in it. Let that sink in.

Also, FUCK THE TWO-HOUR TIME LIMIT WE SO ARROGANTLY SET FOR OURSELVES. My friend Jake who did it with me suggested that addendum, and it singlehandedly made us fail. It was a great way to make the challenge as miserable as possible.

He also suggested the shotgun aspect as well, which was also a living nightmare. All of this was his fault, really. Fuck you, Jake.