Intern Drew's Storm Chase Dairy, Part Two

Drew's storm chase story continued from Wednesday . . .

 

As I said before, I was nominated to be the one to try and eat the biggest steak I have ever seen.  Needless to say, I was not extremely excited about my nomination (I might be a big dude, but even I didn't want a piece of this thing).  Even so, everyone was dying to see me try it and a couple of my friends had even made t-shirts for the occasion.  So I had to do it.

 

The buildup for the big night started weeks before, continued during the road trip, and culminated the night we pulled into the parking lot of the Big Texan Steakhouse in Amarillo.  The place was intimidating from the start as the whole restaurant complex ( the restaurant had a hotel connected to it) made it look like you were on Main Street in some Old West boomtown.  As I walked in with my green t-shirt that my friend had made for me which said " Big Boy" on the front and "Team McCombs" on the back (I'm not kidding), I saw an example of the steak I would be eating sitting out in a display.  It didn't look all that big . . .

 

Now here's what the deal was.  The steak I was about to attempt to eat was a 72 oz. hunk of beef.  If I could eat all of it, a shrimp cocktail, a side salad, a baked potato, a roll, and my sweet tea all within one hour;  I got the whole meal for free.  If I was unable to finish everything within the time limit, then the meal would cost $72.  Oh yeah, one more thing;  the $72 had to be paid up front, and if I ate it all, then the money would be refunded.  Luckily, though, everybody on the trip chipped in on the meal. 

 

So, the huge hunk of meat, which was much bigger than the display steak,  was plopped down before me, a waitress announced to the whole resaurant what I was about to do, and I began.  Everything started out ok.  I ordered the steak rarer than I usually eat it so that it would go down with the least chewing.  I ate fast and furiously at first, but much sooner than I expected, I hit a wall.  The wall I hit can be described as the point where my body was telling me, "If you continue to eat like this, I will punish you later."