Burrito de Mayo Relay Eat-Off Recap (Brought to you by Zantac)

Though I never participated in full contact eating before this week’s Qdoba Burrito de Mayo showdown at Puma City, I’ve been a fan of such activities ever since I covered a sausage munching title bout in East Boston three years ago. In fact, considering how little I care about baseball, football, golf, hoops, and hockey, competitive eating might be my favorite sport beside Olympic karate.

Since I had already set a personal goal to indulge in some sort of eat-off this year, I gladly accepted the invitation to join Team Phoenix along with Stuff Creative Director Mike Diskin, WFNX Sandbox liaison Special Ed, and resident Phoenix Media Group toilet mouth Pat D. I even proposed that we practice in advance, which, as it turned out, might have helped.

In my entire life, I’ve always been on teams with clowns who would rather get drunk and party than win. And I suppose that never changed. Though our competitors were beat-able - most notably the posse that included Miss Teen Connecticut and Miss Teen Massachusetts - we lost. Actually, I suppose it’s not really losing if you can crack jokes about binging pageant queens who apparently have lots of practice holding one another’s hair back.

Luckily, the relay ended immediately after the Boston firefighter team finished, so, in a sense, we tied for second with the overgrown JonBenet Ramseys and the JAM’N 94.5 morning crew (Ramiro was a beast). Oh yeah - this was the celebrity round, which gives you a sense of how star-starved this city truly is. I guess Tom Menino, Stifler’s mom, and the Boston Blazers mascot were unavailable.

I won’t rag on Pat D - who, as was noted by Stuff Editor Erica Corsano, ate like he was at lunch rather than in a race - but I will tout my own abilities. According to the tape, I buried my burrito in about one minute and forty seconds, which, by observation, I imagine was one of the fastest times all day. It was easy, too; I just starved myself, got extremely stoned, doused my burrito with water so the tortilla wouldn’t stick, and swallowed mouthfuls without tasting, breathing, or chewing. A lot of people have since asked me what kind of burrito is was, and I honestly have no idea.

I never was much of an athlete; my grade school baseball coach once said: “Faraone - you may be short, but you sure are slow.” But I think I may have found something here. It’s a dangerous sport - I’ve heard of people biting their own fingers off in the moment - but I have a No Fear t-shirt, and that has to mean something. You only live once, so you might as well hurry it the fuck up.