XXX pornos blaze downtown

What do you think of when you see the phrase “I licked my fingers after a dozen pornos?” If you live in Milledgeville, chances are you’re thinking it’s time for lunch.

That’s because the Brick, a restaurant just down the road from GC&SU, offers a challenge to anyone brave enough to risk their life, limb, and taste buds: attempt to eat a dozen XXX porno buffalo wings, slathered in hot sauce, in thirty minutes or less.

Sound easy? Think again. Frank Pendergast, manager of the Brick, estimates that out of the 20 to 25 people that try the wings every week, only about half actually succeed. Their reward is a fire-engine red t-shirt with the Brick’s logo on the front and the phrase “I licked my fingers after a dozen pornos” on the back.

Pendergast said the idea for the hot wings came from a college employee who constantly asked for extra-hot wings.

“This went on for about six months, and then he said, ‘You know, every time I get them, they’re different.’ Finally I said, ‘We need to have this on the menu!’” Pendergast said. “So I sat down one night and was trying to think up names for really hot wings, and I eventually came up with ‘XXX porno wings,’ because they’re explicit.”

He said that although the Brick could serve hotter wings, they preferred to make a sauce with a flavor people could enjoy. However, not everyone enjoys them. Since the Brick started serving the XXX wings approximately two years ago, five people have thrown up at the table.

So what the heck is in this stuff?

“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you,”

Pendergast said slyly, but he revealed that the sauce takes a day to make, starting with regular hot sauce as a base and adding more spices and freshly chopped habaneras to the mixture.

“The habaneras are the kick,” he said. “That’s what puts the fire in your pants.”

They certainly lit a fire under GC&SU junior Kim Parsons, a psychology major. She is one of only fifteen females that have survived the hot wings. Even though Parsons wasn’t sure how hot the wings would actually be, she ordered them anyway.

“One of the girls there with me used to work at the Brick, and she told me that she got the hot sauce on her fingers one time, just a little dribble, and it started to burn,” she said. “That’s when I started to get scared.”

Parsons said it was hard going.

“I had a hard time swallowing. I was letting it marinate in my mouth for awhile, trying to gulp it down,” she said. “By the time I finished, I had the sauce dripping all over my hands and my nose was dripping.”

Parsons said she probably would have done it even if she’d known how hot the wings would be.

“I’m a risk-taker,” she said.

Parsons said she has gotten many comments on her t-shirt.

“When I was wearing the shirt the next day around campus, a bunch of guys came up and asked me if I really did it,” she said.

Parsons has only one complaint about her experience.

“It took forever to get those little chicken pieces out from under my nails. Next time, I’m going to use a fork,” she said.

Dwayne Goudy, a sophomore majoring in nursing, has also tried the hot wings.

“I saw it on the menu and knew that it was something I wanted to do, so the next time I went, I did it,” he said.

The experience was no bed of roses for him, either.

“It was almost like torture,” he said. “The hardest part was half-way through, around the seventh or eighth wing. I had friends with me, and I had to get them to cheer me on to keep going.”

Gurdy said that he felt “pretty proud” when he received his t-shirt prize. “And I was relieved to not have to eat anymore,” he said.

Pendergast revealed that he, too, tried the hot wings.

“I was the guinea pig,” he said.

Pendergast tasted the first of almost 1,000 batches of the wings.

“I thought, ‘These are pretty good, but they’re not difficult,’” he said. “Then I got to the ninth one, and it just kind of hit me like a freight train.”

After hearing so much about these hot wings, I was curious enough to try them myself. Along for the event was an entourage of friends who alternately cheered me on, took pictures and laughed at the faces I made while swallowing.

I was served by Bonnie McRae, a GC&SU mass communications major who works as a waitress at the Brick. She quickly brought me a dozen wings and a pile of celery.

Nose dripping, fingers stinging and mouth burning, I plowed my way through the wings and left with my t-shirt and a red badge of courage in the form of partially-dried hot sauce running down my arm.

Pendergast typically offers this bit of advice to those who have eaten the wings before they leave the restaurant.

“We always tell the guys to wash their hands before using the bathroom,” he said. “Words to live by.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Oct 7 2005. Filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry