Pie face: My winning streak continues

I’m not proud of the fact that my only two discernible talents are having a mind filled with vast amounts of trivial information, mostly about pop culture, and the ability to eat really, really fast.

Sure, it depresses me that my chrome dome doesn’t hold fast facts about physics or accounting but can tell you that Bernie Worrell of P-Funk toured with TalkingHeads during David Byrne’s Big White Suit Days, AKA the "Stop Making Sense" tour, a movie of which was directed by Jonathan Demme, who went on to wind a Best Director Academy Award for "Silence of the Lambs."

And be careful if you invite me to a holiday meal. If I don’t watch my manners, I can be on my third plateful shortly after Grace has been said.

Still, I try to use my so-called skills for good – sort of like Superman, had he been granted these abilities instead of the better ones he has.

That’s to say, I don’t like entering competitions. With trivia, I feel like Rain Man. And it only reinforces my feeling that I should have done more with my potentially beautiful mind.

I did take part in a Pub Quiz shortly after 9-11, which my team won. We decided to give the $600 to a firefighters’ fund.

And last weekend, for the first time ever, I took part in an eating contest. The latent Catholic in me disapproves of such events. Gluttony, after all, is one of the Seven Deadly Sins – not to mention all those starving kids around the globe who go hungry while that Japanese guy snarfs down hot dogs.

But I don’t think the undernourished should be eating what I did Friday – a pie crust filled with uncooked canned cherries, topped with a big dollop of whipped cream.

The cause this time was a corporate challenge that raised money to help poor families in Elgin afford recreation programming. And the pie pigging was part of a series of games that also include two swim contests where some fat guys almost lost their suits, which would have been far more embarrassing, given You Tube, than having filling on your face.

Anyway, reluctant though I was, I turned out to be a natural. I even had a strategy.

We had to dump the alleged pie onto a plate and chow it down using our hands only to hold up the plate. So I buried my face into the mix, mushing it up with my forehead and nose to make it easier to swallow.

You don’t really want to chew anything, just lick and suck with all your heart. Yeah, if that reminds you of something naughty, well… Don’t worry. I don’t think I will be entering a contest for that anytime soon. Unless is for a good cause, of course.

Which is to say, I really got into it my mess, pausing only for a few seconds to remind myself: this wasn’t a frolic in the hay, that food is not my one true friend, and that this was all sort of gross.

Then I thought, the hell with it. If they wanted a display of piggishness, well, I am the guy. I slurped and made like a human Dirt Devil. I even licked the crumbs off the plastic table cloth.

I finished with a flourish, getting up from the table, slamming my plate down on it, then looking up madly with pinkish food product all over my face, even in my eyebrows. My Mom will be so proud, I thought.

I left the room to wash off, only to be congratulated by a couple portly gentlemen in awe of my dubious accomplishment.

This was a team thing, and I apparently gave my partner who had to eat a crust with Cookies and Cream filling a very substantial lead.

To my surprise (but not really) I didn’t get sick – despite that at lunch I had a rib eye sandwich, and about half a combo appetizer platter.

I even took part in a three-person, make as many basketball shots as you can contest, which we handily won, too.

And I had two plates of pasta afterward, just because I could.

This was like some sort of practice for Thanksgiving Dinner. Oddly, I don’t seem to have gained any weight over the weekend.

Of course, earlier this fall I was battling blood clots and a couple other things.

Now I am wondering what my lucky streak holds next. First it was bingo in New Orleans, then pie-eating in Elgin – a true champion, a real winner, eh?