The Blazin' Chicken Wings of Death!

***Continued from Wednesday's post***

So, obviously I'm intrigued by what our waitress, Blondie, has just told us.

"Why would they think we work for INS?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. But not long back, some INS agents came into the Chili's in (nearby city) and the whole cooking staff ran out the back!"

I guess these guys had good reason to be nervous, and the mental image of 15 guys running out the back door of Chili's leaving the manager to whip up the next batch of Awesome Blossoms was very amusing and I couldn't help but laugh. It was about that time that I heard Ted sputter and cough.

Glancing his way, I heard him mutter a curse. "Damn, these wings are just drowning in sauce!" The boneless buffalo wings had something like three times the amount of sauce on them that they normally do. I guess the cook staff were hedging their bets that if we were INS agents, we'd get pissed off with the food and leave them alone. I dunno... We at the wings anyway :-)

In any case the ending of that story provides a nice segue into tonight's post!

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A week after the visit to Chili's, Ted and I were out on a Saturday night with some mutual friends. There were 5 of us in all, and we had just gotten done seeing Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which was better than I thought it was going to be, and we were looking for a place to get something to eat. It was past 1am and the choices were few and far between.

But, as luck would have it, we spotted a restuarant along the side of the freeway that recently opened up. Don't know how prevalent they are throughout the country, but they're springing up here fast. "Buffalo Wild Wings" was the name of the place. Its a grill and bar specializing in buffalo wings and was open until 2am. Bonus!

We pile out and go in and order up all different flavors of wings and popcorn shrimp. It was all really good and we polished off the first round in no time. So, one of our friends, we'll call him Big D, decided to take it upon himself to order the next round of wings as his treat. Can't argue with that! So when the next batch of food arives we're all scoping out the different flavors and that's when we saw them. The Blazin' Wings.

Mounted on the wall was a poster of the different sauces you can get on your wings arranged from left to right from least hot to hottest. Of course I don't need to tell you which sauce was at the hottest end. We all stared in wide-eyed amazement at the Blazin' Wings as though they were the lost Ark of the Covenant. So we all dove in and kind of ate around them for a long time. Nobody wanted to be first! Finally, Big D's wife decided she would try one. She took a tiny bite and began to cough. "Wow! That hits you hard!"

The rest of us, all guys, grabbed a wing and decided to try them out. How bad could it be right?

I bit into the wing and thought "Hmm that's not too bad." And I quickly finished off the remainder of the wing in two solid bites.

Then suddenly time stopped. The sounds of the bar faded away into slow motion garbble and one by one I could feel the taste buds on my tongue burst into flame. I have never eaten anything that hot in my entire life, and I never will again. Every ounce of higher brain function that I had was suddenly shut down and in the space of 25 seconds I was reduced to a quivering pile of gelatinous goo. I felt as though I was channeling Jerry Lewis at this point. I could only speak in gibberish. Copious amounts of sweat had burst forth all over my head and begun to run down... even from my eyelids.

No wait... those were tears.

The general effect all around the table was the same... except for Ted, who had not yet tried his. He was too busy laughing at the rest of us. Tossing my spent chicken bone back onto the table, I cussed at him. "Hey man... you take a big ole bite and then laugh about it!"

Ted rose to the challenge. Taking a single bite from his wing he fell into the trap. "Oh this isn't so bad....BLLAAYAHGHGHGHAHHH!!!!!" He was done. He couldn't even finish the wing. :-) I felt really proud that I had been able to finish the wing...

... until the next day.

Suffice it to say that the Blazin' Chicken Wings of Death don't depart the body any more pleasantly than they entered it. Never again will those wings pass these lips. Talk about getting brought down!

*sigh*

This has turned into a bit of a ramble hasn't it? Think I'll wrap it up and sign off for now. Take it easy and, just for fun like BlackOps said, the next time you go to Chili's, scream "INS!!!" as you enter the door and see what happens. :-)