Midwest Knit Girl

Yep, we ate worms. Okay, so they were only the agave worms from a tequila bottle but you had to eat it (read: swallow it) with a shot of tequila. I hate tequila. Ever since I had an experience in Cancun in 1994, I don’t do tequila. That is a story in itself. Not for today. 😉

Anyway, here we were in Eagle Nest, New Mexico at a place called The Laguna Vista Lodge at the bar. We kept hearing about some worm eating contest and when we heard what kind we thought, no biggie. We’ll do it. The true contest was to eat REAL worms, people. They have this contest every year (this was the 14th year) and they have some great prizes. There was a grill along with a ton of other things.

We went outside where the contest was being held and got in line – hey, a free tshirt is a free tshirt! How often do you get to do this, right? At least that’s what I told myself. We each got on stage, they introduced us and we did a 1-2-3-drink the shot at the same time. I almost didn’t get the worm in my mouth with the tequila, eeeew. But it slid right on down. They handed us a tshirt and an award! My step-father has since framed them for us, picture here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31512796@N00/305324735/

Most of the contestants of the ‘real’ worm contest were feeling no pain – beer was flowing, drinks were pouring and I admit, we weren’t feeling much pain either. But we weren’t going on that stage. We watched as one after another would go up there and the audience would heckle them or cheer them on. Finally, it came down to the last two contestants. The 2nd to last was an older guy, clearly someone who’s been around the block a bit and one of those people that everyone knows. He took out his teeth (yes, I did type that) and went to town on the worms. Each contestant was given a timeframe to eat as many worms as they could and the winner got all the cool prizes. The loser – well, the loser just got a free beer probably from his friends. Or maybe more than one.

The last contestant goes up on stage, she’s all decked out in a skirt, leather fringed jacket, a hat, boots, the whole southwest style. I loved her outfit! Then I notice that she not only has a table with a pitcher and a container of worms but a young boy who I guessed was her son (found out later he was). She goes into this whole thing about how she makes lemonade all the time and when the kids come home and they see the pitcher they know they’re getting worms for a treat with their lemonade! And as she’s mixing up the lemonade she’s eating the worms. Like their snacks. No big deal, right? She must have gone on for almost 10 minutes, eating worms, chatting on like this is cookies and milk. 

Lest you think she wasn’t eating worms, you should know she didn’t provide her worms, they were provided for her. They were sealed up beforehand, so these are the real thing. She even had her kid eat one to show how good they are and he of course really doesn’t like them but he’s a good sport and a great little actor so he’s all ‘oh, yummy mommy’! Then he sneaks behind her and spits it out. I don’t think we were supposed to see that but we did and we laughed as did the crowd. Well, she ate an amazing amount and therefore was crowned the winner.

Much fun was had by all that cool night in New Mexico!