This is what will hopefully be my first official blog entry for Feature Writing. Starting out, I really wanted to write a blog that would help the people that read it in some way.  After hours of careful thought I realized that the greatest way I could help people would be to challenge them. After all, undergoing challenge fosters growth, and what better way to help people than to give them an opportunity to grow? So, to inspire all of my readers to tackle challenges in their own lives, I will be accepting challenges offered to me by the Castleton community. I’ll ask as many people as I can to suggest me potentially difficult activities and then I’ll decide which one will be best to write about. All challenges will be seriously considered, no matter what.

Challenge #1: Eat 40 Chicken McNuggets in 20 minutes.

     I know what you’re thinking already. LAME. And I agree but I had a very short amount of time and limited challenges to choose from for this one. However, I rarely eat fast food which made this was an interesting task for me to start out with. It was also one that was almost sure to end with me projectile vomiting on someone or something. So, please bear with me, and I guarantee that you’ll laugh and cry as I simultaneously gross you out with this horror story.

     I started out with two boxes: 20 McNuggets each. Roughly 1,800 calories of what probably shouldn’t be called chicken. They were fresh from the oven and filled my entire suite with the mouthwatering smell of deep fried breaded goodness. I popped open the first box and the nuggets seemed to almost tumble over each other out, eager for me to dare the impossible and eat them all. I was up for it. I pulled out my cellphone and threw on the stopwatch app. Cellphones are so handy for everything. I was now ready to begin my mission. The first 5 Chicken McNugs went down easily. They were boiling hot from the fryer but their sizzle almost made them even more delectable. In terms of challenges, I couldn’t complain about this one.

     Plowing through the next 5 nuggets was cake. Chicken cake. Is that a thing? I checked my cellphone stopwatch. It read 3:55, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I had completed a quarter of my task still with some extra time. But 10 is a fantastic number of nuggets to eat. It might be the perfect amount. Just enough to fill you up, but also just enough to make you start hating both McDonald’s and yourself. 10 is where I would have been comfortable being done. Unfortunately, I wasn’t even close.

     After putting back another 4, the taste of only Chicken McNuggets was starting to get older than the members of Blink-182. However, I had committed to give this my best shot and I wasn’t about to quit this early. I grabbed a bottle of water and used that to wash down the next 6. It made the chicken pretty soggy but also much less difficult to stomach. It also meant that I was halfway done the challenge. I glanced down at my phone: 9:40. I was barely ahead of the clock. Now finishing all the nugs in time was more important than just finishing the nugs, in general. I had to pick up the pace.

     Around now, I flipped the switch in the head and just started looking at this challenge like a fight. It was me against the McNuggets and I had no intention of losing. Armed with several packets of barbecue sauce and a bottle of lightly chilled water, I went to war. Nugget after nugget fell. Casualties in a battle they would never even understand.

     I chowed down the next ten with the ferocity of a dozen hungry stoners. It was rough and every nugget was making my stomach feel progressively heavier and heavier. It ate 3 more. And then 2 more after that. I was up to 35 with a time of 17:20 and I had almost reached my goal. Only 5 more to go, but all I wanted to do was stop eating McNuggets permanently. Eating had gone from an enjoyable activity to a greasy living hell. Still, I had gotten this far and I wasn’t about to let my readers down. After all, how could I expect them to conquer challenges in their own lives if I couldn’t even do something as simple as eat chicken?

     The nuggets were no longer boiling hot, in fact they were no longer warm at all. Rather, they had become a tasty combination of dry and rubbery. Perfect. I miserably choked down 2 more.  They had the consistency of a dead bat. And yes, I do know that from personal experience… There were now only three nugs left but my stomach felt as if it would explode if it put anything more into it. I looked down. The nugs seemed to mock me from their places in the box. They had seen all of their brothers fall but believed themselves to be in the clear. I couldn’t let that happen. With a sudden surge of adrenaline I snatched up each individual piece and ONE… TWO… THREE… polished the McNuggets off. Grabbing into my pocket, I withdrew my phone and looked onto the screen with baited breath. 19:10. I had made it literally without a minute to spare, but I had made it.

Now it’s your turn…