I was looking for that Classic Chili Cook Off Humor article that's been floating on the internet for years, A Chili Cook Off wouldn't seem right without it re-surfacing. I'll send it in a minute. Meanwhile, I came across this one. Since PF is a nurse, I thought this should come first---
The best ward chili cook-off ever
Almost four years ago I was nine months pregnant and holding with Mister Bubby when I had the opportunity to attend ye olden Mormon event known as the Annual Ward Chili Cookoff. Every ward I've ever lived in has had an annual chili cookoff, despite the fact that a majority of Mormons know next to nothing about making chili. (Sorry, kids, but it's the truth.)
So here I am, nine months pregnant at the Ward Chili Cookoff, and naturally I have to endure a lot of "haven't you had that baby yet?" remarks, as well as warnings not to eat too much chili. In fact, I don't believe anyone interacted with me that evening without feeling compelled to make some cute remark about the folly of a pregnant woman eating chili. It's not like I was in any danger because half of this chili was just ground beef with marinara sauce, but I took it in good humor all the same. At least I think I did. I don't know. Nine-month-pregnant women aren't usually known for their senses of humor, just as mothers of three aren't famous for their long-term memories.
Well, not all of the chili at this particular cookoff was bland. Sugar Daddy, being the macho man that he is, made a very good chili that year–spicy, but not so hot that you couldn't taste it. Now I admit that as part of our food snobbery, SD and I are also heat snobs. We can appreciate that not everyone enjoys spicy food, but our consensus is that if you can't tolerate anything hotter than mild salsa, you probably need to just grow up. I don't like the heat of my food to detract from its taste, but I find as the years go by and more of my taste buds get burned off, I require my food to be ever more spicy. (This was especially true during my pregnancy with Elvis, when I was in perpetual need of having my sinuses drained. I think Elvis inherited a lot of my immunity to heat because every time we go to Mexican restaurants, he's the one eating salsa directly out of the bowl. But I digress.) However, as SD was in this contest for the win, I advised him to hold back ever so slightly on whatever variety of peppers he was using that year so as not to overwhelm any wimpy, Utah-born palates.
So while SD was spying on the judges, I was feeding Princess Zurg and Mister-Bubby-in-Utero chili and listening to the advice of a lady in the ward who worked as an obstetric nurse at the hospital I was to deliver at. She wanted me to hold off on having the baby until the following Monday because that was when she'd be back on shift. She also told me that if I wanted to go into labor, SD and I should just go home and have lots of sex. That remark brought on its fair share of giggles from the other ladies at my table (all of the men were also spying on the judges, as I recall), but I took it in about the same manner as I had all the chili remarks–smiling and nodding and looking forward to the day when I would no longer be pregnant and people wouldn't feel entitled to publicly speculate about my bodily functions, reproductive or otherwise.
We returned home that evening, SD severely disappointed that he hadn't won the award for Best-Tasting Chili because half of the judges couldn't tolerate the spiciness of his entry. However, he did not win Hottest Chili either, because another gentleman in the ward had dared to take his chili-making places where his wife had probably warned him not to go. This especially irked SD, and he vowed that next time, he would take no prisoners and take home that award.I tell you all of this so that you understand why I woke up at 6 a.m. the following morning with what I assumed to be the worst gas pain known to woman, pregnant or otherwise. I knew I couldn't be in labor because when I got up and walked around, I felt better. Sort of. If I walked for a very long time. After an hour or so of this, SD noticed my discomfort and said, "Are you in labor?"
"No, I'm not in labor. It's just gas."
"Are you sure you're not in labor? Because it seems like you're in labor."
"Hello, I think I would know if I were in labor, seeing how I'm the only one in the room who's given birth before."
"Okay, fine. But I still think you're in labor."
"Whatever!"
As I said, pregnant women aren't known for their senses of humor. Or their cheerful dispositions.
Or, at least in our house, their judgement, because about fifteen minutes later I ended up asking SD to time my gas pains.
Soon we were dropping off Princess Zurg with neighbors and speeding through the streets of suburban
Portland, which were fortunately empty on this Sunday morning. I was weeping and wailing and gnashing my teeth in the passenger seat, while SD was violating more traffic laws in five minutes than he'd done in all his driving years combined, because every time we came to a protected intersection, I'd scream, "WHY IS THIS LIGHT STILL RED?!!!"
When we got to the hospital, the nurses quickly caught on to the fact that I was in labor because I was pretty much freaking out at this point. At the peak of one particularly nasty contraction, one of them asked, "Are you going to need an anesthesiologist?"
"CAN I PLEASE NOT MAKE THAT DECISION RIGHT NOW?" I asked.
She said, "Certainly," and waited patiently until I'd calmed down enough to say, for some inexplicable reason, "No, thank you."
We soon found out that it was a good thing I would not require an anesthesiologist because I was (SQUEAMISH, PLEASE AVERT YOUR EYES) already at nine centimeters. For those of you unfamiliar with the labor and delivery process, that meant that the baby was coming any minute now. They finished doing all that other stuff they do when you check in to a hospital (I still don't know because I've never paid much attention, frankly), and told me I could get in the Jacuzzi tub if I wanted and to call them when I felt like pushing.
Let me tell you, that Jacuzzi tub felt awesome. For about two minutes, and then I was screaming to be pulled out because I didn't want to have a water birth. Five minutes later, Mister Bubby made his worldwide debut.
Now I know you all are disappointed that I didn't end up having the baby on the side of the road or an elevator or the middle of a gay pride parade, and I have to say, from an artistic standpoint, I am too–but from a woman-in-travail standpoint I think it worked out just fine the way it did. They announced my son's arrival over the pulpit at church, and the good news is that everyone assumed it was the chili that had done it, and not that SD and I had been having raucous sex the night before.
Fast forward to the present day. By our good fortune we find ourselves in the same ward we were in that fateful night four years ago, and the Annual Ward Chili Cookoff is upon us once again. Well, sort of. It's not until September, but SD is already plotting his revenge. Fortunately, I am not pregnant this time, and few people remember the circumstances of my middle child's birth, but everyone knows I'm married to the guy who plans to win Hottest Chili at any cost.
"I'm pulling out all the stops this time," he says. "I'm going to start with a can of El Pato red chile sauce–"
"Better make it at least two," I say.
"Right. Two cans of El Pato, a couple tablespoons of cayenne, maybe some habaneros–ooh, habaneros, those would be good…"
"It sounds like a waste of beans to me."
"I'm going to get some of that good stew meat and marinate it in Bloody Mary mix. Then I'm going to barbecue the meat in that Iron Works Spicy Barbecue Sauce and put it in the chili–"
"Sounds like a waste of meat."
"I'm not going home empty handed," he says, as-God-is-his-witness. "I want people going to the hospital. I want them to sting their eyes when they lift up the lid."
"No one's going to want to eat this, including me."
"But you know there's something terribly satisfying about food that's so hot it just totally clears your sinuses."
"I don't have a problem with it clearing my sinuses. I just don't want it clearing out all my other body cavities while it's at it."
"That's the other thing–I want all the porcelain to be scoured off every toilet bowl in the church…"
And the conversation, believe it or not, deteriorated from there. Suffice it to say that he's decided he'll need to bring extra pairs of pants for the judges. As immature and tiresome as I find most toilet humor, I have to admit that he had me there. (Note: toilet humor is not the same as diaper humor. I mean, how could it be?)
I will keep you all posted on the casualties as they happen. And any births that may occur as the result of something more dangerous than raucous sex.
) Is there something you can't include (like LFTB 
