"WINGS" and A Prayer....

** I am sorry for any grammatical issues I didn't catch - it is early and I am tired**

So, I want to emphasize that I have never claimed that my family is what most would consider normal and I certainly have never claimed to be anywhere near normal myself, in fact, I would venture to say that I have always been proud that all of my family members are pretty much the exact opposite of normal in our own way! The events that occurred last night only further prove and solidify this belief. Furthermore, I think my family has officially succeeded in mastering how to convince our friends that our insanity is cool and that they should come along for the ride.

Most families and friends get all decked out in matching team shirts... pile into their cars on a weeknight...to drive an hour plus away to cheer on their loved in a "big" game, like football or basketball or to go ease the nerves of their first time on stage for a dance recital. Well...I guess this was technically a competition, which is like a game....and it was a pretty big event...and it was my brothers first time preforming on stage... and it was in front of his entire family and all of his friends. I guess technically this is like the "big" game and a dance recital all in one, aren't we a lucky?

You are probably all wondering and asking out loud at this point..."Where the hell were these freaks?"


Wait for it....Wait for it...


The 3rd Annual 98.5 Sports Radio WING BOWL...as in chicken wings people...specifically chicken wing eating competition. That's right Big Steve came to town to completely devour (literally) his competition and make all of us so proud by eating messy chicken wings!

Surprisingly, there were a lot of competitors that had won semi-final events to qualify for this big finale. Now these were not men (yes, they were all men - surprise - surprise) that I would necessarily want to be eating chicken wings in chair..table...room..or even a building near me. They were fierce, scary, crazy looking, really, really big dudes! No thank you!..........But to my big bro they were peons who didn't deserve to be called men, never mind having any business in this competition.

Steve gets in the "zone."

The contestants are escorted to their seats...by a stripper of course...of course. They have 10 minutes to eat as many chicken wings as possible.

Let the competition begin!

All of big Steve's 30+ person cavalry rush to the floor sporting their "Chicken Mafia" shirts (yes, he created a team name and shirts for himself - come on people - go big! or go home!) and we start chanting Ru -sci - o!....Ru -sci-o! over and over and over. Steve's sister-in-law, Tricia, and I am snapping pictures like crazy. I look next to me and some retired Patriots player has joined our group and is now chanting with us! And THEN... I see the unthinkable....

BIG STEVE HITS A WALL! (see picture)

I thought the competition was now going to go from gross and messy to disgusting and dirty nad that the Steve would be disqualified - this would be UNACCEPTABLE!

ENTER SISTER (that's me)....

PLEASE NOTE - this portion of the story is very important.
I push my big, fat, pregnant behind up to the stage, right in front of him...and I yell some not so nice verbiage along the lines of ..."you piece of $hi^! you $u(k! get your @ss in gear and hurry the F&*$% up!" etc. etc. etc. I hope my unborn babies little ears didn't hear what I was saying and if they did the understand the circumstances! I mean, everyone knows these are not words I would ever normally use but desperate times call for desperate measures!

The ten minutes are up, they look nasty with wing sauce all over the face and chicken bits hanging off their clothes. I almost vomited myself. yuk. (see picture)

So what happened............
Are you seriously asking me this...............
People. Come On!

....Big Steve is a Ruscio. Ruscio's thrive on competition. Ruscio's do not like to lose.

Of course he WON!

...and of course his equally as crazy friends must rush up on stage and cause a big scene! (see picture)
49 wings in 10 minutes the next closest guy was 5 wings behind - which isn't really close in the world of wing eating apparently.

The Pride and Joy of Our Family!

So why am I important in this story you wonder? In winning this contest Steve won $3000! Amazing right? For eating CHICKEN WINGS! I could not make this stuff up if I tried...now being the DEVOTED and LOYAL sister that I am, I obviously voted for him to win. Since he won they picked a name out of the people that voted for him to win a prize. I believe it must have been some sort of divine power that saw my desperate attempts to not only help him win with my unbelievable words of wisdom (see section above) but to also catch all the suspenseful moments on camera that allowed my name to be picked from the box. That is right my friends, I show up to support my brother and I some how end up walking away clean, not about to vomit from eating to many chicken wings and with an extra $1000 then what I showed up with! Yee Haw!

The morals of the story:
Ultimately, your normal may not be my normal and that is really OK- to each his own - but my normal is clearly better, and obviously way more fun, not to mention much more financially rewarding!

You can all go about your days cursing me and being jealous now....