Thing 253 The Sour Sweet Challenge

Ye Olde Sweetshop opened in Limerick in the run up to Christmas. It's like being in a dream that you had when you were a kid. If all the best movie directors in the world got together (not you George Lucas, you ruined Star Wars with that dreadful Jar Jar Bigs nonsense. And what was your game casting that Haydensen as Anakin Skywalker?) and they decided to invent a sweet shop for a kids movie this is how it would look.

So I had to go in there.... multiple times, over the course of a week, to see what the fuss was all about. While I was in there, the nice man behind the counter suggested that I should try the sour sweets... "the sourest in the world he said". Bah I said, taking off a leather gauntlet and slapping him in the face. I love sour sweets, there's not a sour sweet in the world you can give to me that will make me blanch. You're forgetting, that when I was in secondary school I made a Starburst (Opal Fruits) ball with the sour versions from two packets and ate it like an apple. There's no sour sweet to defeat me...

I cried for five minutes. My tongue swelled up. I actually thought the inside of my mouth was getting blisters. Five people in the shop all around me, who'd been similarly duped only minutes beforehand fell about the place laughing. I bought a bag of them, and decided I was going to make all my friends suffer just as I had... because, you know, I'm that kind of dick head.

Before I could leave though, the guy behind the counter challenges me... "That Project of yours... I dare you to see how many of these you can put in your mouth at the same time..." Challenge extended. It's at this point that my impulse control and better judgement abandoned me and even though I'd actually been crying, that's not an exaggeration or a lie, I was actually crying from one of these sweets, I accepted the challenge...

The top photo is me taking the first sweet...
That's the second. Token Northy can see me struggling and starts hurling a world of abuse at me. The Frenchman laughs one of those evil French laughs like you've seen on The Simpsons. Tears have formed again. My mouth stings.
That's the third one gone in. The corner of my jaws stings like fuck. It hurts, and my stomach is growling and snarling at me. I'm now weeping openly with the hollow echoes of The Frenchman's laughter bouncing around my ears. Token Northy continues his steady stream of abuse...
That's me getting sick. I wonder how many times I've almost got sick, or actually gotten sick since the start of this Project. It's not a small number anyway. That's for sure. The Frenchman is the cameraman. Imagine someone laughing that close in your ear while you empty retch into the kitchen sink.

Wow. I'm classy. How am I not single again?

Well... that photo pretty much says it all. I managed to get three in there at one time. Then I was sick. I went back and tried again, and I managed two. Then I got sick again. I remained queasy all night long.

Anyone who thinks this is a tame and ridiculous effort need only drop me an email, or a comment on the facebook page for The Project. I'll send you some of these bad boys. Let's see who's laughing then...