September 2006 Trail Head

I often make bets that I plan on losing. I don't mind losing as long as the outcome is what I had expected or was at least entertaining. I've paid to see people drink ladles of Ranch dressing and wallow in mud holes. On the other hand, I've been paid to lick bugs off a Jeep grille. Ultimately, I'll trade or take money to provide entertainment for someone, even if it is only me.

Anyway, last year at Moab Easter Jeep Safari, I bet 4Wheel & Off-Road staffer Jerrod Jones that he couldn't drink a pitcher of beer in under two minutes without hurling. He came close to making it. To his credit, Jerrod at least tried to keep it in with two fingers covering his lips, but unlike in the cartoons, this produced a sprinkler effect that pretty much cleared our table and led to Jerrod refilling his pitcher with beer ... and his dinner. Even though I won, I still paid up because, quite honestly, it was way more entertaining to see him barf than it would have been to see him successfully drink the beer. Well, that and the fact that it would be sort of anticlimactic and sick-minded for me to simply pay him $80 to barf in the middle of a bar on purpose.

Jerrod was too smart for me at Moab this year. I couldn't get him to take the pitcher-drinking bet. So I found someone else. And as usual, others pitched in money to watch a train wreck at our table. Randy Kruse from Katemcy Rocks in Mason, Texas, straddled the pitcher and almost took it to the bank. He didn't finish in two minutes, but he didn't barf either. But I wasn't done yet.

I had been eyeballing the condiments on the table by the end of the night. I tried to lure a few people into a bet when Jerrod's buddy Chris whipped out a crisp $100 bill and said I couldn't drink a pint of mustard in less than three minutes. I bit. I like mustard, but I bartered my way up to five minutes anyway, mostly because I had no idea if I'd gag or even if it would kill me. I emptied the brand-new bottle of mustard into a beer glass and went to work as the timer started. You'd think a mouthful of mustard would be hard to swallow, but it went down real easy, so I picked up the pace and chugged it. Just to be an ass, I gave the glass a victory lick when I was done and slammed down my empty pint at 18 seconds. I collected my cash from Chris and now will forever be remembered as the guy who drank mustard in Moab. I suppose there are worse things to be remembered for, but maybe anything is better than not being remembered at all. - John Cappa