A Million Minutes in Africa

Dan forgot about the event that finished off the evening. After the teasing and taunting of the bulls, a new game began. The MC requested audience volunteers to enter the ring. Four young men climbed the fence and presented themselves. Dan got excited, thinking, “Surely this will be interesting!” The MC placed a can of beer on the ground in front of each contestant. Uh oh, that doesn’t seem right. (The whole time, the MC is shouting something in Spanish at the top of his lungs, despite the fact that he is holding a microphone. Eddie Rabbit and Juice Newton alternate in the background.) The first contestant braces himself before kneeling down before the beer. Ready, go! He chugs the beer, runs at top speed across the ring, and another guy spins him around ten times really fast. Then the contestant stumbles as he tries to race back to his starting point. He’s dizzy and wavers a lot. The crowd roars with laughter.

Contestants 2 and 3 are even dizzier. Ha ha ha. Contestant 4 gets extra laughs and cheers, because, ha ha, he’s a GRINGO! Ha ha, isn’t that funny? The crowd starts chanting, “Tom-my, Tom-my!”

There’s a run-off for the 2 finalists, one of whom is of course, Tommy. More drinking, more running, more spinning. Ha ha. Strikes me as a Guatemalan frat party, without the half-naked girls. (If you haven’t guessed, I wasn’t a big frat-party goer in college.)

Guess who won the contest. The honor of gringos everywhere has been upheld. Yay, Tommy.

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