“Oh my gosh, they’re having a marshmallow eating competition!”
A passel of young girls came running over to where their parents were sitting, at a table overlooking a joyful, teeming neighborhood pool. The girls were almost beside themselves.
“One boy just quit after five!”
“That girl in the middle is up to seven!”
“They have to say ‘chubby bunny’ after each marshmallow,” one of the girls explained.
“And they’re not allowed to eat them!”
All the parents turned to watch the spectacle, which was taking place a short distance away on a set of steps. There stood three teenagers, their cheeks bulging, surrounded by hordes of younger children in bathing suits who were chanting and cheering and generally seething about. A couple of the younger children were doling out marshmallows one by one. Another child stood by with an empty garbage bag.
“Chubby bunny,” said the tallest teen, having carefully folded another white cylinder into one distended cheek.
“Hooray!”
“Chubuh bunnuh!” managed one of the girls. She raised her hands, with three fingers folded down.
“Seven marshmallows!” shrieked the little children.
“Revolting,” said the one of the watching fathers. He waved his hand and turned away, as if to stop the gluttonous, glutinous horror playing out on the steps. Everyone else was diverted, though, and kept watching.
“Nine!”
Suddenly, whoops of joy and disgust went up from the crowd. The taller of the girls bent over and disgorged the snowy pulp in her mouth into the garbage bag. Another one was down.
With that competitor gone, the remaining contestants became even more poised and concentrated. They held their bodies absolutely still and carefully inserted one marshmallow after another.
A strangled cry came from the boy: “Chthbhu bhnnthu!”
The circle of spectators roared.
“Sixteen! That’s sixteen!” If the younger children had been excited before, now they were practically levitating. A photographer moved through the crowd, laughing and taking shots. Cell phone cameras whizzed and beeped.
“Seventeen!”
A sudden gesture from the boy brought a child running with the bag. He raised it to his face discreetly.
Coming up for air, he grinned. “That’s just disgusting.”
The remaining competitor — now the champion — would not be daunted. The crowd began chanting her name. “Twenty-one!”
“Chgghghsbhghggh,” said the girl.
Marshmallow goo foamed at her mouth, as though she were rabid. Everyone was laughing and groaning.
“Twenty-two!”
“Chggh,” said the girl.
“Twenty-three!”
Suddenly the girl turned red, gestured for the bag — and the contest was over. The place erupted. It was pandemonium. Gluttony in service of appetite is seldom appealing. As a means of entertaining a huge crowd of young swimmers, though, I’ve seldom seen anything as successful.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
