This past Saturday was the 6th Annual Dodecathelon, the 12 event competition created by my husband to be held on his birthday every year. This is the 4th one that I have attended. The last two years, I have come in 3rd place. There was a little strategy involved but I mostly attribute my placement victory to little more than being there all day and not getting too drunk to move. I have never expected to win because my mister’s male friends are generally very competitive and a couple of them have long coveted the Dodeca trophy. (Yes, there really is a trophy).
The events of the Dodeca this year were:
Lawn “Sports”
Drinking Games
Indoor Kid Games
This year I wasn’t even going to try. There were too many men gunning for the title. All I wanted was to win one of the cook off categories. Either sweet or savory. Or both! The middle portion of the competition involves drinking games and I was still quite hung over from the night before (celebrating my last day of work at Project: Titanic) so I knew that I would definitely not be involved in the drinking game section. Placing, let alone winning, seemed an impossible task. I was just going to enjoy the party, keep the house standing and make sure my mister was having a good time.
I really wanted to win the cook off though. I worked my ass off making everything from scratch. My savory entry was a bacon apple pizza (half veggie bacon). I’d never made pizza dough from scratch before but it turned out really good. It was nice and thick which is how I like it. It took forever though so I probably won’t be doing it again anytime soon.
My sweet entry was chocolate peanut butter cupcakes which I decided to call “death bombs” on account of how completely awful they are for you. (Recipe courtesy Waste of Tape). They were quite painstaking on account of the fact that I not only frosted AND glazed each cupcake, but also filled each one with peanut butter cream. I got loads of compliments on them though and, seeing as how the only other sweet entry was “Rummy Bears” (a jar of rum and gummy bears”, and my husband WASN’T the judge (he gets conscientious about seeming “fair” when voting for his wife), I thought I had it in the bag.
I also whipped up a giant vat my Blue Ribbon Chili (so named for having won the savory competition 2 years back) and put out Frito Pie fixins so that the masses would have plenty of carbs with which to line their stomachs throughout the day.
HOLY COOK OFF UPSET!! Apparently the judges thought my Frito Pie was my savory entry and they awarded me first place. I corrected them but they decided they would give me the prize anyway. Well, I’ll gladly take the points but I feel bad for winning with essentially a repeat dish. As for the sweet competition, I LOST TO THE EFFING RUMMY BEARS. Now if there had been ANYTHING else up against my cupcakes, I would have been OK with this. Hell, I’d almost have even accepted a loss to store bought cupcakes. But opening a bag of candy and dumping it into a jar of booze IS NOT COOKING. I think in this case it would have been OK for them to award me with both titles. Seriously.
Moving on…I did not compete in croquet, horseshoes or egg toss. I played bocceball but did not place. I didn’t play any of the drinking games EXCEPT keg stand, but only because there were only 2 other women signed up and I was guaranteed third place. My 7 seconds of beer chugging was my only alcohol consumption that day.
Another surprise: I somehow found myself in the final 2 in Texas Hold Em. I have been extremely unlucky in cards as of late (lucky in love…) so I did not expect this. However, in the end I was head-to-head with the birthday boy. I let him have it.
Dance Dance Revolution! This is how I get the majority of my cardio. Needless to say, I’m pretty good. But so is my friend Emily and Sherwood’s lady. She beat me but the three of us took the top scores. This is where I began to notice the shift. Usually, the birthday boy is way ahead at this point. But this year he’d decided he would let someone else win. So he got REALLY REALLY hammered. I hadn’t seen him this drunk in a long time if EVER. He was making some pretty strange requests of the party guests and at one point I had to ask him to please stop jumping over the fire pit, lest he trip and be burned to death. But non of the other uber-competitive men folk were ahead in the points either. In fact, the two leaders were Emily and me! What? How did this happen?
Twister was next. I am usually out quite early on. Not because I am inflexible, but because these people are dirty cheaters. I actually have photographic evidence from years past of one contestant with their hand on another, mid-shove. Dirty. However, Emily’s generous badonkadonk was able to withstand the shoving and she won Twister.
The final event was Jenga. There are a few of us who are really quite good at this game. I am one of them. Last year it came down to me, the birthday boy, and Johnny Pulltabs. Pulltabs won on a technicality. There were no other pullable pieces. Well, this time we had been playing for seemingly hours. It was 2:30am. We just wanted to be done. If he won, there would be a 4-way tie. If I won, I won the whole shebang. And I got him.
I won the Dodecathelon. Emily came in second place. Former Dodeca champion Darsh came in third. The ladies dominated. It was an historic day and I’m pleased to be the first female Dodecathelon champion. Bring on the endorsements.
See the rest of the Dodeca pics here. Also, happy birthday to my baby.
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