Ethan ClewellAttempting to conquer White Castle’s 30 sliders and 30 Natty Lights deal.
What if I told you he had too small of a stomach. That 15 burgers and 15 beers were just too much for one man to handle. And that the heartburn and indigestion that would follow the next day would be nearly unbearable.
And what if I told you that you were correct?
On Oct. 18, 2018 my roommate and I attempted the White Castle 30 sliders and 30 Natural Lights for glory. And I simultaneously loved and hated every moment of it.
I am a Brazenhead burger and cider guy, not a Natty Light and slider guy. So I feared the day of the beautifully crafted grease grenades, the White Castle slider. Everything I’ve heard about them has steered me clear of those white brick walls, until a Facebook post peaked my interest.
I kept my lunch light on the day of the challenge so I could save room for all those burgers and beers. Needless to say, when 8 p.m. rolled around and it was time to indulge, I was hangry as hell.
The first three sliders went down very quickly. I mean they are sliders after all. Usually all it took was four or five bites to put one down, and maybe a few slugs off a Natty Light to wash it all back. Between the cheap meat, the cheap beer, and my little off-campus house, I was feeling like a freshman at a house party all over again—and I’m just here to party.
It was around the fifth slider that I started to slow down—the bread was so damn filling and the beers weren’t helping either. Every bite now became more and more of a task. I knew I was in trouble. My roommate was at the same point. He decided to go with another alternative route and had a few puffs of some performance-enhancing drugs (don’t tell his mom, please). He did what anyone who has done this, and just sat around and ate more burgers. This is also when my roommate decided he wasn’t going to drink anymore beer. It’s weird how performance enhancing drugs can make you forget why you are taking them in the first place. Oh, and he had class the next day. Moral of this story: don’t do drugs, kids, they might make you responsible.
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Natty Lights three and four started to get me tipsy, which you’d think that it would help trick me into being more hungry, but five sliders and four beers were extremely filling. The longer I went on, the more I realized that the burgers were the easy part, it’s the 12-ounce cans of water beer that were really holding me back.
I had take a breather. I watched some How I Met Your Mother. I don’t know, man. I just needed to look at something other than two boxes full of the things making me feel sick. A few moments passed and the sliders were getting cold. I had to make a decision for efficiency so I started alternating between slider and beer. I also started pouring two beers into a glass to make things easier. It didn’t.
The seventh slider did not slide down easily, and somewhere on beers five and six, I was starting to get drunk. My speech slurred, things were slightly funnier, and for a brief three-minute window I was having a good time. Maybe I should do this all the time?
Or maybe not. I took another sip of my two beers, one glass deal. Yup. I was still too full and the fear of spending the rest of the night bent over a toilet became a real worry on my mind.
Then after sliders eight and nine I was full to a level that I never have been before. I was officially “dad after his third helping of Thanksgiving dinner” mode. I had to put on sweatpants because my jeans were too tight.
It was beers eight and nine where my belly officially had enough. With the first drink I knew that I couldn’t do another, however, my stomach had made that decision about 15 minutes before me. Within the next two minutes I literally tasted defeat. Beer, onions, and grade E beef was rushing out of my throat, and bursting through my nostrils.
The worst part was actually after throwing up. It felt like I had strep throat, and I was sneezing out tiny chunks of beef. I was done. My career in amateur eating was over.
The next day just sucked overall, I was slightly hungover, but even worse my body just hated me for putting it through a toxic relationship. Every burp I had came with a distinct White Castle taste of onions, and each time it made me want to vomit all over again.
My roommate went on to eat five more sliders, and he would go on to feeling them rush out the other end. Overall we combined for 19 sliders and 10 beers.
You might be quick to chalk this up as a loss. That my roommate and myself were defeated by the great White Castle and it’s army of Natty Lights.
And again, you’d be right.
Feature photo by our very own slider slinger, Ethan Clewell.
