For doing this, I promised him a small amount of money and a blog, which I am now writing.
One of my favorite TV shows is Impractical Jokers, where four buddies make each other perform embarrassing tasks in public. Whoever does the poorest job of completing these tasks is further humiliated in the form of a punishment conceived of by the other three. It's like National Geographic for immature people.
Brant also likes the show, and we were talking about it when a complete stranger at the table right behind us received his steak dinner. I challenged Brant to take a bite of the guy's steak, and he had to complete all of the tasks listed above. For starters, I thought there was no way he would actually do this, but even if he did I tried to put enough contingencies in there so that he would surely get busted, which is what I really wanted to see happen.
The food tray with the steak was placed right in between he and Brant as they sat back to back at the adjacent poker tables. The steak orderer was around 30 years old and wasn't making too much noise at his table. He seemed pretty focused on his card game. But he was also pretty hungry, because for the first 10 minutes the steak was there he was going at it pretty consistently. He'd turn back to the card game just long enough to fold his hand, then get back to eating. Brant would lean his chair back as if to stretch his arms but would never have enough time to go for it.
Because Brant was turning around and staring at this complete stranger's food tray every 15 seconds for half an hour, other people at the steak eater's table started to notice that something strange was going on. Three players in that game were giving Brant consistent suspicious looks every time he turned around, although the actual steak eater seemed oblivious and I don't think anyone ever alerted him to the danger his dinner was in.
Because he wasn't man enough to complete the task in time, I cancelled the bet when it appeared the dinner was finished and made several comments about how Brant wasn't man enough to complete the task in time.
Then the unthinkable happened. Actually two unthinkables. First, the dude went back and took another bite of steak. This proved that he might not be quite finished and opened the door for Brant to win the bet if he hurried. But there was only one or two bites left on the steak.
I still didn't think he could do it since he attracted quite a bit of attention during his first 49 sissified attempts at it. But somehow the eyes of God looked down on Brant and immediately provided a poker hand in which the whole table was involved. Brant leaned over and completed the entire task without ever being noticed, and the guy never turned back around to eat his last bite. It was really boring and annoying and I'm writing this blog under protest. It would have been much more awesome had he gotten busted; I might have felt like I got my money's worth that way. We thought about leaving the guy a $5 poker chip and a thank-you note which probably would have been appropriate.
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I also want to take this opportunity to tell you about a brand new nonprofit organization which I'm excited to be a small part of.
When I was in college I went with a group to the Philippines, where we worked with a Bible college on an education project and also did a little disaster relief in Manila. It was an awesome trip that I'll never forget and definitely gave me a lifelong love for the people there.
Missy took a humanitarian aid trip to Tanzania when she was in college, so she also has a heart to help those around the world who haven't been blessed with all the things we have in America.
Our friend Katie went to the Philippines on a disaster relief trip and while there she discovered the huge need for education among the poorest in that country. Education is the best way to solve the worldwide poverty problem, and Katie immediately went to work on the issue, coming up with creative ways to provide fun, supplemental educational tools as well as part-time jobs.
Now back in the U.S., Katie launched Extraordinary Extras, with the goal of returning to the Philippines to continue her work there while also starting after-school programs here in Oklahoma. Eventually we'd like to be worldwide force for fighting poverty through education with programs around the globe.
Of course, this requires money, and our first fundraising effort is a T-shirt campaign. We have a few cool colors to choose from and the shirts do a great job of stating our mission. The link to the T-shirts is here. (Note: Don't use autofill when filling out the address or billing information; for some reason it won't allow the order to be put through that way).
We'd love you to visit extraordinaryextras.org to learn more about the organization or perhaps make a tax-deductible donation. We also have a Facebook page. Let's work together to help fight poverty through fun eductaion!
