My cherry was popped. It’s fitting that my first Wing Bowl experience was at that of the “Virgin Wing Bowl.” This year, all of the contestants were virgins to the competition.

I didn’t go to sleep Thursday night because I knew I wouldn’t be able to wake up by 4:00 AM to get there in time. So I stayed awake and watched some soft-core porn on HBO. It brought me back to those late night sleepovers in 7th and 8th grade where we would, at best, get to watch the fuzzies. “Aww shit! Was that a boob?” Nope. It was a penis. Funny how they look alike on scrambled channels.

So, I fill up Sara’s flask with Jack, and then I leave the house at 4:00 to meet up with my friends Josh and Laura. Their lazy asses are asleep. I try gently waking them by sending a text message, and then calling them… and then ringing the door bell. Laura’s cat, Ish, knew I was there, alright. He was up against the window in the door. I shout to him, using the ever popular Mike Pearson trick of shouting into the mail slot, “Wake them up, Ish!” Whaddyaknow? It worked.

By the time the sleep was washed from their eyes, I am almost done one flask of whiskey. Laura fills me up again. We get Dunkin Donuts coffee (I pass and stick with Jack) and breakfast sandwiches. They Irish up their coffees, and we arrive at the Wachovia Center by 4:45.

We get inside. Almost immediately, girls start flashing. These aren’t the girl-next-door type, these are the strippers-down-the-block type. Big fake titties – hidden only by the tiniest of tube-tops displaying the name of the strip club they worked for. The cameramen worked the room, showing the girls before their silicon deposit debut… and then cutting to some drunk, skank, ugly fat guy — thus avoiding showing any boobage on the JUMBOtron. Whatacrockofshit! Like the true Philly fans we are, we booed.

Luckily, girls right near us got into the spirit and took their shirts off COMPLETELY… not just a flash. I think these girls made up games to keep things interesting. The lineup of 4 girls in a row, doing a wave of flashing was delightful.

I didn’t really pay attention to “the entrance” of all of the eaters, mostly because my eyes were darting through the 20,000 strong audience looking for more breasts. Plus, there were beautiful, bikini-clad girls on the stage — and we were sitting DIRECTLY behind the stage – ass shots all around! One was especially gorgeous and kept waving and blowing kisses until Laura forced Josh to ask her to flash us. She didn’t flirt the rest of the time. Bitch.

Then work called me. I go and help them over the phone. Everything was fine, and I only missed 15 minutes of action.

Done the most of flask two. Finally, it started. Not much interest here, besides a 62 year old man that had the eating tactic similar to that of a toothless man giving head. Wing goes it. Wing rotated. Wing slides out. Sauce all over his face. He was clearly the crowd favorite. Eventually, two contestants puked – one on himself, the other in a trashcan. Nasty.

Several minutes into round two, work calls again. I’m on the phone with them for over 30 minutes. Everything went down.

So, with 2 whiskey flasks in me, I got myself to work wearing grungy jeans, a dirty t-shirt, and a Briflow skull cap — looking as shaggy as ever. I stunk of whiskey. Yet amazingly I really wasn’t drunk. I passed that threshold of being way too tired to be drunk. Like on New Year’s Eve with Mas, Carl, and Mike Pearson.

I was pretty pissed. I had planned to be off the whole day, and drink non-stop until that night. I got into work and fixed what had to be fixed. And then I fucked around for 2 hours, in a mindless daze.

The moral of this story – the first time is usually painful.