It went down every few months or so. There was never any warning... except that it could happen at any time.
All it took was a gathering - a restless mob brought together by the arrival of bags from the grocers, the disappearance of anything mildly amusing on television, or as the most logical response to the endlessly gray, listless, Midwestern days. All it required were two essentials: a box of saltine crackers pulled from the aforementioned grocery bags and the disappearance of the herd boss to the back forty. The challenge came forth, hushed but fierce, with the flash of a sneer, a glint in the eye, a furtive glance to the cupboard, the challenger, then the cupboard once more. The seasoned contestants: Jim (spurred into battle by a thirst for victory and an appetite for salt) and myself (the middle, misunderstood child), roused to competition by the absence of anything even slightly better to do.
With the doors leading out of the kitchen quietly closed, siblings crowded around the kitchen island, anxious for some mastication action. The challengers sat facing each other across the well-worn, linoleum countertop the color of vanilla ice cream. With the large, rectangular box of Premium Saltines placed between them, brows would knit with steely determination, as eyes focused on the cracker skyscraper growing higher and higher before them.
“Water!” Jim would call to his ever-faithful minion, Mark.
“Wimp!” I would prod my already over-stimulated sibling, whose main goal in life was enacting some form of teen boy villainy on the unsuspecting and the innocent.
“Ready when you are,” he’d whisper through a half-chewed plastic straw dangling from the corner of his smirk.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I’d swallow, feeling the moisture completely evaporate from the tip of my tongue to my tonsils.
The objective: to finish the pile of crackers and be the first to whistle.
The rules: no water during the match and the whistle (as judged by spectators) must be crisp and clear.
At the call of “Go!” from a designated sibling, the briny bout would begin. Hands greedily grabbing cracker after cracker, shoving them into already crammed mouths. Crumb fragments flying across countertops and cupboards, striking innocent bystanders who instantly retreat to all corners of the red brick floor. Teeth gnashing, siblings laughing, opponents trying not to choke or chuckle.
The cardinal rule of the cracker eating contest: he who laughs least has the last laugh. Sadly, this was my Achille’s heel. For some unfathomable reason, watching my brother spew saltines brought me to trouble-breathing-can’t-swallow-verge-of-choking-hysterics, rendering me hopeless in the game, but happy as all get out.
Expelling a final barrage of crumbs, Jim would spit forth the first whistle, followed closely by a victory lap around the kitchen. Passing the defeated and the disgusted, arms raised victoriously, voice raised in fake crowd noises. Jim was his very own, ever-devoted, cheering section. A pain in the ass in victory, a danger in defeat.
I’m sure there was a time or two over the years when I spewed forth the earliest whistle, but the best moment was never in gaining the coveted prize of immunity from all post-competition clean-up (although that certainly was sweet), but in the unfettered indulgence of doing something utterly pointless and completely absurd.
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