Hot dog contest champion explodes

(Mañana) A Maher man, Rufus Maxwell, 95, has exploded after eating 87 hot dogs in under 40 minutes during a Myopic County Fair contest. The feat represents 3 dogs shy of the existing record established in 2010.

The annual exposition had not seen anything like this before, unless one counts the high-wire, two-headed chicken act from Uravan that brought down the house in 1952. Then, of course, there were the full-contact digital quilting clashes on the cliffs high above Horsefly Canyon just last year.

None offered the drama and terminal depth of Maxwell’s sudden demise.

It all began quite innocently. A hot dog eating contest – what could be more tranquil, more American? Then, while firmly in the lead, contestant Maxwell, a Wimpton undertaker, gobbled down his 87th tube steak he puffed up, blasted off and dropped dead right in front of grandma and the kiddies who had come to watch the festivities.

“He didn’t choke or nothing. We think he just filled up and detonated,” said Arlo Kasket, Assistant Coroner from over in Pinkyville. “Rufus never weighed more than 135 pounds even after winning the pie eating bout in 2017.”

Others finishing the ingestion match were Julianne Pettifogger, the first woman to swim from Utah to California; Cuerdo Gordo, a decorated bait trimmer from LaSal Junction and the timeless “Patron” Manual Flushe, who raises thoroughbred vienna sausages on his palm-laden manor near Colona.

Judges will conduct a secret lottery to determine who would be declared winner on the night before Maxwell’s funeral.

Onlookers agreed that the enduring struggle with hot dogs was reminiscent of Paul Newman’s predicament in Cool Hand Luke (arguably the best film ever made),

where the hero bragged that he “could eat 80 eggs”.

The upcoming Mañana County Fair, slated for Labor Day Weekend, will feature an alternative vegetarian hot dog eating contest and solar barrel races in honor of the deceased.

Myopic County officials were virtually impossible to reach after the incident. Local scuttlebutt strongly suggests they are attempting to minimize collateral damage to the seasonal carnival which brings in over 4.5 billion dollars to the local economy each August.

Did you know…?

For centuries a term of endearment, Toots (or Tuts, even Tutz in the old Sicilian) was blacklisted as “politically incorrect and offensive” in 2018 for alleged sexist innuendo.

Despite the rejection, the term is still in use in poly-ethnic/geographical pockets, most notably from New York to Boston and in noted Gumba enclaves of Greater Los Angeles.

Next Month: Whadayanuts? – is this word really only two syllables?