Having eaten more insects than thirty other contestants, Archbold’s first-place prize was a live python. However, soon after winning, he began vomiting. The Broward County Sheriff’s Office reports that Archbold collapsed outside the event venue and was soon pronounced dead at a local hospital. Legal representatives of the store have told the press that roaches are sold as reptile feed, are raised in sterile containers from hatching onward, and are safe for human consumption. As well, all bug-eating contestants had signed waivers that acknowledged they understood the risk of illness and injury associated with eating massive amounts of live insects.
Lydia Wellstrom, Director of Parasitology at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University, says that eating cockroaches is not harmful to one’s health per se, but that insects do contain many allergens. “Even so, anaphylactic shock was probably not the cause here. Outside the industrialized West, insects are a dietary staple, cherished both as a staple for daily meals and as highly anticipated snacks.”
A Ben Siegel Reptiles store rep said the prize python, worth $850, will go to Archbold’s heirs.
44
Given the fuss involved in getting to this wretched island from London, I’d largely forgotten that there was a TV show we all had to yank out of our collective arse. After driving in a wheezing golf cart through a forest of Venus flytraps, we arrived at a barren patch of land on which rested a dozen picnic tables painted in bright clownish colours. Seated at them were twenty people who all looked, to Fi’s credit, highly fuckable. “My hat goes off to you, Fiona. This is a truly … enjoyable cast you’ve assembled. At the last moment, no less. Bravo.”
At that instant, a brunette with a single rubber band around her breasts and another one bisecting her crotch area vomited onto the white dust behind her. A pigeon-like flock of Pringle-sized winged insects descended on the puddle, while Scott, Sarah’s production assistant, shouted through a bullhorn, “Shovel! Shovel! Shovel of dirt to table seven! Quickly. The bug wagon just arrived!”
An acne-faced pleb ran to shovel grit over the puke.
Fiona, Eli, Tony and I found a vantage point on some small shaded bleachers outside of a predetermined series of established camera angles. While a PA handed us lemonades, I asked Tony and Eli when their shift started.
“We’re on sunset-to-dawn beginning tomorrow. Join us? I can put your name on the roster.”
“Please do.”
“Oh look!” said Tony, pointing to a jumbo plastic Diet Pepsi bottle full of millipedes being emptied into tiki-style bowls. “The games are about to begin!”
Sigh.
Sometimes life is good.
Entomophagy is the consumption of insects as food by humans. Human insect eating is common in cultures in many parts of the world; over one thousand insects are known to be eaten in eighty percent of the world’s nations. Insect eating is rare in the developed world.
A bowl full of millipedes, as long as they’re not actually writhing, is a not untasty-looking sight, something like a cross between Kellogg’s Coco Pops cereal and a spicy Indonesian bami goreng. In my enthusiasm, I called out, “Garnish them with a sprig of parsley!” and was roundly admonished to shush up: nobody wanted to hear my voice on tape. I blushed for my lapse in professional standards. I mean I really blushed: what the hell was I thinking, breaking the fourth wall? Christ. My mother’s voice from early childhood sprang to mind: For fuck sake, Raymond, doing random shit like you do is why you’re never going to be allowed to have fancy things in your life. Now nip down to the chip shop and swipe me some fags. If Mr. Bradbury catches you, just blow him. He’s not picky. Just make sure I get my Rothmans at the end of it. Don’t stand there like your arse is full of bowling balls, boy. Move it!
Ahhh … precious childhood memories.
You’d think I could just sit there for a few hours and watch some wildly attractive semi-naked people eat millipedes, but no—and why? Because from behind the bleachers, in a wail no sound technician on earth could ever scrub from a sound track, I heard my mother heading my way.
“Raymond? Is that you in them seats? Move over, because I’m coming up.” She clumped her way up the rows to settle beside me, Fiona, Eli and Tony.
“Hello, Fiona dear. Hello, boys. You two are Yanks? Good on you. We put out for you something special back in World War II, we did. Shove over, Raymond.”
“So, how was your gourmet meal, as prepared by Tabs and Elspeth?” I inquired.
“Gourmet food means nothing to me at this point, Raymond. I’ve got me a dead colon. May as well ask me to digest a concrete lawn ornament.”