Crickets taste like salted pretzels

Mr. Sunrise and I went to a Survivor/Amazing Race/Fear Factor themed party last night. We drew numbers to form two teams. The two tribes had to solve a riddle and also find various colored items outside the house to "decorate their hut." We picked an orange flower, one guy had a blue sleeping bag in his trunk, and so on. Mr. Sunrise and I were on separate teams. My team won which eliminated the other team from the "game."

My team drew another set of numbers to find your partner for the rest of the game. The next challenge was a "Detour" from the Amazing Race. You could choose between two tasks. The first one was to walk to the nearest Dillons which was 0.9 miles away and buy so many items beginning with a certain letter and they had to be under $5 and edible. I don't remember the details to that one because my teammate and I chose the other task. The other task was arranging tangrams to make the letter"T." We thought that was a no brainer. We would stay at the house and try to put 4 pieces of tangrams together. It was so much harder than we thought. Three teams of 2 tried the tangrams and the other three teams of 2 ran to Dillons. Embarrassing to say that the first team done was the one who ran to Dillons. Only 3 teams advanced and my teammate figured the tangram out just in time to make 3rd place.

The next challenge was a "Road Block." Only one person was allowed to complete the task. My partner was a guy and he thought he could run faster than me and would be able to plow over people if needed. I agreed and let him do it. There were three buckets of sand with twenty or more keys in them. They had to dig for a key and run down the stairs into the bedroom where there were three locks. Only one key in the bucket fit the corresponding lock. All three of the people ran up and down the stairs many times. One girl found her key before my teammate and they got to get their next clue. My teammate was second and then we got our clue. We had to go to a computer and find the answers to questions. I knew the first answer to the question, "Where was the 2nd season of Survivor taped?" Austrailia. Since the host of the party only had two computers, the 3rd team did not get the help of a computer. The time limit was up and we turned in our answers. My partner and I had the exact same number of answers correct as the first team. So they decided to vote on what team would move on to the finals. I knew we wouldn't get the votes because the other team was "cooler." However, the hosts didn't agree with an answer the other team had put down and they voted for us. It was a 5 to 4 vote and my partner and I would move on to the next round.

I sat across the table from the guy that had been my partner. The hosts placed one bowl each in front of us that was covered. I knew it was going to be a food challenge because we saw them open up two cans that looked like tuna. When they uncovered the bowl, I saw dead crickets. There is no way that I can do this I thought. I was getting pep talks from people saying that I could do it, though. All it is is mind over matter. I wanted to win, so I decided to give it all that I had. The host yelled, "Go!" and I was cramming hand fulls of crickets in my mouth. I did not look down at what I was actually eating. I focused on Mr. Sunrise's face and kept going. The problem was that I couldn't swallow fast enough. The taste was staying in my mouth and I started to gag. I needed something to drink. The other guy was going a lot faster than I was. I looked down at his bowl and it was almost empty. I kept gagging and finally gave up and threw it up in the pan that they had placed beside me. I told him that he had it. He licked the bowl in the end just to gross us out. My teammate had won the $20 gift certificate. I had people telling me that they had a lot of respect for me for doing that. I am proud that I gave it my best shot. And this is also an awesome story that I have to tell people! By the way, dead crickets taste like salted pretzels. I hate pretzels!