MATT: In the abstract, the idea of eating 26 McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets in four minutes seems doable. Especially after watching News Editor Cody White make eating 26 McNuggets in just over eight minutes look like a leisurely Sunday dinner last fall.

In theory, 26 Chicken McNuggets in four minutes comes down to approximately one nugget every nine seconds. To a person who eats 10 McNuggets and a large fry in about 10 minutes without even trying, this seems like an easy task.

Inside McDonald’s, when they are frying up the special order of 50 McNuggets just for this specific eating contest, the aromas signaled to my brain that eating 26 McNuggets in four minutes was more than achievable.

It was when Collegian Web Editor Glenn Battishill and I sat down in the Collegian office and started counting out those Chicken McNuggets that 26 went from the abstract to the real, from “doable” to “this will be harder than I thought.”

Glenn, of course, had no trouble eating 26 McNuggets in just over six minutes. Halfway through our Secret Menu competition, which was a spin-off from the competition between Cody and Sports Editor Nick Zavarella last semester, Glenn let on that he had been in a competitive eating competition before. This clearly compromises his amateur status and quite possibly disqualifies his win.

That being said, I would never have made it to 25 nuggets, let alone that magical 26th. This is why: Somewhere between Chicken McNugget 16 and Chicken McNugget 18, the chicken stopped tasting like chicken (was it ever really chicken?).

Even slathered in sweet and sour sauce, McNugget 17 tasted a little bit like grease tinged with salt and vomit. That’s probably too much information.

In the end, I ate 20 nuggets in about seven minutes. In the abstract, that’s a lot of McNuggets. In reality, it wasn’t enough to beat Glenn.

GLENN: Ever since I was old enough to love Star Wars, I’ve loved Chicken McNuggets and have ordered nothing else at McDonalds for the past 15 years.

Naturally I got excited when I saw Nick and Cody have a contest to see who could eat 26 nuggets faster. Sadly, the event was one-sided and Cody waddled away victorious, vowing to never touch Chicken McNuggets again.

Chicken McNugget eating, just like all other full contact spectator sports, has plenty of trash talk among viewers.

Matt Tullis, Collegian advisor, boastfully exclaimed that night that he could eat 25 nuggets in four minutes, while I realistically estimated that I could do it in six.

Then the challenge was issued, Matt vs. Glenn in a one-on-one nugget race.

As per my usual nugget eating habits, around a dozen ketchup packets had their guts spilled onto the table to enhance the nuggets Tuesday night.

Cameron Estep announced the start of the race.

The match was over before it began.

Adopting an akimbo nugget stance, I placed one nugget in each hand and began to dip, insert nugget, chew while dipping with the other hand, and repeating only occasionally to drink my Coke.

Matt began to shovel in the nuggets while I went with a ‘slow and steady wins the race’ mentality. At first Matt was winning while I kept a steady pace. When he hit the tenth nugget, he visibly slowed down and lost his edge.

From that point on Matt looked at me in horror as I steadily devoured my nuggets. Posing for a photo, I narrowly missed my six-minute goal by a few seconds, yet still triumphant, finished my 26 nuggets.

Adding insult to injury, and to teach Matt a lesson about pride and bragging, I casually scooped up a 27th nugget and lovingly devoured it.

Even as I write these words Matt is whining about a sore stomach as I sit on a well-trained stomach preparing for a long night of Battlestar Galactica Online.