Fear Factor: Sonny vs. Rachel

With birthdays on December 15 and 18, Sonny and Rachel’s special days often get lost in the hustle and bustle of the season.  When it comes to parties, they have often gotten the short end of the stick in the past.  This year we were determined to make it up to them by giving them an extravagant bash.  Since their birthdays are always lumped together into one party, we decided to have a Fear Factor styled party to determine the bravest birthday girl/boy.

The first round of competition was a test of both their puzzle working abilities and knowledge of China.  It was a closely fought battle as they raced to put together a puzzle map of China.  Rachel barely eeked out the victory and won the point.

At the beginning of round two, the pair got to pick an assistant (without knowing the challenge to come).  We then headed out to the hall for a three-legged race.  The Wu combo (who by all appearances are world champion three-legged racers) beat out the Sonny and Jude combo by a mile to bring the score to Rachel 2 – Sonny 0.

Sonny clawed his way back into the game in the next round, with a decisive victory over Rachel in the Wii knock-the-other-person-off-a-podium game.  He knocked Rach off in less then 10 seconds two times in a row, bringing the score to Rachel 2 – Sonny 1.

Sonny continued his comeback in Round four, by digging through a “poopy” diaper for a piece of gum and blowing a bubble the quickest.  Rach got a poopy face for no good reason as the score changed to two all.

Round five brought a word puzzle problem that pitted Sonny’s superb English/puzzle skillz against Rach’s math nerd skillz.  The English nerd pulled out the victory, bringing the score to Rachel 2 – Sonny 3.

And then came the best part of the competition.  The part the rest of the team was eagerly anticipating.  We knew that Sonny and Rach were the two most likely on the team to put up a fuss at eating gross food.  Both are known for their gag reflexes and aversion to strange dishes.

There were endless choices in the grocery store for this food challenge, but we chose what we considered a “mild” challenge.  In fact, we got the challenge from Anthony’s house–from his cupboard of food he willingly eats.  The challenge was half of a thousand year old egg, which is a fermented and (in my opinion) nasty egg delicacy.  However, compared to a silkworm, or pig snout, or chicken foot this choice is quite easy to eat (or so we thought).  Sonny went for the minuscule nibble method.

While Rach went for the “big” (we’re talking 1/4 of the egg half) bite method.  She gagged and ran for the kitchen sink, but managed to get the first bite down.

But the second bite did her in.  She made a run for the bathroom and the egg came back up.  Yes, we made our teammate throw up at her birthday party.  And laughed so hard there were tears.  We have an evil side to us.  At that point Sonny surrendered for no points in round six, leaving the score at Rachel 2 – Sonny 3.

Round seven brought the game back to a much tamer level as Rachel and Sonny entered a basketball shoot-out.  Sonny began with making 3 of 10 shots.  Rachel failed to even the score; only making 1 of 10 shots.  Sonny clinched a two point lead.

Round eight was a test of pop culture knowledge, offering the perfect comeback opportunity for Rachel.  She took full advantage of the opportunity, and glided to a decisive victory.  This brought her to within one point of Sonny headed into the last round of regulation play.

The final round was a hymn sing off, where each player had 30 seconds to review a classic hymn before performing it for us.  They were judged based on accuracy in remembering the lyrics.  Rachel impressed with a near perfect performance of Victory in Jesus, while Sonny struggled through a rendition of the Old Rugged Cross.

Rach’s stellar performance brought the score to an unplanned tie.  We had purposefully made an odd number of rounds, not thinking that they would forfeit the food challenge.  Jennifer hopped onto “tiebreaker.com” and found a trivia question for the tie-breaker.  Rachel was the closest guesser of the greatest depth of the Pacific ocean, clinching the title of “Fearless birthday girl”.  Too bad we all know her kryptonite now–all you have to do is throw a thousand year old egg in front of her and she’ll be brought to her knees.  (Oh, and that’s not real bacon she won–that would be too expensive a prize to give away–it’s a notebook that looks like and is packaged as bacon complete with price tag.  You can find anything in China!)