It’s never easy to complete a random task you’re just learning about for the first time, especially when you only have 60 seconds to do it.
But that’s just how it goes when you play Minute to Win It. No, unfortunately my dreams of being on the short-lived television show were never realized, but I found the next best thing last week. Turns out, as part of the 21C after-school program, students at Broken Ground School get to take part in the ridiculous challenges every week, minus the TV cameras capturing their every move. Instead, it was Jon’s camera that was documenting the madness, and I was taking part in it.
Now, for full disclosure reasons, I’ve done a few of the Minute to Win It challenges over the years, but usually it involved an adult beverage, too.
So how it works is that Chris Fogg, who runs the Minute to Win It 21C program at Broken Ground, comes up with a list of about 10 ideas each week. Some are variations to ones that were done on the show, others were found on places like Pinterest and the rest were just made up.
The kids have some favorites, so those make reappearances from time to time, but Fogg likes to mix it up as much as he can.
In addition to what I’m about to tell you, they do stuff like cup stacking, running laps, jump rope, puzzles made of Cheez-It boxes and all kinds of fun and zany stuff.
Most of the time, I’m not really all that worried with how I do in these kind of first-person experiences. It’s actually better if I fail miserably because then I can make fun of myself for all of you to enjoy. But not this time. I was in it to win it – that and I didn’t want to have to relive losing to a bunch of students in grades three through five.
The first challenge was called cheesehead or face to cheese, depending on the day. It can also be done with a cookie.
We had to take a Cheez-It, put it on our forehead and try to get it in our mouth without using our hands. With a pile of the delicious snack cracker in my hands, I was determined to get one of those tasty squares in my mouth. Not only for the thrill of doing it, but it was about 4:30 in the afternoon and I was hungry.
It sounds easy, but turns out navigating a Cheez-It down the side of your face is not easy – but also not impossible. My first six attempts landed with a crash on the gym floor, but seven was my lucky number. It kind of popped off my face a bit, but I snatched it out of the air, one of nine in the group of 15 to do it. I kept trying since there was some time left on the clock, but I only got the one.
Next up was filled with hot air. We had to get down on the floor with a red Solo cup in front of us and see how far we could blow it to the other end. Let’s just say, while many of you might feel that I’m filled with hot air in my writing, it didn’t translate as I finished a distant 12th.
Apparently holding a cup covered in shaving cream on your head while someone else tries to get ping pong balls stuck in it is quite popular. I didn’t take part in this one because for one, it was a student favorite and two, have you seen my hair lately? I couldn’t risk the damage.
But cotton-eyed nose was right up my alley. We had to stand around a table with a bunch of cotton balls on it, put a little Vaseline on the tip of our nose and see how many cotton balls we could pick up and place in a cup, of course without using our hands. Despite having to battle for position (and cotton balls) around a crowded table and needing to apply a second dab of Vaseline, I ended up with 12 in my cup, which quick math tells me is two every 10 seconds. Not too shabby.
If you’ve noticed, there’s been a theme with these challenges – doing so without the use of hands. And there was another one. This time, we had to use a single strand of spaghetti, uncooked, kneel on the floor and see if we could pick up enough rigatoni (also uncooked) to fill the strand. Turns out I was kind of a natural. It took me about 20 seconds to collect six pieces of the pasta, which almost completely filled my spaghetti. I tried for a seventh, but there wasn’t enough space or leverage for it to happen. As you can tell, I was getting pretty good at these things.
And so did Fogg. He had me be the guinea pig for the final challenge, trying to get 10 hula hoops on to an ordinary orange cone from a short distance. Sounds easy, right? Not so much. Getting the large rings on there wasn’t a problem, but getting them to stay was.
I got a few of my early tosses on, but the next few bounced off the others. Before I knew it, they were counting down from 10 and only five had managed to stay on. I quickly grabbed the other five lying near the cone, ran back to the spot and fired all five at once – which in turn took out the cone. But what a shot it would have been if they all landed on. No guts, no glory.
All in all, not a bad afternoon on the job. Thanks to Fogg, helper Rachel Venator from Concord High and, of course, the students, for letting me take part.
And stay tuned, because you never know what we’re going to get into next.
