What happens when you drop Mentos into a forty?

Also, Alka-Seltzer

Hi, clowns!

It feels like it’s been forever, but I just haven’t had the heart to mess around in the kitchen and crack jokes since Nugget got really sick. Davida did a perfect job capturing how she felt losing Mr. Handsome Boy, and we miss him and Cricket very much. It’s been quite the adjustment being totally alone during the day when Davida goes to work. I used to think I saw Cricket out of the corner of my eye after she passed away and now I feel like I see Nugget perpetually peeking around the corner.

dickholedannis

A post shared by @dickholedannis

Our friends Eliza and Jake surprised us with art they commissioned from our friend Carlyn, and we will have these pieces framed and up on the wall soon. We are taking things day by day. Thanks for all of you reaching out and saying something, because without you, taking the losses would have been so much harder. Davida and I are exhausted from the stress of this past year and just can’t wait for things to get better.

Now, I get a lot of suggestions for Food is Stupid almost every day on social media. You tag me in lots of food-related stuff and all of it is fantastic and almost always terrible. This cheers me up, especially on terrible days. The thing is, the worse the content, the more likely it is I am going to consider trying it, because I am the greatest food writer in all of history, and this is my responsibility to you. When suddenly I stop sending out new newsletters you will know I finally tried one too many things.

For this week, my internet friend Jonathan tagged me in a post about dropping Alka-Seltzer in beer, and it got my thoughts rolling, big time. First of all, what would it do, explode? Because that’s carbonation on carbonation, and there’s no way that could turn out well. Second of all, I’ve never had Alka-Seltzer. I thought only 65-year-old men drank that shit to settle their stomachs after a full day of complaining.

Then I thought deeper and said to myself, “Dannis, remember when everybody was dropping Mentos in Diet Coke and they put it on YouTube? Everyone did a lot of screaming in those videos. Those were the good old days. What do you suppose would happen if you tried dropping Mentos into a forty ounce bottle of malt liquor?”

[EDIT: This is a BIG edit, but I’d like you to know my other internet friend Amy came up with the Mentos idea and it was lost in the jumble of my bulbous head. Thank you, Amy, who does not have anything on SoundCloud to promote just yet.]

There is only one way to find out, dickholes.

There aren’t a lot of elaborate ingredients today, just Alka-Seltzer, beer, and Mentos.

Our local corner liquor store didn’t have the classic Colt 45 or Olde English on hand, so I had to stick with an old classic, MGD. In college a few of my friends played a game called Edward Fortyhands, where they duct taped a 40 oz. bottle on each of their hands and could not take them off until they were finished. I am going to tell you that none of these stories ended well.

If my photos look a little different today, it is because my DSLR is acting all sorts of broken right now and I had to switch to my phone. I have learned that I am also a terrible photographer on my phone too.

After some careful thinking, I decided it would be a good idea to do this experiment outside and not in my kitchen.

You see, I did not play Edward Fortyhands in my college years, so you know I have sound decision making abilities. Sound decision makers also put Mentos in beer.

This photo came after that last one I put up.

I am not sure what this is or how I took it. What the fuck is even happening here? How did I take this?

As soon as I put one Mento into the bottle of beer, it started fizzing up like crazy.

Please note the Mento I dropped on the ground next to the beer. It looks sad in the grass. I was stupid and thought I’d be able to just sort of drop them all in with one hand, but that did not go as expected when the foam started rushing out while I tried to take pictures.

This is also when not one, but three, of my neighbors showed up randomly. What are you supposed to say to people when they discover you in the backyard, holding a half-open tube of candy over a foaming 40 oz. bottle of beer with your cell phone out, taking pictures? I tried to stammer out an explanation but, uh, if you tried explaining Food is Stupid to someone from scratch, you know exactly how I feel right now, and I write the goddamn thing. You are all part of the dumbest most intimate club ever.

I jammed a bunch more candies into the beer to see if it’d get really violent.

You can see them at the bottom of the bottle. It did indeed get a little more lively, but I think I’d lost my momentum by not being able to jam them in all at once.

Obviously I had to try this again.

I bought two bottles because I knew I’d somehow fuck up the first one. So if my neighbors were still watching, they saw me disappear into my apartment, abandoning a mess on the lawn, only to emerge with more beer and candy. This is normal behavior from a neighbor, right?

Let’s be honest, we’ve all seen movies that ended this way.

I did in fact manage to get more Mentos into this bottle, but man, that reaction happens fast. Like, as soon as the candy hits the liquid. It’s still a very entertaining reaction. I tried to hold my thumb over the top while I got more candy ready to drop in, but the foam shot up violently and got all over my face and phone.

I think I may have inadvertently figured out a better way to buttchug. Just drop some Mentos into a forty and let science violently cram beer up your ass. When you end up talking to the ER doctor about this, try explaining the newsletter to them and you’ll know how I felt today.

Oh, I took a sip of the beer as I was cleaning up. It was completely flat and did not taste like candy. At least a small portion of the lawn got watered with nutritious fertilizing beer.

This beer can, the Alka-Seltzer, and Harvey all seem to be matching.

We have been drinking PBR Extra. It’s okay. It has sort of a metallic taste to it, but I don’t really notice since I’m usually buttchugging it anyway.

I put the beer into a glass mixing bowl in case there was a mess.

Good thing I did, because I almost did it on the bare kitchen island and that would have been terrible. I feel like the sour smell of beer just never goes away when you spill it on something. While this reaction wasn’t quite violent, it was definitely slow and steady. While the tablets happily burbled away, I looked at the box. I knew Alka-Seltzer was basically an antacid, but I had no idea there was aspirin in it too. I am assuming that if you are hungover and slammed this combination it’d be like an airtight version of hair of the dog. Except...don’t even think about doing this.

I absentmindedly took a swipe at the foamy head of the beer and jammed my finger in my mouth and almost threw up. I turned and spit into the kitchen sink, trying to get the taste of chalky beer-flavored salt out of my mouth.

There’s salt in Alka-Seltzer?!

According to this article about the stuff, if you take the maximum recommended amount of Alka-Seltzer in one day, you’ve eaten 20 bags of potato chip’s worth of salt. That’s fucked up! No wonder those imaginary old men I picture drinking this shit are always cranky! Now I have a whole box of disgusting Alka-Seltzer. Maybe I’ll keep it until I’m really old and I’ll soak my dentures in it.

That might be sooner than later because I just turned 40 last week.

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I’ve missed you all. If you’ve soaked in the happy joys of Mentos and Alka-Seltzer in beer, please share this on social media, because goddammit, I can’t get this taste out of my mouth and I need everyone to know.

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See you all soon, and thank you for being here for us. We love you.

And get your shots. We got our first ones a few weeks ago. It was quick, easy, and we feel fine aside from being able to hear the occasional transmission from outer space.