Everyone said it was impossible. I watched chef after chef lose to Bobby Flay. I knew winning wasn’t an option, even for the best out there, but I still knew I had to give it a try. THIS is how I beat Bobby Flay:
It was a rainy Tuesday afternoon and Flay’s recent win on “Beat Bobby Flay” took a toll on my self esteem. The whole premise of the show was to beat him, so why was he doing all the beating? I retreated back to a dark corner where I checked my email. There was nothing but the dim light from my computer screen illuminating the room. There was a toy from childhood, a small red firetruck that lay at my feet that reminded me of a much simpler time. I clenched my teeth together and held back tears so no one could see my pain, even though it had been days since another person had been around.
A small but soul-shaking sound erupted out of the speakers of my computer. No louder than a doorbell, no softer than a child’s weak grip on a toy mallet hitting a broken eight-note rainbow colored xylophone. It was a message.
A message from none other than celebrity chef, Bobby Flay, cut across the computer screen. I had no choice but to pay it the attention it seemed to demand from me. The raindrops gingerly hitting the endless dark outdoors reminded me of his presence. It read:
I thought I was done trying to beat Bobby Flay, but something inside of me told me it would be different this time around.
On January 6th he walked up to me. A big smile on his face, his right hand outstretched from an arm enclosed in plaid, the scar was still there on his ring finger from the incident in the kitchen. I stood up and offered my right hand out to him. It was clear he met up with me strictly for business. Our fingers bent at the knuckles and locked onto the other’s with our thumbs pointed straight up at the sky. Our thumbs danced by alternating sides until both stood erect, as if anticipating what came next, although we both knew it was war.
After a bloodbath of scraped skin, finally, Flay’s thumb lay as a limp and lifeless digit underneath my thumb. Was this real? Have I actually beaten Bobby Flay in a thumbwar?
A defeated Bobby Flay stumbled backward, nearly tripping over his own feet. He held his hands up as if to tell me to have mercy on him, but then he lunged at me, grabbing at my face and ripping off the mask that I didn’t even know I was wearing to reveal that I was the real Bobby Flay this whole time.
