The Volunteer

When the memo went out for volunteers, I jumped at the chance to escape my cubicle and get off the phones for a few hours. Imagine my joy when I lucked out as one of four judges for the eighth annual Vita Life office chili cookoff.

It was customer service appreciation week, and the yacht rock was going strong in the cafeteria. An old football game was playing on the projection screen as Carol, Marie, Jamal and I were introduced as this year’s judges.

The football theme was going strong. The cafeteria had been arranged into a tailgating event, even as it was half past eleven on a rainy Tuesday. Things were raucous, senior service reps decked out in jeans and their favorite football team’s jerseys, taking full advantage of the casual spirit of things. A few of the floor managers had gone the extra mile with eye black.

As judges, we were first to sample the fare. We moseyed over to the tables set up near the back. Most of the entries ranged from bland to spicy, some with too many beans, others without beans or meat at all. After a while it all ran together.

And then came entry number nine.

I’d lost track of my counterparts when I came upon Glenda Thornberg. Glenda was a heavyset woman who’d been at Vita-Life since the mid-nineties. Everyone in the office had heard about how her husband had died unexpectedly last year—something to do with an allergic reaction. I’d signed the card, pitched in on the flowers, but otherwise had hardly spoken to her. Now, she stood behind a lime green crockpot with the cord taped in several places, her hands clasped together. It was the least I could do to ask for a sample.

Glenda’s face brightened. She sprang into action and scooped out a heaving portion of her family recipe, which I saw now had the consistency of cat food and smelled like kerosene. My eyes burned as I smiled, thanked her, but was unable to escape her hopeful gaze. A widow’s offering, it was all I could do but give it a shot.

A spoonful was all it took. An initial jolt. Repulsion. I set a hand to my mouth and blinked away tears. Glenda nodded, still beaming. I noticed some spit forming at the corner of her mouth and I forced down the swallow like a kid taking cough syrup. I stifled a dry heave and wished her luck.

Back at the table, we marked up our cards.

“You okay there, Greg?” Carol asked.

I set a hand to my chest, massaging the burn. “Yeah, that last one, number nine, whew boy.”

Carol’s hand clamped down on my arm. Her eyes doubled in size. She leaned closer. “Wait. You went over there? You ate that? Stop it. Please tell me you are joking.”

“No, what?” My vision blurred as I turned to my coworker. “We’re judging, right?”

“Judging, yes, willingly ingesting Glenda Thornberg’s napalm, no.”

A deep rumbling in my stomach. I folded over, trying to blunt the bind in my stomach. I gauged the distance to the exit. “Hey, I might have to run to the bathroom.”

Carol nodded at Jamal, who turned to Marie. A tingle of panic joined the calamity taking place inside my bowels. “Yeah, I got to go.”

My fellow judges regarded me with horror in their eyes. Carol, always so chipper when explaining rate increases on the phones, had a slight tremor in her voice. “Greg, that woman’s cooking killed her husband.”

“Why is she in this contest?” I croaked.

“We thought you knew not to actually eat it.”

I started to get up.

“Hey, what about the judging?”

“You decide. I can’t wait any longer.”

I wiped my forehead, slick with sweat. Heads turned as I climbed out of my chair and nearly fell into the table. Getting to my feet, I staggered backward. Something crashed. The room canted left, then right. TJ, our lead, wearing a striped referee shirt like a dork, clapped me on the back. “Whoa Greg, hey there buddy.”

I squeezed my eyes closed. I tried to explain it was an emergency. That I’d been poisoned. Carol said something about an ambulance.

TJ was talking about sick time when I fell to the carpet. A Journey song hit its stride and I tried to get up, but it was no use. The last thing I remember, before the EMT’s arrived, before I left to get my stomach pumped, was Glenda Thornberg, grinning ear to ear as she was declared this year’s chili cookoff winner.

–Pete Fanning 2025