Today’s story is (kind of) about fantasy football. I’ve been in the same fantasy league since 1993 — yes, same league, 30+ years — and our season ended last night. We play for pride, not avoidance of waffles, but regardless: I won 😀 — Dan

How To Eat Your Way Out of a Fantasy Football Loss

In August and into early September of every year, groups of people in America — typically men — gather to kick off a competition that, to an outsider, may seem silly. While sitting around a table or congregating virtually via WhatsApp or the like, they select National Football League players to a fictitious roster. They debate whether Patrick Mahomes is better than Lamar Jackson, if Christian McCaffrey will score more touchdowns than Saquon Barkley, and whether it’s worth using one of your late-round selections on a guy named Bo Nix. (It was.) And for the next 15 to 18 weeks, these competitors — the people drafting the players, not the players themselves — watch football games to see how the players do. The better the players you drafted perform, the better your team does. It’s called “fantasy football,” and it’s fun — trust me.

Some fantasy football leagues play for money; everyone chips in a bit and the winner takes the top prize. Some play for pride. And then there are those who play to avoid the pain of Waffle House.

If you’re unfamiliar with Waffle House, it’s an American restaurant chain common in the American South and Midwest. It typically serves Southern-inspired breakfast foods like, you guessed it, waffles, and is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — even on Christmas. Its waffles (before syrup and butter, and you’re not going to eat them without those) are 410 calories each, according to the company’s website (pdf). So in most situations, you’re probably not eating more than three in a sitting — they might taste good, but they’re not the easiest thing to digest. It’s that combination — an always open store that sells dense, highly caloric, and not-so-easy-to-digest food — that makes it perfect for a good-natured punishment among fantasy football enthusiasts.

That punishment? If you come in last place in your league, and you play with the Waffle House rule, you have to spend 24 hours in a Waffle House. No sleep, no leaving until your time is up. But there’s a get-out-of-House free card, kind of: for every waffle you eat, you get to leave the Waffle prison one hour early.

It’s unclear where the punishment/challenge originated, but over the past few years, it’s surged in popularity. One of the more notable attempts came in 2021, when Lee Sanderlin, a reporter for the Clarion Ledger (Mississippi), tweeted about the experience in real-time, catching the eye of the New York Times. As Sanderlin explained in his own column, it was actually his idea to subject the loser of his fantasy league to the experience — it was something he had seen previously online and thought it “would be hilarious to watch one of the other 11 members of our league go through that,” never imagining he would be the person coming in last. And he also didn’t expect the punishment to be nearly as difficult as it was.

Sanderlin opened up strong — but that strength didn’t last, as he shared in his own words::

Sanderlin’s tweets went viral as he made his way through a nine-waffle, 15-hour ordeal, and it also came with a very sweet moment at the end. With less than an hour to go, a woman named Cyndi Hayes entered the restaurant, not for breakfast (it was just before 7 AM) but to talk to the fantasy football failure himself. Sanderline explained: “She said she followed along with my escapades all night, and drove the 15 miles from nearby Florence to see me in person. Her oldest son had died last year, and he was very into fantasy football, she explained. His birthday would have been last week, and somehow my stupid little internet moment brought her a smile, something she said had been hard to come by. She thanked me for brightening her day and left. All of a sudden, those 15 hours felt worth it in a way they hadn't moments before.”

So as stupid as the Waffle House challenge may be, it can also bring joy in the most unexpected ways.

Support Now I Know — Check Out Today’s Sponsor!

We’ve been trying to reach you…

…about your car’s extended warranty. Tired of getting those calls? Here’s your chance to protect yourself, your personal data, and your sanity. Incogni.

Incogni is a personal data removal service that scrubs your sensitive info (think: SSN, DOB, home addresses, health information, and contact details) from the web. With Incogni, you’ll worry way less about: identity theft health insurers raising your rates based on info from data brokers robo and spam calls scammers taking out loans in your name.

Protect your personal info! Get 58% off your annual plan with code KNOWDEAL.

More About Waffle House

Today’s Bonus fact: Amazingly, Sanderlin’s silver lining isn’t the only Waffle House Challenge with a happy ending. A few weeks earlier, a 32-year-old roofing salesman named Michael Carsley walked into an Atlanta-area Waffle House for the same reason as Sanderlin — he had lost his fantasy league and needed to eat his way out of a 24-hour Waffle House sentence. Like Sanderlin, he live-streamed his attempt and gained a following. Carsley asked his friends and other followers to chip in to tip the servers. Carsley ended up eating 18 waffles (!!!!) and getting out of the restaurant in six hours, running up a bill of about $50 in the process. A typical tip would be about ten bucks — 20% is customary — but Carsley beat that and by a lot. His friends, family, and fans sent him $1,040, probably the biggest tip that Waffle House has ever seen.

From the Archives: Waffling: As noted above, Waffle House never closes — well, almost never. Extreme weather can cause a shutdown, and because of that, the Federal government keeps an eye on Waffle House closures; the more that close due to weather, the larger a catastrophe we may have on hand.

Support Now I Know!

Now I Know is supported by readers like you. Yes, you! Many of my readers donate a few dollars a month to help Now I Know grow and thrive. And in exchange, they get an ad-free version!

Interested in supporting Now I Know? Click here! 

And thanks! — Dan