As my fifteenth birthday passes by, I am pleased to say that I have reached the modest height of six feet four inches and a weight of 215 lb..(all muscle, naturally). And I can assure my public that I did not achieve this by starving myself. To give an example, when a web site once asked me to describe my typical breakfast, I, being the smart-mouthed young bafoon that I am assured daily by acquaintances that I am, filled in the following: seven bowls of cereal, 11 eggs, 5 pieces of toast, three omelets, a dozen croissants, several chicken-fried steaks, 3 1/3 lb. of sausage, and one full horse.

Though this is, of course, a slight exaggeration, I do consider myself to be right up there with the best of ‘em when it comes to the daily fare. In fact, I consider myself to be somewhat of an indomitable force in the way of consumption. Fueled by a teenage desire to eat anything that moves and a total disregard for my own health (in fairness, I stay active), I challenge any chef to create a plate that I cannot clean with ease.

Or at least, I did. Sadly for me, Chicago style deep-dish pizza spoiled my fun.

In celebration of my aforementioned birthday, my family, consisting of my parents and myself, traveled to the city of Chicago to attend the broadcast of a radio show of which I am a fond listener. And when in the Windy City, inhaling will unavoidably cause the consumption of some sort of Italian cuisine.

So, inevitably, my family found ourselves, on the night of Friday the 21st, being seated in Belle Bacino’s Italian Bar and Pizzeria in preparation to dine. Maurice, a tall, fun-loving man who got asked to have his picture taken by several costumers during our visit, proclaimed broadly that, in his own words, “he would be takin’ care of us that evenin’.”

I got right to it, ordering the ten inch deep-dish. Maurice’s smile wavered warningly, and he cautioned me that I might have trouble getting all the way through it. This I viewed, as would any self-respecting high school boy, as a challenge to my manhood, and thus I urged Maurice to press onward with some enthusiasm. He departed, and returned some three photo-opps later with the pizza.

I knew I was licked from the moment he set the monstrosity down on the table. Something about the way the sauce was slathered across the thing gave it an oddly sinister pallor, as if Belle Bacino’s was not a 21st century restaurant in downtown Chicago, but a Robert-Harris-inspired bistro in early 15th century Africa.

And then, after you get by the sauce, here comes the cheese. In classic Chicago style, the pizzeria layers its pizza in reverse order, so that the red paste tops the mozzarella. Now, to make something very clear,I loathe cheese. I really cannot see how anyone can eat yellowing chunks of over processed , curdled milk and enjoy it. In my opinion, there can be no fate worse than the one that befalls the poor citizen who works at the Kraft warehouse as a taste-tester. But I can take the goop in small measure.

However, this thing was comprised of, at a conservative estimate, 85 percent cheese. A good inch and a half of the stuff met my eyes as the first piece was sliced, and more to follow in subsequent chapters of the pie.

I managed to get through half of it. It was good, of course; everything that a deep-dish Chicago pizza should be. But I couldn’t manage it. Even after the first bite, I could almost hear my heart cursing me under is breath, and my stomach felt more solid than the now stagnant cheese blob.

So, resigning myself to the humiliation that would come when, as I always do, I shared my growing stupidity with the world by writing about it, I pushed away the first meal of my teenage eating career, feeling that I wouldn’t need to eat again until my sixteenth b-day.

Maurice strode up, all smile. “How about some dessert?”

The moral of this story is: know your limits. Countless people have come out a lot worse than I did from fool-heartedly going to far in their excesses. Still, I am not daunted. I eagerly await the next eating challenge to come before me, knowing that it, at least, will not be layered half a mile deep in off-white dairy products and tomato sauce. Thankfully, the good people of Wyoming prefer to leave that to our eastern fellows.