The Idiotic Things We Sometimes Do
Some of you may have seen this picture that I took of myself back at the end of October. We were on our way to Baltimore to go on our cruise and had stopped at a gas station, and there on a rack were the well-known tombstone-shaped boxes for the Paqui One Chip Challenge! In Canada, you have to order these through services like Amazon, but in the States, they're in, as I say, gas stations and other available spots for people to pick up as they see fit!
At the gas station, there were a number of homemade warning signs all around the rack they were on - "This chip is HOT!!!" "We are not responsible if you lose bladder/bowel control!" "No refunds - you bought it, you knew what you were getting!!" - things like that. I had to have one. My cousin, Rick, had one with his son about four years ago; as a man who loves suicide-spicy wings, he found it overwhelmingly hot and lingering on the tongue.
But I wanted to try one!
I don't know why. I'm not really impressing a woman with my manly fortitude (my wife wanted to watch me eat it, but not because it was something that would make her swoon at my ruggedness - she wanted to laugh at my self-inflicted pain!). I have no friends who would have eaten one with me (pretty sure I checked, and their attitude was, "It's all you, buddy!"). I wanted to eat one because, well, I wanted to!
My daughter will edit together a video of the six minutes from the opening of the box until I declare it to be the hottest thing I have ever put in my mouth, and I will possibly append it to this entry for posterity. But... damn!
The projected heat factor of the chip was 2.2 million Scoville Units, or thereabouts. For those uncertain of what that means, that's a measure of the intensity of the capsaicin spice in the whatever-it-is, the ratio of spice to a bland medium (think mashed potatoes or mild sugar water) where you can no longer taste the spice. One gram of the spice compound on this chip would require 2.2 million grams (or 2.2 thousand kilograms) of the other to dilute the spice to nothing.
So, yes, I'm an idiot!
After a moment of hesitation, with the whole family watching (and Kooper prowling in the hallway so as to avoid suffering from vicarious embarrassment, I think), I put it in. Chewed it up. The spice was relatively mild while the chip was in my mouth - I mean, yes, hot, but not debilitatingly so, I chewed. I swallowed. I showed my tongue and it had indeed turned a ghastly bright blue, as promised, as proof that I'd actually eaten it. And then...
Then it started to build. Rapidly!
The challenge is to see how long you can last before you go for milk or ice cream or something like that to try to wash away the oil. Do NOT go for water - that just spreads it around! Less than a minute and you're considered a wimp; ten minutes is a hero; an hour is amazing; and never seeking relief is superhuman! I'll have to check the tape, but I think I wimped out after just over a minute. Luckily I had already poured three small glasses of milk and had put out the last of the ice cream in the house in three small bowls - part of me thought Kooper and Lyndsay's bf might like a corner of the chip and would need the assistance as well, but they demurred, just wanting to see the show! It took more than five minutes of swirling the milk or the ice cream in my mouth to get it to the point of dulling the burn - all three bowls of ice cream, and most of the milk! (The box actually warns you about the tummy ache you might get - it's not from the chip itself, but the crap you reach for to make the pain stop! Then I dumped an entire Christmas dinner on top of it all - yes, I'm gurgling a bit as I write this... but I'm not dying!)
I'm glad I did it. I've been struggling with identity and experience and mortality and a few things like that recently - as I enter mid-life (with who-knows-how-many years actually left to me!), I've been challenged and have had a few bad days, and a few bad nights as well. What does it mean to live life to the fullest? What does it mean to make a difference? Am I doing anything that matters, or am I doomed to be laid in my coffin having lived the life that Thoreau described, one of quiet desperation, my "song" unsung and still within me?
I went on the cruise this year. I had a blast. I swam with stingrays and held one in my arms. I stood at the core of the ship and looked down through the glass stairs on Deck Ten to the floor of the atrium 100-some feet below me and my only thought was, "Don't drop my phone!" and not, "I'm gonna die!"
I'm doing the Out Of the Cold program at our church. It's a band-aid, in a lot of ways, but it's helping some of my fellow humans get to tomorrow - tomorrow might be rehab, tomorrow might be a job, tomorrow might be a chance to get an address and actually start making a life for themselves, but when it's -13 with a windchill of -27 and they have nowhere to go because it's Christmas weekend and NOTHING is open and NO ONE is on the streets to even ask for money (with, as I say, nowhere to spend it even if they got it), getting them TO tomorrow is a victory all by itself! I made our guests a Christmas lunch today - roasted chicken, roasted cheesy potatoes, stuffing from a box, gravy from a pack, and veggies from a can! Relatively simple, but you'd have thought it was a royal banquet the way the guys praised me for it (our lady guest is a little picky and didn't partake). And I'm back tonight because we have a sore need for overnight overseers! But it's something, and something good.
Kathleen and I dance with a school in Brampton most Friday evenings of the year. Four years ago, we were brand-new to it, and I was in awe of how easily some of the other couples took to the floor; now, I'm the one "showing off" a little bit when I remember extra moves for a particular dance. We love that we're back to changing partners, because I have to lead other ladies through the steps, and Kathy has to be led - she tells her partners how to "tell" her what they are trying to get her to do, and I "tell" my partners what I'm trying to do with various pressures of my hand on their backs. The instructor likes that we're there - we're not her star pupils, but we love the teaching side, and getting the other students better and more confident as we dance. And I tell Kathleen quite often that for that hour, for the hour we're in dance class, the world "goes away". There's nothing but the steps and the music, nothing but the dance and whichever partner is in my arms at the moment. Everything else doesn't matter until 8:30 when I put my coat back on.
And, you understand, I'm writing this not to impress you with what I've been doing, but to impress upon me that I am living life, that I am "doing things" and not just wasting away doing nothing, which is what my mind tells me sometimes!
So I ate the chip. It turned my tongue blue and my eyes red. It lit me on fire all through my face, made my ears ring a bit, and I don't think I could have stood there and let the heat keep building for ten minutes, let alone an hour! No, scratch that, I couldn't let the heat keep building, at all! But I ate it, and I was present in that moment!
That's the phrase that rings with me this Christmas Day - the past is said and done, the future is yet to be, and the present is a gift to be cherished. I'm in this moment. And it's a good moment.
I hope that all of you have similar moments in your own lives - moments that make you realize the blessing of being alive to witness them! Who knows what tomorrow will bring? Only the Father, and He's not telling until the moment is exactly right!
God bless you all, and I hope you had a very Merry Christmas!