A couple of days ago, I made a batch of healthy soup and portioned it into four separate containers. Last night, I wanted a bowl of it for supper. Not because of the cold weather, although that provided additional justification.

Here’s where my life suddenly went wrong. Like sticking your tongue in a blender wrong.

A coworker bought Erika a mix of hot sauces for her birthday last month. I’m known to love sauces. I’ve been using them all in a constant pattern like I always do. They’ve all been interesting and distinct. Erika has them in a basket by the fridge. I just grab one, often without reading the label. I like surprises.

Last night, all these tendencies came to a head. Most surprises are great. Some, however, are like opening the toilet lid only to set off a glitter bomb filled with both glitter and sneezing powder.

If you’re familiar with Carolina Reapers, you know that they are massively hot. Among the hottest possible peppers. They are about ten times hotter than habañeros and are the source of many of those crazy videos on the internet wherein idiots consume a chip seasoned with them and then vomit through their eyeballs and sweat like a manager having their expense reports scrutinized.

I heated my soup a little in the microwave and then grabbed a random bottle from the basket, pouring about 1/3 of the bottle into the soup bowl. I sat down to eat.

This is where the fireworks started. With the first bite, I thought I had eaten a spoonful of liquid fire. My tongue went numb, which turns out was worse than immediately feeling pain. Painful heat would have clearly told me I had made the wrong move. I continued to eat spoonful after spoonful of the soup, unknowingly laden with the equivalent of Hawaiian lava. I felt my eyes dilate, and that’s when the numbness abated, and the heat began to sear me like a human barbeque.

Despite this, I decided to eat all the contents of the soup and leave aside the liquid. My reptilian brain thought this might help. The heat continued to grow. As I finished the solid part of the soup, I felt like a cartoon character whose hair suddenly lit up with fire. I went to the kitchen and dumped the liquid.

Luckily, there was old ice cream remaining in the freezer. I grabbed the remnant of it, took the ice cream bucket to the living room, and began to use it in an attempt to appease the fire gods celebrating in my mouth.

I sat and imagined that if the amount of Carolina Reaper I’d consumed hit me wrong, I might find myself duct-taped to the toilet this morning or suffer the additional indignity of having it forcefully come back up and out my nose. The incredible heat of the Carolina Reaper sauce was already making me feel like I was breathing inside a chamber filled with Vick’s VaporRub.

As much as I protested to Erika, I don’t think she realized how epically I had misjudged the heat of that hot sauce bottle. I did my best to control my breathing. Before going to bed, I quickly drank two full glasses of water from the sink. When I lay down, I was certain I would awaken in a few hours and hear the thunderous rumbling of my stomach as it attempted to process what can only be described as fiery insanity. And then I would need to impersonate Usain Bolt in a vain attempt to reach the bathroom before the carnage ensued.

When I woke up this morning, my stomach wasn’t protesting more than normal, but I did feel like I was floating from the dose of preventive water the night before. After sitting and drinking a cup of coffee at 1:30 a.m. I felt the rumble.

So far, I’ve not found myself writhing on the floor or being able to shoot fire out of my nostrils like a bad comic book hero. But I do feel like I’m breathing with a mouthful of Vick’s VaporRub.

But I am nervous.

I made the mistake of Googling the consequences of consuming any such quantity of Carolina Reaper.

I didn’t know it at the time last night, but I basically consumed more of this pepper in one sitting than most hot pepper-eating champions can. It’s because I was unaware of what I was about to consume; had I known, it would have never occurred to me to try it.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.

This could be one of those days where you see me sprinting across the parking lot with my pants down, hoping to sit in the cold water of the creek. Witnesses will probably see one of the rarest of sights: fire underwater.

Love, X
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P.S. The first thing I did was drink five glasses of water, one after the other before having a cup of coffee this morning. I’m an optimist, but after Googling this damned pepper, I think I might need an IV later.