Today was perhaps the most painful humbling experience Iāve ever had.Ā
I was at my local farmerās market playing guitar (iām a street performer), I had barely gotten much sleep last night, I had only 2 dollars to my name, and the tips werenāt going so well, I was tired and wanted a pick me up to keep me going.
I look through the other stalls, and thereās an artist selling some drawings, along with a bottle of āda bombā hot sauce. I asked why he had that, and he said that he was charging .50 cents for anyone who could last 5 minutes eating a spoonful of da bomb hot sauce without screaming, asking for water, or putting the spoon down, with the reward being a can of soda.Ā
Let me just state for the record that Iām very much someone who has tried to avoid spice as much as possible growing up, with the hottest thing iāve ever had prior to this experience being a piece of the flesh of a home grown trinidad scorpion, which only lasted for a couple of minutes.
Now, I had known of āda bombā as I've watched several episodes of hot ones, and knew that it was the sauce that most guests start really feeling the pain. Despite knowing this, I gave him the .50 cents and waited as he dropped the sauce into the plastic spoon, every passing minute being my final chance to listen to reason and not do that, but I was too tired to care.
The moment that sauce went down my throat, I went through the five stages of grief. What I wasnāt told about this challenge was that I shouldāve eaten something beforehand, as the only thing I had for breakfast that day was two slices of toast and a bagel with cream cheese. I had barely ANYTHING in the tank, and da bomb was furious.
I barely lasted 2 minutes as I slammed the spoon down on the table, my brain refusing to listen to reason as I had made the second mistake of drinking water, gag reflex kicking in as hot capsaicin and water came trickling out from my mouth and onto the ground and my arms . I gave up my folly and proceeded to run across town to the ice cream store. I rushed in like a bat out of hot sauce hell as I demanded a cone of vanilla soft serve, luckily the owner of the shop knew me and realized the danger that I had thrust upon myself, and just gave me an ice cream cone for free.
Unfortunately the bomb had OTHER plans for that ice cream, the moment i bit into the cone, a nuclear reaction went off in my stomach, I RUSHED out of the ice cream shop, the ice cream that I had consumed was rejected VIOLENTLY and it felt like I was reenacting a scene from The exorcist, I stumbled back into the ice cream shop and asked for a cup of milk, they gave me two cups, enough to get home as they needed the rest of the milk for the rest of the day. I had thanked them for their generosity, as they couldāve easily just let me die on the sidewalk, but they didnāt.Ā
trip home was quick, I had taken a 2 liter of baja blast from the fridge and started downing it as quickly as I could. Finally, I remembered that I had left all my stuff, including my guitar, at the farmers market, and decided to take the walk back. I had barely survived, and my dignity was shattered, but after falling through the nine circles of hell, I was back in the land of the living, and had to take responsibility for my actions and clean up after myself.
Upon returning to ground zero, I had discovered that the people at the market were more concerned than anything else, as I was the first person to actually do that challenge and take the full spoonful of hot sauce. The person who ran the challenge was more worried that I was going to press charges or call the police, but I reassured them that I wasnāt going to do that because it was my fault for doing that in the first place. That said, I did urge them to raise the price of admission for anyone else who dared to do that, along with writing waivers.Ā
The remaining 12 hours of the day were met with a ticking timebomb in my stomach waiting to blast out the other end. When this finally did occur, the experience, whilst not as awful as consumption, still had to be dealt with, the day ending in a bath tub.Ā
I learned several valuable lessons that day: donāt eat spicy food on an empty stomach, water is NOT your friend, and the battle does NOT END when the spice subsides.Ā
