Hammazon!

It's official. Pop culture is ever so slightly more polluted today than it was yesterday, as Hammy's new single was added to Amazon this morning. It's a proud day. . . Heh. Um. . . Funny story later. I have to fill out some last minute paperwork before I get sued. . .

Hammy vs. the Pop Machine

So I go to get a soda. Diet Coke, just like always. I go through about four cans a day at work I figure, and today is starting off no different. I have my fifty cents. For me, it's a brave thing to approach a soda machine with fifty cents, and expect to walk away with a soda. Today I am feeling froggy, so I chance it. I walk up to the soda machine, put my fifty cents in (two quarters) and push the 'diet coke' button. One quarter falls out of the coin return below, and nothing else happens. *sigh* I bend down, get my quarter, and put it back in the slot with the 'special back spin' that the coke machine likes for me to do for it, especially early in the morning. Success, no quarter droppage. I push the 'diet coke' button. And there is whirring. Not a good whirring, but a sick sounding whirring, as if something bad is happening. Now, on this machine, there are actually *two* diet coke buttons - maybe just for me, who knows, but the fact of the matter is that I panicked and half-way through the sickening whirrrr sound I hit 'diet coke' button number two, thinking that this will set the machine straight, and I will score my soda. This seems to anger the coke machine, and it starts to make a chugging sound and drops something down below. I bend down to pick it up. F---ing Fresca. The machine Fresca'd me. I check the other buttons on the soda machine to assure myself that Fresca was actually an option and that someone wasn't just screwing with me. It was, at the very bottom button. Great. So I stalk back to my desk, and give the Fresca to a passer-by in the hall after a rather brief conversation. "want a Fresca?'. I get back to my desk and dig through my change drawer which has about $45 in pennies, and as luck would have it, one quarter, one dime, and three nickels. So I gather up my change and walk back to the coke machine. It's smiling at me, I know it. I walk up and put in my change. One quarter, one dime, and three nickels. No droppage, we are good. I slowly push 'diet coke' button number one. There is whirring. I wait. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, you know the rest. The whirring continues for several seconds, and then the 'sold out' light flashes. Okay, fine, I think. I cautiously press 'diet coke' button number two. The 'sold out' light remains flashing. This sucks. Whenever the coke machine is out of diet coke, I have to make due with diet Pepsi. I don't really like diet Pepsi, but it beats Fresca when you want caffeine. 'Fine' I think. I hit the change return button, and change drops out. Not a lot of drops though, just two. I gather two quarters (wtf, excuse me? okay, whatever. . .) from the change tray, and head off to the Pepsi machine. I put my quarters in the Pepsi machine, and we have droppage. I bend down, get the quarter, and put it back in again. Again droppage. *sigh* I get the quarter from the change tray again. It's Canadian. One sideways glance to the Coke machine, and I see it shaking with laughter. I throw the quarter at it. The dinging sound is not satisfying. I go downstairs and out to my car, grab another stupid quarter from the change tray, re-scan my badge, go back upstairs and put my other quarter in the Pepsi machine. Success. Success as measured by my f---ed up standards, anyway. I wipe off the top of the can on my way back to my cube, sit down, and pop the top. The little top-popper thing breaks mid-way through; the can opens just enough to let some fizz come out and roll down the sides, but not enough to actually drink from. Touche' mr. soda machine... Touche'

Day-After Detective

Everybody has drinking stories. Well, most people do anyway. I know that I have my share, and thankfully none have ended up with anyone getting hurt, getting a divorce, or going to jail (as far as I know). This is not to say that, many weeks ago, when I was young and stupid(er), there wasn't a great deal of reckless abandon and mayhem, just that I won't be using this blog as a forum to promote reckless behavior. I'm sure that whoever you are, you'll either have stories of your own, or won't need my help to figure out how to use alcohol to screw up an otherwise perfectly reasonable weekend of fun.

Here's a few things that a little experience has taught me though, so I will share these bits in the hopes that someone may benefit. The rather serious possibility that the only purpose of my existence is to serve as an example for others has crossed my mind more than once. With that in mind, I offer the following:

1) After the first couple drinks, Contrineau = triple sec = orange schnapps. After any more than that white wine= red wine = pink wine, and beer = champagne = anything with club soda. When you get to Listerene = peppermint schnapps, then it's time to stop.

2) The less you talk, the less obvious it will be to everyone that you are plastered. Hush.

3) Breath mints, including Altoids, do not make it seem as if you are not drunk. Instead of stumbling around and slurring your gin-drenched speech all over eveyone, you will be stumblimg around slurring your peppermint-gin-denched speech all over everyone. This does not help in the slightest.

4) If you absolutely must fake sobriety for some reason, then eat some onions, or corn nuts, or other foul smelling food which will make people naturally want avoid your breath. This also has the added benefit of potentially saving you from a night o' lovin' should you get tossed in the pokey for some reason. . .

5) The porcelin at the bottom of the bowl is both colder and nicer than the porcelin at the top of the bowl.

6) If you decide to invite tequila or jagermeister to your party, then the odds that you'll need to review #1-#5 increase dramatically. I was talking to a girl a while back who swears up and down that she was an alcoholic. I asked her why that was, and she replied 'Becuase I drink for the effect, not for the taste...' to which I had to say 'Look honey, ain't no one drinking Pancho Villa for the taste. Put down Nietzsche, let's go party. . .' She didn't bite.

7) Throwing up while on the phone with your parents or a new girl that you have been hoping would call is neither productive, nor endearing. Especially on the first day of college. Especially when you had her convinced that Nietzsche was a load of crap and that you were going to be her new moral compass. Dammit!!!

8) There is a time and place for everything. It's called college.

9) If you're going to pour Bacardi 151 in a bowl that you borrowed (heh) from the college food service cafeteria, set it on the ground, and then light it on fire so that you can toast marshmallows over it with bent-up coat hangers after a double date (while still in your dorm room), then please remember to:

a) figure out where the fire extinguisher is before hand and

b) note that cheap-ass bowls from China do not resist heat as well as that Pyrex from the chem lab does, and will indeed shatter when they get hot. Also, the simple act of a bowl shattering will not extinguish an alcohol fire, no matter how much you run around in circles screaming 'Oh my God, oh my God!!!'

10) If you wake up the next morning and you find some smudgy writing on your hand that looks like 'I (heart) Dana' along with a phone number, and you remember nothing about the night before at all, then consider (before playing 'day-after detective') that:

a) 'Dana' probably gave you a fake phone number to get your sweaty slobbery face as far away from hers as possible.

b) 'Dana', if she did choose option 'a', probably gave you the phone number of her ex-bf who also happens to be involved with a South American drug cartel, and

c) If neither of the above are true, then 'Dana' was that big hairy biker guy who bought your last round of drinks and called your friend 'sugar lips'.

Just wash your hands, and don't call. . .

Simple syrup

To a collins glass, add 12 mint leaves, 1/2 of a lime cut into wedges, and muddle gently. Fill glass with ice, add 2 TBSP simple syrup, 1 1/2 oz rum, and top off with club soda. Yum.

I'm lazy, I'll be the first to admit it. If there is an easy way to do something that gets me 80% of the way there, then that's usually the route I will take. Exceptions to this are rare, and usually involve some greater purpose than the task at hand. Enter simple syrup. Now, I know that you can make simple syrup yourself. It's not that it's hard. It's just a pain. I don't wanna, okay? So when I go to the store to procure the above ingredients I start looking for a bottle of simple syrup. It's not in the 'mixers' section, it's not in the 'baking' aisle (ok, a stretch, I admit, but I also don't understand why they dont put the taco shells next to the flour tortillas either, so what do I know - I'm a guy).

Anyhoo, I search the store for a reasonable amount of time before figuring that they must carry the simple syrup at the liquor store instead. I go to the check-out line and wait. Someonehadcoupons-oopstheypickedthewrongitem-billcanIgetapricecheckplease-canIwritethisfor$10over-mycatheterbagjustexplodeddoyouhaveanytape-Fast forward, I'll tell that story another day. She's pretty. I love her. . . Or love the idea of her anyway. . . Hm? Oh, the little nineteen year old checkout girl I have been staring at. . . You want what? Oh yes, hi! I'm back now! Yes, I'm doing very well thanks, and how are you? Happy holidays to you too! (I'm wearing my Santa hat right now, apparently) Well, actually yes, I was hoping that you guys might carry simple syrup.

Her: *slight pause, as if worried that she might be on candid camera*

Me: 'It's okay if you don't know what it is.'

Her: 'Oh, I know what it is. . . You can make it yourself you know. . .'

Me: 'Yes, yes, I know, but what if you're lazy?'

Me: 'I mean like, if it's only a couple bucks, then. . .'

Her: 'Umm, I don't think we carry that. . .'

Me (meekly): Okay thank you.

I'll just get it at the liquor store. They have all sorts of mixers and oddities at the liquor store. I go into the liquor store, grab my rum, and look around. A plethora of colors and names is all over the mixer shelf. No simple syrup. They've got lime juice, in case I am too lazy to squeeze a lime, but no simple syrup. So I go to the register.

Me: 'Do you guys carry simple syrup'

Her: 'You can make it yourself you know. Two cups of sug-'

Me: 'YES, I know that, but if I didn't want to make it myself, then -'

Her: 'We don't carry that. Two cups of sugar, one cup of water in a pot on the stove. Just boil it.'

Me: 'Okay -'

Her: 'Boiling is when those little bubbles happen at the bottom.'

Me: 'Thanks.'

Her: 'If you put a little bit of maple in it, you can make maple syrup.'

Me: 'Thank you so much.'

Me, inside my head, what I meant to say: 'Jane, you ignorant slut. Bisquick is little more than flour, baking powder, and shortening. I could make that myself too if I really wanted to. And despite being a total alcoholic, I have never, ever, found anything that was begging to be mixed with maple syrup. If I wanted to get in the business of 'making my own', then I would set up a damned (illegal) distillery in my garage and make some tax-free hooch, at which point I could sell mojitos for $1 each and still come out ahead.'

Me: 'Happy Holidays!'

Unfulfilled, I went home and spent the 10 minutes it took to make 750 mls of simple syrup. Maybe it wasn't so bad after all. . .

The songs

Updated 7/1/2010:

I just linked a few parody songs that I made over there to the right. They were lots of fun to do, and I hope you like them.

'Glamorous' is my first ever attempt at a parody song, I think the underlying commentary is pretty clear, so I won't bother going into detail about what it means to me. This song was not, I should stress, directed at Fergie or any other artist in particular.

'Hey There Vagina' is obviously a 'Hey There Delilah' parody. This is my personal ode to the most sacred and sought after of human orifices. If you've never heard the original, then this will sound pointlessly and painfully juvenile. I'm just having some fun though the eyes of my 12-year old self. In my living room. With the lights on.

'Bubbling' was a heat-of-the-moment knee-jerk reaction to the original song being so damn cheerful. It turned out okay, so I decided to post it up.

'Imagine' I took a lot of crap for, because some people made the assumption that I was making fun of John Lennon, when in reality I kinda like his work. I'm more just using that song as a platform for minor hilarity because it seems to lend itself so well to the cause. Hey, you imagine what you want, and I'll imagine what I want.

'Before She Eats' was not a great performance, and was also quite a s t r e t c h for me, vocally speaking - and I'll be the first to admit it. It is what it is, and if you like it great. If it hurts your ears, just move on to the next song and accept my apologies. :)

'Man, I Feel Like a Woman' is obviously a parody of the song made famous by Shania Twain. When the girls go out, the guys get left with the kids obviously. This was a little attempt to capture that flip-side of the equation there. . .

'Casey's Palm' is a parody of Stacy's Mom, as made famous by Fountains of Wayne. Would it be wrong to include two songs about whacking off on an album?

Let's see, what else can I say about them.. Hmmmmm.. They were recorded at home on a Dell laptop, using either a Studio Projects C-1 or a Sennheiser 865 microphone - both of which are fairly low grade, but seem to get the job done. Some guitar work included an SM57 as well. For 'Man, I Feel Like a Woman' and 'Casey's Palm' I used a new MA-200, and slammed it through a Distressor (I've been upgrading, lately). This produces a noticable sound quality difference between those songs and, say, Hey There Vagina. That sound at the very end of 'Hey There Vagina' is my butt sliding off the couch where I was sitting while singing, and had nothing to do with a zipper in any way - as someone has already accused it of being just that.

The album is now entirely written, and includes parodies of Britney Spears, Miley Cyrus, Eminem, Rhianna, Katy Perry, Billy Joel, Elton John, and a slew of others. It's just a matter of finding the time to practice and record everything. :)

Anyway, hope you enjoy the songs, and cheers!

McSick

Do you ever find yourself kinda sick after you finish something that you ordered from McDonalds? It's a particular kind of sick, which I can only relate as being a feeling similar to ingesting an old sweat sock that has been fried in bacon grease, and then waiting for about 5 minutes. I call it 'the McSick'. It doesn't seem to matter what I order, about five minutes later I always feel the same, which makes me wonder why I ever go to McDonalds in the first place. Oh, the fries are ok I guess, the service is usually ok, but why on earth someone would choose to go there as opposed to simply 'ending up' there is beyond me. They have started a suggestive selling campaign out here too, which I find particularly annoying. It usually goes something like this:

Metal Box: 'Welcome to McDonalds, would you like to try one of our McSuper McValue meals today?'
Me: 'No thankyou, could I please get a sweat sock with some fries and a large diet coke?'
Metal Box: 'Certainly! Would you like to add a couple of our McFried Apple McTurnovers to your McMeal? They're only a dollar on our 'What's McNew McValue McMenu'!
Me: ...McNo?
Metal Box: Thankyou, drive through!

I do find it funny that McDonalds has been trying to branch out with new menu items in an effort to stay in the public eye as a fresh and exciting place to visit though. There are, after all, only so many ways to sell hamburger (I question the spelling, as I have never managed to fry a hamburger at home and have it turn out grey - that's a neat trick), chicken parts, and french fries. It's bound to get old-hat sooner or later unless you get creative with the marketing. It's all about creating the most buzz with the least amount of capital expended, right? How about making a new McVick? 'McDonalds is doing their part to help with the unwanted pet population. . .' Nah, that probably wouldn't fly. . .

Childhood Peculiarities

My family was rather poor growing up. Not destitute, not like some of my friends who awoke to fry up (bulk) flour mixed with water and call it pancakes, or spread too much Buttarr ™ on a slice of bread and fold it over and call it a sandwich, just poor enough to encourage a certain amount of creativity when it came to things that some other families apparently took for granted. I did not fully appreciate some of the trials and humor of my own childhood until I met my wife in college many years later.

An example? Sure. My father bought my first car for me and drove it home. Spoiled rich kid you say? Nay, let me explain! As you have probably gathered, the car did actually start, run, and drive, but it was only a car in the academic sense (made of metal, had round things underneath it, etc). In fact, in every literal sense it had spent the past many years of its life as a house instead of a car, as a pack of raccoons had taken up to living inside it. When this happened exactly, I am not sure, but as it was a 1962 Oldsmobile it could have been for nearly the last 30 years at the time. It smelled like about 30 years. A brand new three pack of air fresheners had done nothing but make it smell as if you were sitting in a raccoon den in the middle of the forest instead of in the car. This was enormously helpful, and in retrospect probably explains why I had to wait just a tad longer to get any booty. The floor boards on one side were first rotted, and then rusted through, and you could actually see the street pass under you from small holes on the passenger side. The original color may have been a sickly green, but the exterior rust masked it nicely. My father had found this gem at a local yard sale, parked under a tree, apparently unmoved for quite some time. There was a cardboard sign on it that said ‘Runs Great! $50’ He talked them down to $35. Nevertheless, I was thankful and greatly impressed at 14 to already be the proud sort-of owner of a sort-of vehicle (my father figured it would take me at least a year or two to fix it up anyway). I was the new road king. My friends, okay, friend, would be so impressed, so jealous! Over the next few months we sanded, painted (Big Bird yellow!), changed spark plugs, oil, and other guy stuff. I would post a picture of the good ol' Blonde Bombshell for you to see, but my mother one day declared that it was too much of an eye-sore to remain in the neighborhood, and it was sold. Grrr.

Probably the most stark example of taking these little childhood peculiarities for granted though, was revealed when discussing the possibility of screwing outside, err.. I mean.. camping, with my then future-wife. Go “camping”, with me, in a tent? Okay, fine. Now, my prior childhood experiences with camping go something like this: We all pile into the car and drive for hours until the paved road ends, and then we continue on a gravel road, logging trail, or maybe just making our own way across a flattish piece of ground until it appears unwise to drive any further. Then we get the tent, a hammer, a shovel, and a backpack out of the trunk, and proceed on foot until we’re almost lost. We use the hammer to drive the tent stakes into the ground wherever we end up, hopefully it’s not too rocky. We find a fallen log and use the shovel to dig a hole behind it. That’s the potty. Hopefully there is a lake or river or something nearby to provide food, water, and entertainment (though there is a pack of UNO cards and some freeze dried noodles just in case). There are fishing poles for fishing, and a gun or two for rattlesnakes, cougars, or whatever. We then strike out on a hike, for no particular reason, and end up crowded around a little fire boiling some water from the river (which as it turns out is not entirely sufficient, but luckily my father has brought some military grade iodine tablets with us) to cook the stupid freeze dried noodles, and spend the rest of the afternoon trying to enjoy some stupid view while choking down ‘Iodine Noodles ala Hammy-Dad’. It’s on trips like this that I learn valuable life lessons like, ‘You can eat it, no matter what it is, Son, if you just put salt on it and then plug your nose while you chew.’ Editorial note: this does not work for the Man Sauce. After a couple days of this (sooner if someone gets bit, breaks a thumb, or goes blind in one eye – yes, it happened), we will pack up, bury the hole, and head back to civilization our lives much enriched from the experience.

My wife’s version of camping: If there is no valet service at the state park, then you must find your own parking place. Some of the washrooms can be a little dirty, so bring along your own sanitizer if you venture into one. A rather bland jar of spaghetti sauce can be dressed up nicely if you first sauté some onions and garlic before adding your sauce to the saucepan. Adding a dash of basil and a ¼ cup of whatever varietal of red wine you brought along can make this an extra special treat for the family. The ‘Walk of Wonder’ tour starts promptly at 8pm, and warm hand towels and refreshments will be provided after. . .

We compromised by buying some of those professional marshmallow roasting sticks, instead of whittling down tree branches, and as a reward she introduced me to something called a ‘smore’. Thus began an inexorable decent into a lifestyle of decadence and plenty.

Hammy's Collection

Lest you think I was turned off by my experience at Dixies, I do keep a small inventory of hot sauce around the house. This, plus 6 open bottles in the fridge represent what I am trying out right now. There are sauces representing 4 or 5 continents in my stash, and my personal favorite which I am hoarding the last little bit of right now is called 'African Rhino Peri-Peri Pepper Sauce' from the good folks at Kalahari Pepper Company ( http://hotshotshotsauce.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=99 ). This is not a hot sauce by any stretch of the imagination, but it has a very interesting and unique flavor which lends itself especially well to chicken, though I suspect it would find use in a variety of meat dishes. I plan on getting another bottle shortly. Do you like all the colors? Yes, that bottle of Dave's Insanity sauce is about half gone. Dave's is my standard go-to eatin' sauce when I'm feeling a bit froggy. There's much hotter out there, but Dave's is cheap heat (unlike designer hot sauce). If you spoon enough on, then you'll be fine most of the time. ;)

Hammy Loves Hot Stuff

I love hot stuff. Spicy food. This love is something that has, overtime, developed into somewhat of a bemusement for the people I sometimes eat with. You see, when people learn that someone likes spicy food, their immediate reaction is to recount a tale of the spiciest food that has ever crossed their own lips - all the while trying to hold back a thinly disguised smirk of disdain, as if to suggest that if indeed a lunch date is in order, then you won’t be able to handle it. I have played this game many times. Usually it involves going to a strip mall Mexican joint and trying the salsa, or even more terrifying, chewing the little Chinese red peppers that come in the kungpao chicken. Oh the horror. The horror. Pshaw.

After a few years worth of this rather tedious and predictable nonsense, I decided that the next time I was being taken someplace for the new ‘spiciest food in the world’, I was going to try and see if getting snarky with the help would heat things up a bit. Asking for food ‘extra spicy’, or ‘Thai hot’, or ‘five stars’ or whatever the local expectation is just wasn’t cutting it. So I started ordering nine stars, thirty-seven stars, and ultimately asking if they would just have the cook make it as if they were playing a joke on someone that they didn’t like – and that the desired result would be that the preparation would be so spicy that after one bite, the food would burn a hole through the patron’s soft palate and fall uselessly to the floor where it would sit and smolder for a bit. This is what I ask for, but never get. It’s a neat little show that ultimately goes nowhere, though I appreciate any extra effort that is made on my somewhat twisted behalf.

Now, in 1999 I took a new job and met a guy named Larry. Larry is the proverbial IT geek who was, at the time, divorced and somewhat bitter about it, and in all other aspects your typical pudgy, polo-shirt wearing dufus, bimbling around with no real plan for life. Just like me, really, except that I was a newlywed at the time. I was talking to Larry one day and the subject of spicy food came up, and of course, Larry had a suggestion. I took a moment to sigh a rather strained sigh, peppered here and there with a bit of dread and apathy, before saying ‘Oh. Really. . . Where?’ And Larry says to me: ‘Well, if you like spicy food, we gotta go meet the Man, mmmkay’. And I was like ‘Meet the Man? What are you talking about, this “meet the Man?” (in air quotes)’ Note how the word Man has been capitalized. This is not an oversight, this is called foreshadowing. And Larry goes ‘No, it’s great, there’s this place called Dixie’s BBQ, and they have this guy who goes around with a little pot, putting Man sauce on your BBQ. We should go!’ . . . I stared at Larry kind of hard, trying to figure out where he was going with this. . . ‘Larry’, I said, ‘This isn’t some kind of like, gay bar thing is it, because I .. .’ and Larry laughs. ‘Nope! It’s just a BBQ place’ he says ‘The spiciest BBQ ever! Before it’s over you’ll be saying “COME ON ICE CREAM!”’. Oh good, I am thinking to myself. . . I have never had spicy BBQ before. BBQ just isn’t spicy. It doesn’t have the potential to be spicy, much in the same way that ice cream can’t be spicy. Larry is a bimble-fuck. This was surely going to be the biggest waste of time ever, and then I would have to spend the next 45 minutes telling Larry ‘Oh, yes, this is really great, so good, so spicy. Yum. Yum. Yum. Wish we could come here every day.’ All the while hoping that Larry hasn’t figured out which cubical I sit in. ‘Just one thing’ he says, ‘Remember that ‘Soup Nazi’ episode of Seinfeld? This place is kind of eccentric like the soup nazi’s kitchen was. They get really mad if you don’t finish your food, and for goodness sake, whatever you do, don’t be obnoxious or piss anyone off there, or you may not even live to regret it, mmmkay? I hear he raises wild hogs.’ . . . Smiling a rather guilty smile inside my own head, I assured him that I would behave. Of course I would. . . Who would risk embarrassing themselves by being obnoxious? :) .. ‘course, I am a firm believer in knowing exactly where the line is, and you never really have a good idea where the line is unless you cross it just a little. . .

So lunch time rolls around, and it turns out Larry and I are going to Dixie’s BBQ with Sarah and Justin. Sarah is a child prodigy who wants to work in computers for some silly reason, and Justin is her brute-ish thug of an ex-alcoholic tattoo addict boyfriend. How they got together I will never know, but that’s irrelevant to the story. We all pile into our cars, along with my wife, and go. The place, as it turns out, is situated near the interchange of two freeways and looks similar to an old auto shop. This turns out to actually be the case, as when we pull into the parking lot a sign above the building reads ‘Dixie’s BBQ and Porter’s Automotive’. Nice, I think. This just gets better and better.

Larry leads the way, and there looks to be a line at the door of the place, so we stand at the end and wait. Larry directs us to the menu on the wall, and says ‘You better figure out what you want now, so that you’ll know when you get up there.’ I casually glance up at the wall, and there’s something called a ‘520 special’ (named after one of the highways, naturally) which is a hot link and pulled pork BBQ sandwich. The menu is rather limited, but this looks like a decent bet. It was no sooner than I had picked my sandwich for lunch that I heard a woman with a deep voice around the corner of the line bellow (in a southern drawl) ‘Child, You tellin’ me you been standin’ dare for twenty minutes and don’t know what chu want?! Gene!!! Dis boy don’t know what he want!!’ There was a mumble from the front of the line, and we moved forward yet again. When I rounded the bend I saw a large woman with a scarf over her head and sweat on her brow serving up sandwiches with BBQ meat from steel bins. She looked amused, but in a more serious kind of way than you would think, for some reason. I ordered my sandwich without much trouble, but no drinks were offered. In fact, the only drinks in the entire place were served by a coke machine that took quarters, which I am guessing is really for the guys working on cars on the other side of the wall. I get a soda, and sit down. I start biting. This sandwich is not hot. It’s not bad for a BBQ sandwich, but it’s not even trying to be hot. This is stupid. I look over at Larry and he says ‘Just you wait… Come on ice cream!’ Ahhhh, right, the guy with the little pot, I forgot. I stop eating and wait. I have about 2/3 of my sandwich left, and I am hungry, but still I wait. No guy, no little pot, no love. .. So, naturally I decide to try and speed things along. “I THOUGHT you said there was a GUY with a POT here’ I offered rather not-quietly. Somewhat loudly, but not so loud as to disturb the entire restaurant, more like as loud as your typical idiot talking on their cell phone in line at the grocery store, oblivious to what is going on around them. About that loud. Some nearby patrons stare in wonder. A few giggle. ‘I don’t SEEEEE any POT here, Larry’, I say, before Larry can lunge across the table to cover my mouth. ‘SHHHH, don’t don’t don’t, you’re gonna – ‘ and at that moment someone kicked the swinging back doors to the dining room open. A man with a little pot.

I later learn that his name is Gene, but for now we’ll just call him the man with the pot. The man with the pot seemingly knows where the obnoxious sound has come from and comes marching straight past the other diners and up to our table, puts his foot up on a chair, looks us over, and in a voice not-unlike Boss Hogg (Dukes of Hazard) says ‘Okay. Who da baddest one herr?’ A slight pause ensues. Larry winces. Justin pipes up (go Justin) ‘Gimmie some of that there’ gesturing to the pot. And the man with the pot grins and swirls his little teaspoon around in the pot, drawing out a spoonful of his sauce and slaps it down in the middle of Justin’s sandwich. ‘PAP!’ he says. A table of diners in the corner looks over in amazement, and start whispering among themselves. ‘Okay, who else think dey bad?’ he says. I’ve been waiting for this moment. This is truly the best moment when it comes to being obnoxious about spicy food, the moment where you can ask for something heretofore unheard of and impress everyone. It’s a testosterone thing - don’t ask. Anyway, I had looked over at what the guy put on Justin’s sandwich, and it was a kind of gooey dark red sauce. Looked like it probably had some pepper seeds in it or something, but otherwise looked unremarkable – even like it might just be a different kind of BBQ sauce. And I look the guy with the little pot, dead in the eye, and say ‘Gimmie two scoops!’ And the corner table full of whispers all of a sudden goes ‘ooooooh’, in unison. ‘HAH!’ he says, delightedly, and throws them on my sandwich – ‘PAP!’, ‘PAP!’. ‘You mix dat in there goooood boy. HAH!’ I look over at Larry, who has buried his head in his hands, as if to not wanting to be associated with any of this, or us, but especially me. ‘Oh, no, I’m fine. I have met the man before. But thanks.’ Larry says when offered some sauce.

The man with the pot smiles and goes on to the next table where I hear him bellow ‘Hey, BOY, you ever met the MAN!?’, and I see him take a toothpick out of his pocket and dip the tippy end in his little pot of sauce, and hand it to some guy who then sticks it in his mouth, immediately withdraws it, and then seems anxious to not speak, and leave the room in a rather immediate fashion. I grow a little concerned, seeing this, but not overly concerned – as I have never met anything on this Earth that I couldn’t eat two teaspoons of, much less two teaspoons spread over most of a sandwich. The dining room has quieted. There’s an air of silent anticipation building above the corner table of ‘oooh-ers’. I shan’t disappoint. I bite. . . They wait.

Now, for those of you who don’t know, there are two kinds of heat when you’re talking really spicy foods. There’s the kind that hits you right away, and the kind that builds as you go. This had both. As I chewed my bite I did note that it was quite hot, very hot in fact. Very hot, but not unmanageable, I tell myself. I can do this. I feel a bead of sweat on my forehead, and take another bite. And another. I now have to suppress the urge to hiccup, and I take another bite. My wife, who has been silently enduring this, informs me that my face is getting red. I start to hiccup, and must drain my soda to remedy the condition. Note: This is normal, really, so far. If you eat a habanero pepper, you will likely sweat, maybe hiccup, and get some color in your face. This is to be expected. No big. This is the last thing that I remember clearly. What happened next is a little hazy, as I am still repressing that memory somewhat, but I will recount both what I can remember and piece together based on Larry’s later re-telling of the story.

I turned to my wife and said ‘You know dear, this uh, sandwich is pretty hot. Umm.. Do you have any quarters for another soda?’ My wife, being the nice person that she is, leaves the table to go get another one for me. I take another bite. I am really underplaying this Man sauce as much as I can, as the heat has now built to a point that I have never experienced before. ‘There’s something weird in this stuff’ I say. ‘I’ve heard he uses pepper spray’ Larry says, not altogether un-cheerfully. ‘Pepper spray and brake cleaner from next door’ I joke, trying to make light of the fact that I have no idea what the hell I have gotten myself into. My vision, is in fact starting to blur, and I think I can feel sweat coming from inside my ear canals. I did not know ear canals could do that. I look over at Justin who is a somewhat purplish color and slouching in his chair, his somewhat eaten sandwich waiting for him patiently on the table. ‘So uhh.. How is it?’ I ask. Justin does not answer, but I’m not sure if it’s because he can no longer hear me or if his tongue is too swollen to answer, because I can’t see well enough to tell if his lips are moving. I take another bite, and decide that, in fact, I cannot wait for my wife to get back with another soda, so I reach across the table and take hers and up-end it. And from behind, the familiar voice booms across the room ‘SODA!? Soda ain’t gonna help YOU boy! HAH! How ya dooin’ mister TWO SCOOPS!?’ I groan. Must keep eating. Testosterone won’t allow defeat. Man with pot, pure evil. I take another bite. My wife returns as the echoes from the man’s bellow die out, and she immediately starts bitching me out for drinking her soda while she was gone, but I am not listening to a word she says, as I quite literally and involuntarily snatch the new soda out of her hand and drain that one in one go as well. ‘More’ I manage to spit out, weakly, and with the patience that only a woman who has lived with me for the last five years could have, she turns around and hurries off to procure more soda. The man comes over to our table ‘You boys want some MO’?’ he asks, holding the teaspoon up in mock anticipation. ‘Oh, no’ I think I said. Whatever I said, he seemed to understand it as a response in the negative. I may have been speaking in tongues at that point, I really don’t know. ‘How come you boys stop eatin’? It ain’t half-time yet!’ he growls, and then stomps off to the back of the kitchen again, and through the swinging doors you can hear him bellow, in a rather practiced Muhammad Ali impersonation, ‘I’m a BAAAAAD MAN!’.

I bite. The sandwich cannot even truly be described as ‘hot’ now. It just hurts to put in your mouth, much like sticking a road flare in your mouth would probably hurt. My skin has gone from red to a sickly ashen-grey. I discover that I know exactly where the contours of my stomach are, as they are now strangely sensitive – it’s much higher up in your abdomen than you might think. Larry looks concerned. My wife comes back with an armload of soda, and I immediately drain two more cans, which as the man with the pot predicted, did absolutely nothing to make the pain stop. Now I have to piss too. Excellent. I stand up and see that my shirt is drenched in sweat, and as I cross the dining room I hear the corner table giggling, and in fact it seems as if everyone else has taken an interest in this foolish little display as well. As if they come for lunch every day and wait for a sucker to stop by. I go to the rest room, and see myself in the mirror for the first time (which is how I was aware of my current unusual complexion). It doesn’t look good. I start to pee. And pee. And from outside the bathroom door I hear ‘Where’d two-scoops go!?’ I like to think that it’s because he’s concerned for my safety, and not that his patrons are complaining about the show being over…

Now, for those of you who don’t know, when you chop up or handle hot peppers at home, you usually get some of the pepper oil on your hands, and then you have to wash them with soap to really get it all off. If you forget to do this, and then rub your eyes or whatever, then you’re in for a real nasty surprise. When is the last time you went for BBQ and didn’t get some sauce on your fingers? Never? Where are my hands right now?

Yes! Indeed, I am peeing, and now I’m in deep shit, because I feel the burn starting to set in on mr. winky, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. If I let go, he’s going to douse the whole bathroom, and knowing the man with the pot, he will check up on his beloved bathroom and end up feeding me to his wild hogs or something. If I try to cut off in mid-stream, then I might hurt myself so I try to force the rest out as fast as I can. After what seems a painful eternity, I am finally finished, but please recall that you really need to wash your hands before you handle anything or you’re asking for even more trouble. I wash my hands as fast as I can while dancing around ‘What chu dooin’ in derr, two scoops?’ to control the pain as much as I can and when my hands are finally clean I go to wash mr. winky, and as you may have guessed, mr. winky cannot reach the faucet from any angle around the sink as not only is the sink a little higher up than he is, but he’s doing his best to actively retreat into my body. So I grab the foreskin and pull, and I proceed lean in and jump up and down, trying to splash some soap and water on him. This makes quite a mess as you might imagine, so I ultimately emerge from the bathroom soaked nearly head to toe from the combination of old sweat and new water, to the sheer delight of the other patrons.

My wife has now transformed from the sweet helpful soda goddess that I once knew into the town gossip, telling anyone within earshot that cares about some of the other stupid shit that I have done in my life. She keeps a list. I sit back down at the table. Justin is non-responsive. He may be dead. Mr. winky has not stopped burning yet. I look over at Sarah who has finished her sandwich already, and she is listening intently to a story about how I managed to let a leashed cat outsmart me last week. I ask cautiously, ‘Hey Sarah, can I umm. . . You’re not like, using that empty sandwich box are you? Can I buy it from you?’ No dice. “But you LIKE hot food’ she says. I groan. I can’t eat any more. I can’t really do anything any more. The entire world has become rather kaleidoscopic, and at this point I am actually in fear (and rightly so with so much anatomical self-discovery in the past 20 minutes) that something bad may be happening to my insides. ‘Gimmie two scoops! I want two scoops!’ I look over at Larry, remembering the conversation about not finishing your food, from earlier, and as if right on cue I hear from the other side of the room: ‘You boys don’t be wastin’ that food now! No sah!’

‘Oh, we’re all done here’ says Sarah, as I hastily close up my sandwich box and try to fake a smile. The man with the pot comes over to our table and opens my sandwich box, and shakes his head in shame and waits for me to speak. But I can’t speak anymore. I had eaten the sandwich down until about ¼ of it was left, but I could go no more. It was over, and the man with the pot had won. Whether as a show of pity, or concern over someone dying from the food, the man with the little pot decided to let me take the rest of my sandwich home in a doggy bag, which my wife assured him that she would make me eat. I do not think that he doubted her at that time. She piled me into the car and drove home. I briefly (and seriously) considered asking her to take me to the hospital instead of home, because my body still wasn’t right. Ultimately we decided to go home and see what happened over the next few hours. Eventually, later that day, things thankfully returned to a normal, if not slightly more enlightened state.

Now, those of you who have not had the opportunity to experience a really spicy food before may think that this story is over, but it’s not, because anything that you put in your body is eventually going to come back out – and surprisingly, hot sauce going in = hot sauce coming out, with only the sandwich changing to any appreciable degree. So I’m driving to work the next morning, and it starts. There’s a gurgle, a tiny utterance of protest, and then gas. A tiny amount of gas. Hardly worth mentioning, and since I am both male, and in the car by myself, I just go ahead and let it go. Who cares. You do it too, you know you do. Anyway, a few seconds after that event, the ‘Boyz’ start burnin’. It started off as a slow, rather pleasant warming sensation that I initially attributed to the aforementioned gas, but being that this gas had nowhere to disperse quickly, and being that it was really the man sauce gas of death in disguise, the boyz went from warm to scrotum-tearing hot in about six seconds flat. This was NOT good, being as I was driving, and there was even more gas threatening to come at any minute. I had to go home. Nay, I had to race home, the kind of race where your illegal u-turn carves a groove into the asphault and you effectively cut the life of your tires in half. The kind of race where you don’t care that the light is red, and you don’t even check for cops before you run it. That kind of race. I raced home, hard. Threw open the door and got situated just in the nick of time. I will spare you the gruesome details, but suffice to say it was absolute madness. As a depilatory, I cannot recommend this particular procedure highly enough. So I’m sitting there, and burning, and I do the only thing that seems natural – call Larry.

*ring ring*

Larry: Yellow?

Me: Aw! Gawd! Ahhh! My ass!

Larry: Yup, that man sauce will get you good in the end. Heh. Heh.

Me: Shut up Larry!! How the hell do you make this stop?

Larry: Mmmm. I think it’s time to say ‘come on ice cream!’

Me: Ahhh, it burns!! It burns!! What he hell do you mean come on ice cream, what the hell is eating ice cream going to do for me Larry goddammit, it would take hours to get down there!

Larry: Mmmm.. Never said you were supposed to eat it . . .

Me: …

Larry: Come on ice cream?

Me: COME ON ICECREAM !!!