Treacherous Vegetables

This story is about unadulterated misery. 

I love miniature things.  Miniature anything.  I love babies because they are mini people.  I love baby animals for the same reason.  I love mini flowers.  I love mini office supplies.  I really love mini food.  It’s just so adorable! OMG! It makes me so happy. I kind of freak out any time I see something adorable—especially mini food.  So a while back I was in the grocery store with a friend standing in front of a giant display of different colored bell peppers when I noticed a little basket of tiny orange bell peppers.  Yes!! I freaked out. They were so cute and I’ve never seen mini bell peppers before. I was so excited. 

Then my friend turns to me and says, “I think those are habanera peppers.”  I deflated like a punctured tire. I stuck out my lip in a pout.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m pretty sure.” 

“Okay I’ll taste one.”  My friend thought this was a bad idea. I ignored him. I picked up the questionable vegetable and pinched off a corner and ate it. 

“Nothing.” I shrugged, “Tastes like a bell pepper.”

“Huh. I guess it’s a bell pepper.”  I got eight. 

I should’ve known something was up when I couldn’t find their picture or price at the self-check out.  I rang them up as normal bell peppers so it came out to like $.24 for the whole lot. That I was stealing from Stop and Shop occurred to neither of us.  Oops.

So I took my little peppers home and admired them for several days before I decided to use them in an omelet.  I got out my mushrooms, onions, cheese and tiny bell peppers and started chopping away.  I saved my little peppers for last to prolong the amount of time I could grin about how adorable they were.  Then finally I had to chop them up and I did—with no gloves of course.  Who needs gloves to chop bell peppers?  I chopped and seeded all eight peppers, diligently scrapping the seeds out with my thumbnails. Yes.  That happened. 

Anyway, as I neared the end of my chopping session a small paper cut on the top of one of my fingers started to burn. Humph. Weird, bell peppers don’t usually . . . I barely touch my tongue to a slice of pepper. Oh shit.

Cut to: I have just vigorously washed my hands eight times when I feel a twitch near my eye and instinctively tug at it with the side of my pinky finger.  Chaos ensues.  I almost drown myself rinsing my eyes because it’s not like I can use my PEPPER SOAKED HANDS to wash them out! I believe that I actually went blind and that God miraculously healed me at some point during the commotion.  And this just proves that God is gracious because yelling “GODDAMNIT!” isn’t exactly the same as praying, “Merciful Savior, heal me please.”  Anyway, that’s most likely what happened.  I can’t actually remember; that’s just my best guess. 

As soon as I was able to see again I googled how to get habanera out of your skin.  Listen.  I took every piece of advice I could find.  It took half a bottle of dish soap, a bowl of lemon juice, a bowl of oatmeal, three bowls of milk, half a can of coffee grounds and twenty-four hours before my hands finally quit burning.  I thought I would really have to take my poor thumbs to the hospital. I scraped. the seeds. out of eight. habanera peppers. with. my. THUMBNAILS! And after hours of washing my hands in ever more desperately inventive ways, I gave up and sat in my bed with my thumbs resting in two little bowls of milk and cried as I tried to think of a time in my life that was even a little bit more pathetic than that moment.  I came up with nothing.  I have never felt so betrayed by a vegetable. 

I can only praise Jesus, God and Allah that I found out those little sacks of hell-fire were not bell peppers before I bit into an omelet full of them.  I don’t think my insurance covers tracheal replacement surgery. 

Since I was having guests the next day, I decided to use the peppers in a pot of Courtbullion but I didn’t cut back on the cayenne either. Luckily, my guests were all Southern or Korean and perfectly happy about the level of spiciness.  That Courtbullion would’ve blown a Bostonian’s head off.

All that to say, I think there is an important lesson here to be learned—LABLE YOUR FRACKING PRODUCE STOP AND SHOP!!