It Came From Chinatown...

You know that voice in the back of your head that pops up when you're about to do something stupid? It says things like, "Hey, maybe you shouldn't do three more shots and then ask the bouncer if he's got a staring problem," or, "perhaps it would be unwise to escort home the girl who keeps scratching her crotch and appears to have missed a spot while shaving around her Adam's apple." I'm sure you're all familiar (I assume the readers of ZFS! are deviants, to one degree or another). Anyway, I bring it up because this edition of ICFC is all about what happens when you ignore that little voice; it's about doing incredibly stupid things and the consequences that immediately follow. It's also, it should be noted, the first time that ICFC has moved beyond the fun, informative world created by Andrew Zimmern on Bizarre Foods and into the retarded, painful badlands of Johnny Knoxville's Jackass.

First, a little backstory. As I'm sure you all know, the way that ICFC generally works is that, while Girlfriend is attending to her Grad School education, she selects and purchases the product for me to choke down for your amusement. This has worked well, I think, and so it always shall be. Except for during weeks like this one... Girlfriend, stuck hosting parent/teacher conferences all of Monday night, wasn't able to make it in to Chinatown. Which was totally cool... her job is like actually important... so I offered to take charge this go around. I figured, hey, how hard could it be to find some sort of weirdo crap to eat? I'll pop down on my lunch break, pick up something wacky, and all will be good in the hood.

So, keep that in mind; it means that I have absolutely no one to blame but myself for what happened after I ate a straight, unadorned handful of... Dried Chili Peppers



You can almost see the little voice in the back of my brain going, "Dude, what the fuck are you thinking?!?!" Now, look, I like spicy food... I dig Mexican food, I dig hot sauce, I dig all your basic salsas and srirachas and pico de gallos and all of that good stuff. In fact, that's the sort of food that I tend to gravitate towards. Which is how I found myself in an Asian market's "sauces and spices" aisle with another voice in my head piping up, one that was louder than my protective voice and also quite possibly drunk: "Hey douchebag... you haven't eaten any spicy food for ICFC yet and, hey, you're not a pussy are you, C-dog... huh, are you??? No, you're not. You're from Texas and jalapenos are like kisses from a beautiful lady. You'll be fine, panty-waist. Buy the dried chilies. Buy them motherfucker."

So I did. What's the worst that could happen?



I could smell the heat. It was a musky vapor coming off of them like rising swamp gas or the smoke effects at a hair-metal concert. As soon as they were out of the bag and on the plate, I knew... knew... that this was going to suck beyond all rational thought or comprehension. The only logical thing at this juncture would have been to throw the peppers away, postpone ICFC again, and find something that wouldn't make me pray for the sweet release of a quick, painless death.

But of course, I am not one prone to logic:

Crunchy, papery, and completely flavorless... a little dusty, maybe... certainly very dry. They reminded me of what it would feel like to eat those husks of exoskeleton that locusts leave clinging to trees after they molt. For about two seconds, I thought that maybe it wouldn't be a problem. Maybe these peppers were like super mild or something. Maybe... oh... OH...

OH HOLY SHIT!!!

I spat out the chewed pulp as quickly as I could, but it was too late. The fire hit my mouth like a runaway, two-ton garbage truck smashing an old lady at a crosswalk. The oil, the capsaicin, coated my tongue and my lips like napalm shat from Satan's asshole. My whole face lit up like an arson Christmas tree on the surface of Mercury. It felt like a hot, steel boot stomping on my face. It felt like rage, anger, suffering and the exploding of the Death Star, all centrally located inside my head.

How many more ways can I described a tasteless, mean sort of pain? There was no depth to these peppers; no layers of complexity or notes of soil or chocolate or fruit. There was only the Hindenburg disaster and The Great Chicago Fire and the bombing of Dresden and whatever comet crashed into the Earth, killing off the dinosaurs. To paraphrase Ralph Wiggum, it tasted like burning. I escaped to the kitchen, unsure of my next move, but trying I think in a vague, primal sense to outrun the pain. It didn't work:

That's what regret looks like at it's purest, most base form.

Know this, though. I have learned my lesson. That voice in the back of my head? It shall henceforth be heeded like nobody's business. It knows all. It is wise. It only wants the best for me. To not listen is to invite a serial killer into your home to check out your knife collection. Or, more accurately, to not listen is to find yourself standing in your boxers, chugging a half-gallon of milk while flipping off a camera and internally pleading with a God you don't believe in to just make it stop, please just stop:

I'm sorry you all had to see that (me in my underwear, I mean).

Next week, back to the good kind of ICFC. The kind where we learn stuff and it's all goofy and high-fives and the corpses of my tongue and lips aren't strew across the battlefield of my apartment by the end of it. Maybe we'll do something in a bland yogurt, or a pale, thin gruel. Lukewarm tap water comes from Chinatown, after all.

Anyway, see y'all then!!!

NOTE: I just want to give a special shout-out to Girlfriend for taking some spectacular pictures this week. If they gave out Pulitzer Prizes for photographing your stupid boyfriend being an idiot, she'd be a hands-down lock for the win.