Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Johnte's Inferno (subtitle: How much does that burn?)

Buenos dias chicos y chicas!

I am on the beach in gorgeous Cabo San Lucas.  JMac squared + MiniMac rolled in Saturday am with my little brother, HP.  This grandiose trip has been planned for over a year and oh, my, I do love a sandy beach and a delicious cocktail.  By the way, I am not a day-drinker so I am fine with one single delicious cocktail during daylight hours.

In planning for the trip, JMac has secured a gorgeous multi-bedroom penthouse for our crowd. LOVE IT. We had the best time here last trip and of course, a few stories resurfaced.  Long ago I told a story of my fabulous husband and his cross-up with fire. Here to delight you is a recap:

Last trip to Cabo, our posse of five rolls into a truly authentic Tortilleria on old San Jose del Cabo. So authentic in fact, our college sophomore level of Spanish doesn't get us past pollo, bisteca, and camaron. The entire place is inhabited by only locals except for us. We love authentic cuisine and sought out a place recommended to us and when we came across this joint, oh, even better. Since we were going to end up with who knows what on plates, I did seek the help of two American ex-pats and we end up ordering some of the best food we ate in Mexico.

All great, right?

With the fifteen plates brought to our tables (those boys were hun-gry) came a bowl of peppers. You don't need to be fluent in la lingua to know peppers are peppers. That is what your vision is supposed to help you with. If those peppers have been soaking in some Mexican au jus, you better proceed with caution. We love the spicy, so no one is afraid to test the waters.

Now, JohnnyMac already had a bit of dispute with a pepper on a previous night, and sweat was almost coming out of his eyeballs. I have a fantastic threshold for the spicy so I dig in and am not affected a bit.  JMac prepares to play pepper roulette from the bowl of jalapenos, cayennes, serranos, and a few mystery peppers.

First pick, probably a serrano which you may know has significantly more capsaicin than your average jalapeno. So on the "Oooooo that's hot" scale (aka Scoville), Serrano will hurt your feelings if you try to be too sassy. And even if you are the world's best pepper eater, and you love spicy food, and you can eat anything, careful, these peppers are not comparable to what you might purchase at your local Publix grocery.

With a few burning, stinging tongues, we enjoy our meal and as JohnnyMac dips back in the bowl of fire, I remind him that no part of his fingers shall touch our precious child's face, arms, legs, or hands. I say this because our son wants nothing more than to sit on Daddy's lap. JMac mildly scoffs at me as if I need a reminder he didn't just become a Daddy on the way to the Tortilleria.

We are wrapping up, and JohnnyMac goes to take a restroom break but first hits the wash basin sitting on the side of the restaurant. Ahhh, in Mexico when devouring peppers, wash hands FIRST before going to the lav. So smart, Senor!

JohnnyMac returns and we are all midway through some funny story when he blushes ( I think...I wasn't entirely sure but his face got RED). He then excuses himself. When he returns, he painfully admits that he apparently transferred some of that capsaicin from his hand onto his organ. What? I am sorry, what did you do? You got hot pepper on your business?

Later when I told a friend this story (over guffaws after guffaw) she asked me if perchance JMac had been drinking all day? No. Confused? No.

Thorough with his hand-washing? Another NO.

So we watch as JMac turns multiple shades of I-yi-yi-yi-yi because he has peppered up his peeper. My oh MY, the jokes we launched at him couldn't come fast enough. His poor midsection was contorting like a Mexican version of Cirque du Ole' and once I knew it wouldn't fall off, I could do nothing more than laugh laugh laugh laugh laugh.

We got in the car and heading back, after laughing some more, basically in his face and at his expense, I asked if there was anything I could do to help.

He replied from a still contorted position, "I need to return to our place and place my _______ in a bucket of ice." 

Now that, is some holy pepper. Pay heed all who follow in these footsteps. Now, an hour later or so I knew he had fully, ahem, recovered when he turned to me and said, "You have my permission to blog about this."

Oh honey, I had half of it written in my head in the first 10 minutes. This gives "en fuego" a whole new meaning.

Watch yourselves and have a gorgeous week. 

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like a very spicy vacation, in more ways than one!

Unknown said...

I think the phrase "laughing out loud" was made for this story!! Brilliantly told :)

Chain Stitch Crochet said...

lol. Poor JMac.

vanilla said...

Ay, yi, yi, indeed.

Candice said...

Haha...too funny! Enjoy your vacation!!

webb said...

Please take my word for this... You should have added your lovely self to the list of things that he was not allowed to touch until every teeny, tiny bit of pepper was gone, baby, bone. Please .... take my word for it!!

GunDiva said...

At least you didn't let him touch YOU!

I'm still wiping tears from my eyes - thanks :)

Unknown said...

That is hysterical! Poor JohnnyMac!