Hotter than Hot

It was a number of years ago now that I experienced something no man, woman or child should experience. Granted, this wasn't of a grisly, perverse or scarring nature, but BOY was it something else.

I'm one of several in a family that, to say the least, enjoys spicy food. Maybe we don't go with Thai hot every day, but we can very much hold our own. Give me a plate of hot wings, I'll eat the whole thing without batting an eye. You say "this sauce is INSANE!" I say "gimme a shot." I have drank hot sauce shots on a dare... but that's enough lead in.

There's this restaurant in town, or at least there was. It was called Munchies 4/20, and it was open from 4:20pm to 4:20am. They served the kind of food you might expect, but multiplied by a thousand and cranked up to eleven. We're talking one sandwich inside of which there was a double cheeseburger, chicken strips, potato wedges, mozzarella sticks, mac and cheese, ranch, cheddar sauce and bacon... and that's just ONE of the choices on the menu. One of the other choices? The wing challenge.

So the original Munchies is located in Sarasota. This happened to be a branch that opened here in Gainesville, and it did pretty well for a while before it shut down. I digress. Their wing challenge is so nasty... it's 20 bucks for ten wings, and they take a LOSS every time someone tries it. Not every time someone wins - trust me... NOBODY wins with this challenge - but every time someone TRIES. So what's on these (REALLY) bad boys? First, they're fried up to perfection... then they're rolled in a habanero seed paste... then they're drizzled with ghost pepper concentrate. Yes. Concentrate. This stuff is black and oily, and costs about $200 a bottle. The bottle only holds a few ounces, and they DRIZZLE this stuff on your wings.

For a while I had been saying I'd do this challenge. I talk big game, and for the most part... I can back it up. Then one night I was there when someone tried the challenge. I was excited to see what happened, especially when the owner told me the average amount of wings taken down was "two." So this kid steps up to bat... BOOM. He starts chowin down. It takes him a while to get through the first wing, and you can see RIGHT away that he's in pain. He gets it down... he's sweating... he's snotting... he's swearing... he's crying... he's hurting. I feel for this dude. He gets through half of his second wing before he's throwing up and convulsing. He's screaming in pain, "IT'S NOT WORTH IT! IT'S NOT WORTH IT! OH GOD, IT'S NOT WORTH IT!" His friends retrieve a blanket to drape around his shoulders, and can see him still shaking ten minutes later when they leave the restaurant and walk down the street.

A few minutes pass and the plate of untouched wings is still there... I along with a few others bravely sign medical waivers so we can taste the sauce because... ya know... it's mandatory. I grab a paper towel and wrap the base of the wing with it because I don't want to touch something that spicy and touch something else **ahem** a little later, only to feel a tingly burning sensation that all us gents have been through at some point or another, amiright? Anyway... the time has come.

I take my first nibble, about as small as I feel necessary just to get a taste of this stuff. I know I can usually hang, but having firsthand seen someone weep in pain over this stuff five minutes before, I'm apprehensive to say the least. First bit hits my tongue and I chew. Immediately, I can feel the heat explode in my mouth. This... is... hot. Hotter than hot. It's BLAZING hot. I set the wing down and nod my head, "Yeah, that's pretty darn hot." That's when the owner looks at me and says "Oh, you didn't even try the hot stuff." I look down. "It's that black oily lookin' stuff, isn't it..." "Yup." I reach down with a pinky to touch the tip to the stuff so I can taste it. Before my finger touches, the owner says "Oh, don't touch it. It'll burn your skin."

This is the point at which I seriously question my decision. For real... just touching this stuff will burn my skin? If I shouldn't let it touch my skin WHY in the HELL should I EAT IT!? He unravels the paper from a straw and touches the tiniest amount to the end. Less than a drop. Less than a tenth of a drop. It's about drop size for an ant, and that's even being generous. He and my friends look at me in anticipation. My heart is pounding... I can feel my pulse in my chest. I touch it to my tongue and slide my tongue a couple times across the roof of my mouth. Nothing. No flavor, no heat, no nothing... this is probably a bad sign, isn't it?

Remember how I said I could feel my pulse in my chest? I could now feel it in my mouth. Past the point of heat, past the point of pain, past the point of comprehension, 0-60 in a fraction of a second, my mouth was now numb and pulsating. I could feel my heart beat in my teeth. I could feel my muscles tense in my jaw. I could feel... fear. I ran to the soda fountain and filled my little water cup with water and took it down. rinse and repeat. rinse and repeat. rinse and repeat. rinse and repeat. It made no difference. This was torture, and I hadn't even taken a full bite. Now I see why two wings out of ten is the average. I don't know how the other sadists who signed waivers are faring, but I'm not doin' so hot (budum tsssss). Over the course of an hour where I'm slowly sipping this cold water, holding sip at a time in my mouth before swallowing and refueling, the feeling in my mouth slips from numbness and pulsation, to the worst spice pain I've ever felt mixed with throbbing, to a slightly lesser level of that until after about an hour... it just hurts. My mouth... just... hurts.

It wasn't a fun experience, and I'm really glad I didn't do the full challenge. In the words of that kid who DID try (trooper... truly, he was a trooper)... IT'S NOT WORTH IT!