Confessions of a Fire-Breathing Brontosaurus

I used to be obsessed with hot wings. I would order them at the highest level of spiciness offered in a restaurant, usually extra spicy with fire sauce, a side of death, and a stack of napkins to cry into. The waiters always raised their eyebrows and asked me if I knew how powerful extra hot really was, to which I would arrogantly respond, “I think I can handle it.” My personal chicken wing philosophy at the time: If it doesn’t make you cry, it’s not worth it.

In high school, one of those school magazines that recognize precocious young artists printed a poem I wrote, a passionate sonnet to the chicken wing called “Chicken’s Kiss.” My passion wasn't limited to tasty birds, however. I had an impressive assortment of hot sauces lined up in my refrigerator, like Dinosaur Duels the Devil hot sauce. The label depicted a fire-breathing brontosaurus sword fighting Satan. Sometimes I dribbled hot sauce on a bowl of ice cream because I liked to eat my pain for dessert.

In college, I stopped eating meat. Hot wings were removed from the dietary equation, but my cravings for foods that burn only multiplied. I couldn’t even take a whiff of the dining hall air on Wacky Wing Wednesday without my mouth watering. I flipped open a Thai food takeout menu searching for answers and discovered drunken noodles, a sort of string bean and bell pepper stir fry with a spicy sauce speckled with Thai chilies.

Every Thai restaurant menu has a spiciness scale of one to five chilies, with one chili representing mildly spicy (or American spicy, as Thai folks surely call it) and five chilies indicating Thai spicy. One might notice, scanning through a menu, that there are no more than two chilies in a row beside the titles of spicy dishes. Sure, two chilies on the scale of one to five (Mexican spicy?) is pretty hot, but it seemed important to experience the particular burn of five chilies for myself.

The Thai food restaurant in the area where I grew up used to employ a totally Thai staff. Smiling Thai women in traditional Thai garb used to pour our Thai tea and bring us complementary Thai soup. Then all of the Thai ladies were slowly replaced with white guys in button-up shirts. One day, while out to lunch with Dave, I asked one of the waiters if I could have the drunken noodles at the highest level of spiciness.

“Are you sure?” he asked wryly. “That’s really hot.” I assured him that I could handle it.

When my meal arrived, I ate half of the plate with my eyes streaming and lips burning. I must have downed five or six glasses of water. It was glorious.

“I hope you’re enjoying that,” Dave said, watching me sob into my napkin.

Homemade salsa became another source of spicy indulgence. My brother and I would stay up late chopping up tomatoes from the garden and variety boxes of hot pepper from the farmer’s market. The first time I cut a jalapeno, I ingeniously used my bare hands. The acid got under my fingernails, singed my skin, and sizzled into the wee hours of the morning.

Following advice from a forum I found from a Google search, I soaked my hands in straight-up white vinegar, scrubbed them with dish soap in the hottest water my hands could stand, and washed them in ketchup. In the end, I drifted into an uneasy sleep in bed with plastic baggies full of ketchup tied over my hands.

It’s funny to think that a jalapeno, barely spicy enough to tickle my taste buds, could cause so much agony on my skin and I can only imagine what hot peppers do to my internal organs. Why do I eat these things and why do I enjoy them? There certainly is a hint of masochism to adoring spicy food.

Last night, Dave refilled our jars of curry and red pepper flakes while I did the dishes. He peered into the enormous bag of red pepper flakes and took a sniff.

“Red pepper smells really weird,” he said. He brought the bag to me. “Smell this.”

Dave accidentally squeezed the bag and a red pepper flake popped into my eyeball. It felt like fire under my eyelid. Wailing, I ran to the bathroom and doused my eye with cold water to get the pepper flake out, but the burning sensation lingered. Once my eye cooled down enough for me to see, Dave consulted the internet, finding amusing anecdotes about people burning themselves with hot peppers and how to keep cats out of your garden with a barrier of red pepper flakes. The burning stopped before “how to get red pepper flakes out of my girlfriend’s eye” turned up with any useful answers.

Somehow, after all of this, I’m not in the least put off by hot peppers. I’m am no less interested in a plate of Thai food or a salsa that needs to be chased with twenty gallons of cold water. Recently, I read in a nutrition book that cold-blooded, reptilian monsters like me crave spicy food to warm our bodies and increase circulation to our extremities, which explains a lot. But it doesn't explain why I’m drawn to food that makes me cry.

You Mean Business

I'm judging you.

If you’re like me, you’re a neurotic woman who spends several days before a job interview anxiously clicking through dozens of contradicting videos on Youtube about how to dress for a job interview. Look no further, for I will summarize it all for you here.

BUY A SUIT

She's doing it all wrong. WHERE ARE THE PINSTRIPES?

First, you will need to buy an expensive, black, pinstriped suit. Pinstripes trigger psychological impulses in your brain that make you more ambitious. Get that suit professionally tailored by a seamstress because you mean business. The suit should have a skirt because you’re a woman, unless you’re a woman who would prefer to wear pants. A dress would be even more formal, and therefore better, because it shows that your dressing for the job you want.

Wear a plain white button-up shirt underneath the suit, because anything else might be considered a brazen display of personality. And save the cleavage for the club, skankmuffin! When the interviewer is yawning under a flickering desk lamp of despair at two in the morning deciding whether or not to employ you, you want her to imagine you as a blurry, floating head and not the girl who wore a pink shirt. Remember, this isn’t Legally Blonde. This is your dismal life.

DON'T LET THIS BE YOU!

And whatever you do, don’t show up in nicer clothes than the person who is interviewing you. If you find that your interviewer enters the room a frumpy expensive suit, quickly saw a run in your pantyhose with a Swiss army knife and deposit your accessories into a nearby potted plant before she imagines that you think you’re better than her. Turn that ambition down a notch, tiger!

WEAR BORING SHOES

You should wear high heels – but not the same ones you wear to the Jersey Shore, silly! They should be plain, professional, black heels. You should definitely wear panty hose under those heels, but keep in mind that this will only impress old people. If your interviewer is under the age of thirty-two, she will cross you off of her list as soon as she sees your panty hose and begin composing a saccharine rejection email while you explain why you’re leaving your current position. And while you are sobbing next to the silent phone a week later, your interviewer will be at that the office making fun you with the free-legger she hired instead. They will all judge you.

ACCESSORIZE

Wear accessories! Show your personality! Woo! But keep in mind that your accessories will be judged mercilessly. Stick to chunky bracelets. No one is ever offended by chunky bracelets.

I hate chunky bracelets. I stopped listening to you fifteen minutes ago.

HATS

No.

LEAVE THE PURSE AT HOME

Remember, a purse is just one more thing that an interviewer can make subjective judgments about. Do you think you should bring the big ol’ hobo bag with your entire life in it? An interviewer might assume that you’re a kleptomaniac who casually shoplifted a purse full of bat-wing tops from the Forever 21 on your way to the office. Do you think you should carry in a little clutch containing your keys and cell phone? The interviewer will probably assume that you wore it to a high school dance and couldn’t be bothered to procure a purse that is appropriate for a job interview. How will you know if your purse is job interview-approved? Condoleeza Rice will come to you in a dream and deliver you a plate of homemade fudge. If this has never happened to you, you do not have the right purse.

But how do you carry your keys without a purse? Swallow them and regurgitate them after the interview. You know, like a fugitive! You can have the festering stomach lesions stitched up once you have a job with healthcare benefits.

HOW TO CARRY YOUR RESUME

Some people think they need a large purse to carry their resume. Instead, carry your resume in a briefcase. But keep in mind that a briefcase is just one more thing that an interviewer can make subjective judgments about. You can carry the resume in your hand.

IT’S RAINING

If it’s raining, don’t go to the interview. Rain makes interviewers irritable, so they probably won’t hire you unless they decide that you’re even more dedicated for coming in during a downpour. No, you can’t wear galoshes. Still carry your resume in your hand because if you really want that job, then the force of your tremendous will and ambition will be enough to keep it crisp and dry.

You're resume may be dry, but that's still a pink shirt.

YOU’RE SICK

Don’t go to a job interview sick. Coughing up blood will make your interviewers irritable, so they probably won’t hire you unless they decide that you’re even more dedicated for exposing the entire office to tuberculosis. You could cancel, but keep in mind that they probably won’t reschedule. You didn’t really want to write television advertising copy directed towards children anyways, did you?

We learned something important today.