It all started with "The Princes Bride". It is one of my favourite movies despite Steven Seagal not being on it. Still, it is worth seeing. It is, from IMDB: "A classic fairy tale, with swordplay, giants, an evil prince, a beautiful princess, and yes, some kissing". In one of the scenes you can see the main character has to win in intelligence and logic: a "battle of wits". Basically he puts poison in one of two goblets and lets the bad guy decide who is going to drink from each one.
The bad guy, Vizzini, starts a logical reasoning about if it was safe to drink from the glass in front of him or not. In the end he chooses one and ... mystery ... emotion ... it had poison on it and he dies! Basically the hero wins because he had put poison in both goblets as he had spent the past year building up an immunity to that particular type of poison.
So ... do you see it coming? Why is this post titled "Birthday, The Princes Bride and Chillies"?!? I already explained the Birthday part ... just explained about the Princes Bride movie part ... So yes, you are right: one evening when I was cooking somehow I though it would be a great idea to build an immunity to chillies the same way the hero from the Princes Bride built an immunity to poison ... If it happened in a movie, it could clearly happen in real life! ... If you don't know me, right now, you might think that it just was my fourteenth or fifteenth birthday. Wrong ... you have to double that ... and still add some more! :-D
It all started quite well: in my local supermarket I would buy packs of diced pickled chillies and start eating some aside with each meal. I like hot food so I was already quite used to it. Still, it took some "sessions" to have my mouth completely immunised to chillies. Next step was getting the throat and nose used to them. So, some more sessions and I could eat a considerable amount of chillies without any tears at all. The plan was going great! Then I realised that I had to get the stomach itself used to digesting the chillies, so a few more weeks of eating quite a lot of chillies and I had my stomach strong as a rock! I was ready to go to any Mexican restaurant and order the hottest food and leave all my friends crying in tears trying to eat the same, or only by them sitting next to me. The immunity plan was a success ... or so I thought.
Next it was one of those Fridays I had nothing to do. The plan was just to relax a bit and watch TV. When preparing dinner I saw that I had a full pack of diced pickled chillies unopened ... tempting ... that was the opportunity I had been looking for: the final test! So, I started eating chillies one by one until I finished off the entire packed. Something like 250g of chillies, about half a pound. The best thing is that I was perfectly OK: no tears, I didn't have to run for water (or milk, a professional chilli consumer knows that water does not help at all) or any of the other nasty effects of chillies and hot food. So I was happily laying in bed watching TV thinking how amazing I was for building an immunity to chillies like in the Princes Bride and how could I best use my new "super power" ... when ... all of a sudden ... the chillies started abandoning the stomach to make its way trough the rest of my digestive system. Oh oh ... that part of the body hadn't been tested yet ... and even less with about half a pound of hot chillies poured there all at once! It was the worst sensation I have ever experienced, I can tell you that it felt like being on fire from the inside! And the worst thing: what could I do? Drinking milk or throwing up would not help as it all had already past the stomach ... there was still some time to wait until it reached the other end ... so ... the worst two or three hours of my life! :-D I could feel every single corner of my intestines! I was in foetal position without daring to move all time long. The worst part is that you can feel them reaching the bottom part of your belly ... and then going up again so you know that they are in still for quite some time! Noooooooooo! All time long leaving your insides with a burn sensation that lasted for quite some hours afterwards.
And there is nothing you can do ... well, I could have called a doctor:
- What is the problem?
- I was building and immunity to chillies after watching the Princes Bride ... is there something that could help?
- Yes: here I have some pills against stupidity, please take them all at once!
So I thought I would better save me the embarrassment ... and instead post it on the Internet ... those pills again, can I have some?!? ...
One of the worst ideas I had for quite some time!
So, my gift to you is a story, hopefully a smile (if not a loud laugh) and a recommendation: Don't do it at home ... don't do it at all anywhere! :-D
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