“Amy, is that you?” May asked, peeking her head out of her room. “Why are you holding a gallon of milk and a box of Saltines?”
It was my sophomore year at college, and while my fellow classmates were busy studying for finals, I was training for our local taqueria’s first hot-pepper–eating contest, knocking back as many habanero peppers as I could before passing out. I didn’t have any career plans then and must’ve changed my major at least a dozen times, but the idea of becoming a hot-pepper–eating champion put a fire under my ass, the likes of which I would never experience again. Rather than concocting some elaborate story as to why I was pacing our dorm at midnight while completely sober, I decided to confess my aspirations of becoming Boston’s first hot-pepper–eating champion.
“And what is the grand prize for winning this thing? Money? Jewels? George Clooney?”
“A bottle of tequila.”
“Patron?”
“Cuervo Gold.”
“Oh, Amy.”
“And a T-shirt! Everyone gets a T-shirt.”
I ignored May’s obvious repulsion at what was sure to be my crowning achievement in life. What her feeble mind couldn’t grasp was that I was not in this thing for the bottle of tequila. I was in it for the glory. I couldn’t just eat hot peppers in anonymous merriment; I had to be the best.
On the day of the contest, I was feeling confident. I walked into the taqueria with May and took a look around at my competition. My stomach dropped. It was me, a pasty white kid, and a group of 15 burly men all sporting “Eat Fire or Die” shirts. I was in trouble.
I took my seat next to the pasty white guy. In front of us was a plate and a giant glass of milk.
The kid perked up. “Hey! Washing down the peppers with milk will make this thing a lot easier!”
“This is my first hot-pepper contest, but I’m pretty sure you take a drink when you give up upon realizing the fire in your mouth is causing permanent damage.”
The kid looked at me with the fear of a thousand hot peppers in his eyes. At least I would not be the first one out.
Our first pepper was the rather tame jalapeno. I swallowed it easily and looked over to my friend. His eyes were bulging; he clutched his throat with one hand and took in huge gulps of milk with the other. I quickly covered my mouth, pretending to be in pain from the jalapeno to cover my smirk.
The peppers got increasingly hotter. We went through Scottish Bonnets, Hungarian Hots, Taiwanese Tongue Numbers (I might’ve made that last one up as I was going slightly deaf by that point), until we reached the granddaddy of them all at the time: the deadly habanero.
The contestants had dwindled down to seven, but I was no longer feeling confident. My head was pounding, the peppers were becoming blurry, and I could no longer feel my tongue or left pinkie toe. I ate one habanero, and then another, then another. Everyone kept pace with me. Finally, on my seventh habanero, I had to admit that I was beat.
“Hunh!” I grunted, lunging for my glass of milk. It toppled over.
I looked at May in pure panic. She ran over to me and whisked me out the door like some kind of hot-pepper EMT who’d been helping people out of exactly these sorts of situations all her life. We ran over to the nearest corner store, and I made a beeline for the dairy aisle. After the cashier rang up the quart of milk, I grabbed it out of her hands, ripped it open like a feral cat, and started chugging. The cashier put up her hands and started slowly backing away.
“I wath juth in a peppah eathin contheth,” I explained. She widened her eyes in horror. “Ith for the fire in my mouth!”
May aided me back home before the locals could grab their pitchforks and run me out of town.
I have never experienced such pain as I did that night. I paced around our dorm until the next morning, going through an entire box of Saltines and two gallons of milk in the process. My mouth was still numb the next day, so I was unable to participate in class. Instead, I had to hand in an embarrassing note to all my professors explaining my situation.
“I am unable to answer questions in class today because of … does this say a hot-pepper–eating contest?” My English professor actually had to adjust her glasses.
I sadly nodded my head. To her credit, she simply shrugged and continued prattling on about comma splices, I knew nobody understands them anyway, so I continued to focus my attention on stuffing my mouth with as many ice cubes as I could.
People are understandably confused whenever I tell this story. “Why did you think it wise to risk your life for such a silly thing? Was it really worth it?”
To which I point down to my hot-pepper T-shirt—with every single pepper I ate prominently listed on it—and say with the utmost pride, “Abtholutely!”
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Amy Mills is a writer, mom, and copyeditor living in Boston. Her writing has appeared in several online magazines that one would now need a DeLorean to find. She is proud to say she has never punched a koala in the face.