Eating the Hot Pepper

I knew, even before I ate it, that it was going to be hot, and yet, I went ahead, just because I love peppers.  And for a second, a long second, it was the best pepper I’d ever tasted, surprisingly sweet and smokey.

And then, the hot spread through my mouth and every tiny cut or raw spot opened up.  My nose cleared.  My eyes watered.  I thought the back of my head might steam right off.

The Don said, “You should have asked me before you ate that.”

I was talking to my dad last night and I told him how Don Coyote was trying to pass himself off as an angel sent by Godto watch over me for him.  Dad said, “Did you tell him about the time I took your car to the carwash and had to apologize to the kids for how dirty it was?”

I said that I would.

He wanted to hear how the Edwards thing went and I told him that I actually found the songs they sang very comforting.  One thing you Southerners know how to do right is mix in a little hope with your sorrow.

Of course, I think the Edwards thing also illustrated how you lost the Civil War.  My ancestors said to your ancestors, “So, we are agreed that we will battle at 10 a.m. on the morrow” (or however they talked back then) and your ancestors replied “Ten a.m. it is, damn Yankee sirs.”

So, we arrived at the battle field at 9:45, had time to get set up and waited.  You left your camp at 10 and began to walk towards us.  You can see the inherent problems with that strategy.*

I tease. 

I woke up in the middle of the night, hot and uncomfortable and itchy.  It was worth it, though, I think.  I still think that pepper was worth it.

Defenestrated today has a little Venn diagram about Kurt Vonnegut, which illustrates how he lived in the overlap of death, waste, and cruelty and how that overlap can be called “humor and hope.”

Life goes on.  That’s the shitty fact of it.  It keeps going, spiraling towards some inevitable end, each of us leaving behind moments we’re glad to see go and brief seconds we’d like to hang onto forever.  We lose people we love or we become the loved ones lost.

Humor and hope.

Little stands against the inevitable truth of time.  Small rebellions in the face of such waste, cruelty, and death.

And yet, if you love humanity, you have to give shelter to humor and hope, I think.

I’ve said it before and I believe it.  Evil is like a wildfire.  It springs up with little warning, burns as long as it has fuel to consume, and then dies back.

Good is a bucket of water that draws from an endless stream.

I don’t know.  Maybe that’s not a strong enough metaphor to carry my meaning all the way from me to you.

And this post is more petering out than actually ending, but here it is, anyway.

So there you go.

*This is not factual, but it is nearly as weird and funny as Hood’s little incident at Spring Hill, you must admit.