Aji Chirel: Mistakes were made.
My side of the family, specially from dad’s, has been cursed with having sensitive stomachs. I was the lucky bastard for many years and I could eat hot food and chase it with the darkest of espressos without even hiccupping.
Venezuelans love a good hot sauce. You will find a grungy-looking bottle of what you know is a home-made concoction in any street vendor and it will be used with delight by the customers. But truthfully since it was forbidden at home, I never cared for how it was made and never even heard of Aji Chirel, , just that it was available when I ate “perros calientes” (hot dogs) late at night at my favorite street peddler.
On the other side of the scale is the “aji dulce” which is any small pepper that has zero heat in it, but is loaded with flavor and it is used in all kinds of preparations. It tastes different that your red bell pepper but you can tell they are from the same family as the hot branch.
I know, it is a long intro, but bear with me. While I was in college in the USA, mom had gotten some seeds of what was supposed to be aji dulce. Unfortunately, it was the seeds for the 120.000 SHU mini grenades which grew beautifully by her hand but could not use. Rather than being practical and getting rid of the plants, she gave all but one away because “It was always producing pretty peppers and it looked beautiful.”
Now, I don’t mind pretty plants and I will enjoy the look of a fruitful bush like any other human, but please inform me that we have mother nature’s chemical weapon dispenser in our backyard and I am supposed to be no closer than 5 feet from the fiery green I should have known something was weird because I saw the dogs avoiding the heck out of the plant, but my brain did not process the information.
One day back home for a brief vacation, mom asked me to water her plants in her side garden, the small one. Again, mom being green-thumb-mom, this task regularly took about 40 minutes because her definition of “small garden” was understated as hell. One of the things you do when watering is to check for bugs and sicknesses and that implies touching and examining up close. So I did… to the frigging aji chirel. I just did not touch it but gave it an examination worth medical school.
Then my right eye itched a bit and I rubbed it with my unwashed hand.
Medieval and Chinese tortures are lame. The Inquisition was a pussy. Napalm? pshhhht! just a slight sunburn.
It hurt. Oh my God it hurt. The burn was like somebody had lit a Bunsen burner inside my eye and sprinkled it with Pompeii’s lava. So I did what any normal idiot human being would do: I rubbed twice as hard with my both my hands, managing to share the same effect on the left eye and my cheeks start to feel as if I laid my face on a hot grill.
The streaming of cursing coming out of my mouth in three languages was one for the ages. I was told neighbors heard the multilingual demonstration 2 blocks away and more than one abuela clutched her rosary and started to mutter Hail Marys like a machine gun. I swear at one moment I could feel my eyeballs rotate at high speed inside my skull and my brain just simply shut down any higher level of consciousness and rationality.
I heard mom coming and I guess he figured out what happened because she asked why the heck did she raise a stupid child who went on to play make-up with God’s Burning Bush. She warned me to, sit on the ground, stop touching my face and that she would be right back. I did so and felt something falling/dripping on my lap. I touched and it felt ugly and sticky, was I losing ectoplasm? Dear God! Am I gonna die here? (Later I found out it was just plain snot which I produced in amazing quantities)
Mom came back with milk which did nothing but provide me with a millisecond of relief. Then she went straight to the hose and sprayed me constantly which seemed to help better even if I almost drowned, but at that moment I really did not care, the pain subsided all of a 3% and I was happy about it.
The pain eventually subsided to “WWII Japanese bunker cleared by flamethrower” level and my brain once again re-engaged. I washed my hands with gasoline, then detergent and the I put on some surgical gloves on instructions from mom. It took me till the next day to regain my facial functions and normal vision, but the nightmares remain till this day.
I went back to school and on my next vacation, I saw that the plant was gone. I asked about it and all I got were a truly evil stare from dad and mom giving him a twice worse stare. I decided not to push the subject.
I know I should take pepper spray training, but if anybody asks if I ever had a taste of OC, I can proudly (and mostly stupidly) say yes.