My Quest for Pain and Glory

Since 2006, I have had a dream. That dream was to eat the newly appointed hottest chile pepper in existence. According to the New Mexico State University Chile Pepper Institute, the Bhut Jolokia, or ghost chili, has been the world record holder since 2006, and is twice the spiciness of a habenero, with 1,041,427 Scoville Heat Units. They are so powerful that they use them to deter rampaging elephants in India. I'll let that sink in while Farmer Digonta Saikia shows a Bhut jolokia or ghost chili from his field in the northeastern Indian state of Assam.

Seeds were avaliable for purchase through the New Mexico State University Chile Pepper Institute, but growing conditions are very precise, and require expensive equipment I do not possess, and even then there is a low rate of germination success. I knew I needed to gain access to this kind of equipment if I was to have any chance at eating the spiciest natural thing known to man. I devised a clever plan to enroll as a graduate student in Australia, studying plants at a botanical laboratory with all sorts of cutting-edge nursery technology and greenhouses and other cool shit. However, when I arrived I was presented with another setback. Australia is a real dick about letting you bring stuff in to their country, most of all seeds. They confiscated my beef jerky and my Ranch dressing on the way in if I didn't tell you before. So importing seeds was out of the question, unless I wanted to get deported or something. I laid low for a while, hoping an opportunity would present itself. Fast forward one year...

I figured that if I couldn't bring the pepper to me, then the only other option would be for me to go to the pepper itself. So I went to India. And it would have worked except Priya thought my idea of going to a rural part of India with no toilets and "radical terrorism" just so I could try a chili pepper was a bad idea. So that didn't work and I returned to Australia a broken man without severely burnt taste buds. 

"Whoops, where'd all the chilis go? I coulda sworn they were at the Taj Mahal."

These past few months I have been in a downward spiral, pretty much hitting rock bottom, as the realization of never accomplishing my dream was eating away at my soul, exactly as how I imagined the ghost chili would eat away at my stomach lining. Then, out of nowhere, a miracle occurred. I had spoken numerous times at work about the fabled chile pepper, and a coworker who attended a chile pepper festival that is held annually in Perth remembered one of my chili speaches. This past Monday, I arrive at work to the news that ghost chili seeds were being sold at this festival, and there is a very small company that sells seeds in very small quantities. And, I was so awesome at conveying the message of how awesome the ghost chili is, that two other coworkers of mine want to go in with me and get ahold of some seeds and grow them. So, pretty soon, I will be the co-owner of 8 Bhut Jolokia seeds, and I will have all the neccessary fancy equipment to grow the plants, plus two helper people. 

I realize that I might be getting a little ahead of myself here, because it's not guaranteed that these seeds will become fully functioning members of plant society. These plants are apparently really fragile and their flowers drop off unexpectedly for no reason and they don't like temperatures below 60 degrees and they need a lot of humidity and they are very susceptible to diseases and it takes over 150 days after germination to get a fruit, but damnit I've come this far and I'm gonna eat this damn thing and live my dream just like all those other guys who live the dream. I'm pretty sure it's going to be the most painful and glorious thing ever. I'll let you know how it goes.