Okay.

I’m a fairly intelligent human being. I’m pretty sure I am.  Somebody once said that a sense of humor is a sign of intelligence, and I know that I can tell stories and make people laugh.

I’ve also got a college degree, and I taught school (English, literature and drama) for what seems to be an eternity, way back when God was a kid.

I write short stories, and have gotten several of them published. 

I have written two plays, one of which is published and publication is pending for the other one.

The published one is called Blessed Event, and it can now be purchased at JAC Publishing and Promotions (www.ctv14.com (Go to that website, click on the “watch” tab at the bottom of the page, and then type Blessed Event in the “search” field at the top of that page.)

I point these things out as evidence that I have done lots of things in my life that show signs of intelligence.

So then, how come I can be so damned stupid sometimes?

The only thing I can say in my defense is that, every time I do something really, really, REALLY dumb, I learn from it, especially if it involves pain.

For instance, I’ve learned a few things about dealing with hot peppers. Like, when slicing up habenaros, never, never, NEVER (!!!!!!!!!!!!) go to the bathroom afterwards and touch your peepee before thoroughly washing your hands with hot and soapy water. (I have blogged about that wonderful and enlightening experience in the past.)

And now, to add to my treasure trove of habanero pepper lore, comes the following true story.

I love spicy, hot foods, as evidenced by the fifty-five gallon drum of Industrial Strength Rolaids that I keep by my bedside.

My son Scott, who lives right down the road from me and has a huge garden, knows this. So, last September, he presented me with a gift of three large habanero pepper plants that he had pulled up by the roots.  There were probably a couple hundred of the little, red peppers on every plant.

Elated by the present, I immediately hung the plants up by their roots in a sunny window in the entry-way to let the little buggers dry.

Then, every night at supper time, I would pick a few of the little fellows off of the plants, crush them in my hands and sprinkle them, seeds and all, on my salad or my hamburger, or whatever else I was eating that evening. I would not always remember to wash my hands thoroughly after handling the peppers, and thus, I would wind up with tearing and smoking eyeballs or the afore-mentioned genital distress.

One day a few weeks ago, I got the brilliant idea to grind the peppers up in my coffee bean grinder. Seemed like a stroke of genius to me! Particularly since I’ve got this wonderful coffee bean grinder, and I don’t drink coffee. (Loose leaf, certified organic peppermint tea is my morning beverage of choice.)

So, I pulled out my trusty coffee bean grinder from the dark recesses of a back shelf in my pantry, dusted the thing off, and loaded the basin of it with about 100 habanero peppers.  I then secured the top, turned the thing on and let it do its business of whirling and chopping for about two minutes. As the grinding was taking place, I could see a few pepper particles floating around in the air, and my nose got a little tingly, but no big deal. 

Then, when I could see through the translucent lip of the grinder that the peppers had been reduced to a fine powder, I opened the top of the grinder…and almost fell over backwards.  Apparently, there is some sort of suction that is formed inside the basin of the grinder when the grinding takes place, forming a vacuum. When I opened the top, the negative force of air inside was pushed out by the positive force of air from the room, causing a small but deadly cloud of tiny, red, nano-particles of pepper explode in classic, mushroom-cloud fashion into the atmosphere.  (I had never noticed this with coffee, probably because the coffee beans always have a bit of moisture in them, and that moisture makes the particles heavier.)

One deep breath from this noxious cloud filled my nose, throat and lungs with floating fire.  My eyes turned to jelly and began leaking over my lower eye lids and running down my cheeks.  I was gasping for breath, and, with every inhale, I drew more of the red hot crap into my lungs.

Fritz the Dog, my 110-pound German shepherd, who has a very high pain threshold because he doesn’t have a freaking working synapse in his primitive canine brain, began whining pathetically and shaking his head in violen, tear-flapping fashion. He let loose with a volley shotgun sneezes that seemed to originate in his tail, sending dog snot all over everything within a ten-foot radius of his eight-inch-long nose.  He finally bolted the room, and I could hear him sneezing a rapid-fire succession of machine-gun reports in the living room.

Smokey the Cat, who spends her entire life meowing and rubbing my ankles, also began sneezing, spraying my pant legs with kitty snot. She finally jumped up on the butcher block that is in the middle of the kitchen, hunched her back, bristled her fur, shook her head violently a few times and scowled her mean-ass scowl at me that is usually reserved for the dog. In her malevolent glare at me, I could read these words in her eyes just as plain as day; “What the FUCK did you just do???!!!!”

After an eternity of about a minute, the radio-active cloud dissipated.  Fritz came back into kitchen with eyes squinting and nose dripping, and Smokey left the room with her tail straight up in the air in an indignant and disgusted huff.

After catching my breath and downing a quart of water, I stared at the coffee bean grinder that was full of habanero powder.  What was I going to do with all of this lethal shit?

One thing was NOT going to do was disturb the devil’s dust in any way, shape or form.  With no HazMat suit in sight, I gingerly picked up the grinder, being very careful not to shake the powder, and cautiously carried it out to the table on the deck.  I then got bunch of salt and pepper shakers and a funnel, and slowly poured the stuff into the shakers, making sure I was upwind of the whole process the whole time.

I did not feel safe until the caps were on the shakers, and the coffee grinder had been wiped completely clean.

The shakers work perfectly, and the pre-ground peppers are now a huge convenience in the kitchen. However, the next time I grind habanero peppers, it will be definitely be an outdoor sporting event.