Hot and Sabai-see

Thai food is an experiment in danger.  My life as a whole takes place in a test tube, and my love life as a (w)hole has been declared a disaster area eligible for federal relief, but my stomach is hereby off-limits.  I’ve done my days on the business end of a molcajete to the point that it became a health problem.  Chips and salsa was my religion long before salsa began to catch up with ketchup as the best-seller in the condiment section, long after crossing over from the pickled peppers department.  That was before Thailand.  That was under the influence of Mexico, when you simply added the BTU’s you needed to one of the variations on corn, beans, beef, salad, and cheese splayed out before you.  In Thailand they like to cook it in for flavor.  As a matter of fact, they like to cook a lot of things in for flavor that aren’t supposed to be eaten, so you end up pulling weeds out of your mouth most of the day.  With peppers it’s usually too late.  To add insult to injury, you’ll get to re-live the experience when it comes out the other end.  They call it prik, yes, pronounced just like that.  I think there’s some subliminal onomatopoeia in that word; it’ll definitely prick your consciousness, especially those little ones, likened to the rat shit pellets they resemble.  Poor country folks frequently eat nothing but sticky rice and chili paste to get them through the day, whereas city folk are more likely to eat fresh peppers in prepared dishes.  Don’t forget to wear protection.  That’s what sticky rice is for, to plug up the holes that the peppers blast in you.  Don’t handle your penis immediately after handling peppers, or you’ll be sorry.  Enough said.

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