I got my lunch at Chipotle today. It was fun for two reasons. First, one of my coworkers hates McDonalds and I was able to tell him, “I’m eating Chipotle. Guess who owns Chipotle? That’s right: McDonalds!”
The second reason is because I got chips with their “hot” salsa. I put “hot” in quotes because…well, it ain’t hot.
I’ve had hot before. A few years ago, I was on a mission trip to the Navajo reservation by Farmington, NM. There, the Navajos gave us a bunch of jalapeños. I was there with a bunch of high school kids, I should note. And further, I must note: if you’re older than 20, you will never win a jalapeño eating contest with a high schooler. It just ain’t gonna happen.
But I tried anyway. My mouth quickly became a raging inferno, and I gave up after about three jalapeños. Then I promptly forgot about it.
About an hour later, we held communion for the group of kids who had come. After the bread, we prayed while the grape juice (hey, there were minors present) was readied. As we prayed, I happened to reach up and brush my eye.
A few seconds later, the Navajo Nation heard a tremendous scream of pain. For you see, the jalapeño juice was still on my fingertips. And when I rubbed my eye, it quickly made its way through my tear duct.
I managed to rush outside before the pain got too severe (there are small blessings in life). The unfortunate thing about jalapeño juice is that it reacts to water, and my tear ducts were flowing copiously. So for several years (it was really a couple of minutes) I cried and sniffed and burned and screamed and swore that I’d never eat any hot food ever again.
But for some reason, I don’t think Chipotle has mild hot sauce because of that. I think it’s because most of us are wusses. But that’s just my opinion.
