After the girls' dance recital on Sunday (see next post), our family, with our friends Scott and Nancy and their two kids who were also in the recital, planned to go to Salvador Molly's Carribean Restaurant to celebrate. Scott's brother and his family of four came along and so did Scott's parents, who were visiting from out of town. We ordered a pitcher of beer and Scott and Kevin, sitting at their own macho picnic table, discover on the menu "Great Balls of Fire", cheesy habanero fritters complete with health warning. Kevin and Scott order 3 ("how hot can they be??"), one for each of them and one for Scott's brother who arrives at the restaurant about the same time as the "Balls of Fire" arrive to the table ("look what we got you!" "Uh, ok.") Kevin downs his OK, even dipping it in hot sauce. Scott looks clearly pained. Scott's brother is crying and sweating profusely. All three finish. Fast forward 10 minutes. Scott leaves the table to go for a "walk". He spends the rest of the meal laying down in pain in a park down the street. Kevin is starting to complain. He finishes his spicy meal and his beer, but is asking about the nearest place to buy Pepto. Scott's brother is hurtin', too, but is pretty quiet. After the meal, Kevin drives straight over to Fred Meyer and I'm thinking, well, we also need bread and bananas....Kevin can't make it through the store. He's sitting in the "cafe" part of the store, opens his new maalox and starts chugging it right in the store. The dawdlers are dawdling and he just pays and is ready to go. I put Paigey in her car seat and decide to run back in the store and pee. No lie, 3 minutes, tops. I pee, wash my hands and run back out. Kevin is sprawled out over the hood of the Jetta. The girls are waving to me, totally oblivious of their father's pain. After running in to the bathroom himself (!!), Kevin tells me that while I was in the store his knees went weak, his body went numb, he laid down on the parking lot for a bit before going over the hood and he was about to call 911 and pass out. We get home and I tell the girls not to kiss him goodnight (too spicy) and they go to bed. Kevin seems better. He talks to Scott, who is still alive but in a similar state. He eats ice cream, drinks milk and maalox. He goes to pee. AAAHHHH - he says he's peeing razors and complains of a purple ****!!! He seems better again and we go to bed. Groans. He gets up at 3:45am and spends the rest of the night/morning "crapping fire". "A slow ooze of napalm from the anus" The next day from work, "it's still not over".
Nancy says she's never seen Scott so miserable. I just feel bad for poor Phil, Scott's brother. I hope he's OK, he didn't order this, he didn't ask for it. He didn't read the health warning.
There is a contest every year to see who can eat the most of these for a fund-raiser for Oregon Heat to help folks pay their heating bills. If you eat 5, you get your picture on the wall. This year's winner is a 23 year old guy who ate a whopping 36!! The person who came in 2nd "didn't even get sick at the table." I hear there's an ambulance standing by. When watching Kevin in the morning in severe abdominal pain PJ said, "I think he just wanted his picture taken."
