Jalapeñ-ow

A couple of week ago, my brother was making enchiladas. While doing so, he chopped up some whole jalapeños and then "itched" the inside of his nose. But, don't worry, he was punished for his poor food preparation practices by a sudden burning inside of his freshly excavated nostril.

Anyway, when he told me about it, he went on and on about how badly the inside of his nostril burned. He screamed and groaned and even tried to rinse out his nose with water. I told him I doubted the pain was as excruciating as he made it out to be and that he was just a big baby. He then challenged me to chop a fresh jalapeño, coat my finger with the juice, and then rub it around the inside of my nostril. I defiantly accepted his challenge with one stipulation--that he purchased the jalapeño.

A day or two later, we had a party to go to, before which we went to a grocery store and bought a single jalapeño. I intended to take him up on his challenge and put him to shame, but by the time we got home that evening, the jalapeño had gone missing.

Until earlier this week.

I was emptying out the pockets of my shorts before changing into my pajamas when I reached into one of the cargo pockets. I felt something squishy inside, pulled it out, and found this beauty (see picture on right). No, no, no. It's not a decomposing bird corpse or a chunk of zombie flesh. It's the missing jalapeño!

It's so flat. And so pretty. Look at the coloring of that thing! I suppose that's what two weeks of record summer heat will do to a forgotten jalapeño in a cargo pocket. Lesson learned.