Habanero Hottie

David made fajitas last night.

I'd been at school for a meeting. By late afternoon, the campus was pretty deserted (fall break started today) so I decided to hole up in my office and get some work done since the halls were quiet. I ended up staying later than I'd intended, so David told me to text him on my way to the metro and he would get dinner started.

By the time I arrived home, he had met with a bit of a disaster.

He was using CSA veggies to make the fajitas--green peppers and onions we'd gotten from last week's share. We had also gotten some habanero peppers, which I had thought would be perfect for spicing up a pot of chili or a batch of soup.

But David was not familiar with the heat of the habanero and he assumed these peppers were similar to jalapeno or banana peppers. Seeing as we both like spicy foods, he thought he'd toss one in with the fajita mixings.

Oh, no.

Once he started cutting into it and pulling out the seeds over the sink, the juice from the peppers started making his hands burn. Then the fumes from this little pepper were so intense that he started coughing and choking. Realizing this pepper had no place in the fajitas and seemed by most standards to be inedible, David ended up throwing it in the compost and washing his hands twice to make them stop burning.

He continued prepping for dinner.

And then he took a bathroom break.

Suffice it to say that the handwashing had evidently not removed all traces of the pepper. He was now experiencing a serious burning sensation. Below the belt.

By the time I got home, fajita-fixing was undergoing a slight delay as David was awkwardly adjusting his pants in the kitchen and looking rather uncomfortable when I walked in the door. When I asked him what the heck was going on (what with the pained expression and the crotch-grabbing) he explained the whole story and then finally headed to the bathroom to take a shower and try to wash away the, um, peppery discomfort.

I don't know what kind of a batch of uber-hot habaneros we got, but evidently they should have come with a warning label!

[Edited to add:] A brief internet search on habanero recipes got me to a page where someone was asking for advice about what to make with the habaneros they'd grown in their garden. One wise reader replied: "I know one thing. Don't cut them up with bare hands and then touch private parts." Touche.