TomYam YeeMee

Recently, there was some new type of food at our canteen. It's called Tom Yam Yee Mee. Maybe it's been there all the while, I have no idea, but that day was the first time I ate it. I don't recall seeing anybody else eating it though. I would remember.

I have this weird habit of looking at other people's food in the canteen. Not just canteen lah, anywhere. Hawker centre, restaurant, McD's, you name it. I like checking out people's food. Quite often I'll get into this awkward situation where the person catches me looking at his food. Then I'll pretend to look away. When the person continues eating, I'll look again, because I didn't get a good look before.

So anyway, Pei Ting and MooMoo were going to the canteen to order that TomYam YeeMee thing. They asked,

'Eh, you want anot? TomYam YeeMee. Now we are going to order.'


'What's that? Why never hear before one? Nice anot?'


'Oh, nice! But it's very spicy one. Can you take it?'


And then Christine who was just beside me said,

'Oh spicy arh? She cannot one.'


'What what? Who say I cannot! I can! I can! I CAN!'


'Okay, Fine! Fine! Order, ORDER! Eeesh!' 


Which is actually kind of true. I really can't take spicy food.

During recess, I promised myself I was not going to drink a single drop of water. I promised myself, I would battle through the spicy-ness...and come out alive! Anyway, how hot could it be? Bring it on!

We found a place to sit down, and then we started eating. The first few bites were okay. But see, that is what TomYam does to you. It lures you into a false sense of confidence. It makes sure that the food is all over your tongue. And just when you thought that, hey...it's actually not that spicy, that's when it strikes. BAM! And your whole tongue is on FAI-YAH!

The pain started around the sixth spoonful.

I looked around at my friends, they were all chatting happily away, laughing even. And all of them, I am sure, had already surpassed their sixth spoonful. I couldn't stop...yet. I needed to protect my dignity.

I continued eating in silence. The spicy-ness took away my ability to talk. A while later, my friends noticed something was off.

'Hmm..something's not right.'


'Yeah...I feel it too. What is it I wonder?'


'Oh! I know! What happened to April's voice?'


Then they all turned to look at me. I tried to hide my face. It was not a pretty sight.

My mouth was wide opened with my tongue stuck out, trying to reduce the spicy-ness. I was producing alot of saliva to cool down my tongue. I'm a saliva producing factory when I eat hot stuff. Also, I was sweating. The sweat dripped all the way down my face. Down, down, down. To make matters worse, my nose started running. The snot flowed down from my nose like a freaky waterfall. It flowed all the way down to my mouth and mixed with the saliva. And then the sweat flowed down too and mixed with the snot AND saliva. So I had saliva+snot+sweat. The 3 S's.

My eyes were wide opened. And my chopsticks were hanging limply in my hands. I did not have the strength to hold it up. And to make things even more disgusting, I think I saw the 3S solution drip down into my bowl. I seriously hope I was wrong.

And my friends were like, Whoa! Are you okay? 


And being the good friends they are, they went off to get water for me. But that didn't exactly help. The only difference was this:

Anyway, I battled through. I was determined to finish it up. I was actually crying and eating at the same time.

I was all


'Sobs...so hot...I don't want to eat already...'


But anyway, I finished it. Boy, was I proud of myself. What a beautiful moment! But by then, the prefects were all hovering around me. I was supposed to be in class 10 minutes ago. They were killing my buzz.

On the way back to class, I interviewed Christine. She was the only one who didn't find the TomYam spicy. The rest found it a bit spicy. I found it @#%$&* spicy. So I asked her,


'Hey, I'm wondering how you Chilli people can stand the hot-ness?'


'Eat only lah'


'No lah. I mean do you find it hot but you can still take it, or do you not find it hot at all?' 


'Uhm...I don't find it hot at all.'


'Wow...and how do you do that? Could you do that all this while or do you need to train?'


'It's natural...I started eating Chili Padi since I was three.'


'WHAT?!?! You're joking, RIGHT?'


'I'm serious. My mum told me.'


'Oh My-----You're such a freak! Oh I cannot believe this. Age of three, seriously? Seriously?!' 


'Yes, and now stop shouting in my ear! What's wrong with you?!'


Unbelievable! At least now I can take a bit of Chilli and the occasional sambal. When I was small, I could not even take in  a bit. So Christine is really the Chilli goddess. (How do you spell Chilli anyways? Why are there squiggly red lines underneath all my chillis?)


When I was younger, yonks ago, my family would get me to try all these chilli-filled stuff, but I'd always end up drinking more water than eating food. My stomach would be so full of water that most of the time, I only ate like one-tenth of the food.

So they made up this hot-ness scale. Something like the peri-o-meter scale at Nando's.

If you've never eaten at Nando's before (why would you not?!), whenever you order a chicken, you get to choose how spicy it is. See? Lemon & Herb is the least spicy. Followed by Mild Peri-Peri, Hot Peri-Peri and Extra Hot Peri-Peri. And then when your chicken came, it has a little flag stuck on it.

see the flag?

Once, being over ambitious, I decided to step out of my Lemon & Herb comfort zone to try out Mild Peri-Peri. Halfway through the chicken, I was sniffing and tears were rolling down my eyes and snot was running down my nose. It was horrible. I even finished everybody's drinks. My friends with their stupid Extra Hot Peri-Peris were looking at me pitifully.

They were like, 'You should have gone with the Lemon and Herb dude.' 


And I was like, 'I don't need your pity! I can finish this on my own! NO, I DO NOT NEED ANYMORE WATER, thank you very much!


(5seconds later) 


Waiter! One more ice-lemon tea! NOWWWW!!'


After that, I went back to Lemon and Herb and swore never to try anything like that again. Since then, whenever I went to Nando's, I was a lone Lemon and Herb among the sea of Extra Hot Peri-Peris.

yeah yeah, whatever.

My parent's hot-ness scale was not quite so creative. It just contained numbers ranging from 1 to 10. And then they would be like

'Here, try this. It's only a 2.'


(chomp)

(chew)

(pause)

'Aah! Hot! Hot! It's not a 2! It's a 10!!!' 


What an inaccurate scale that was. If my 10 was only their 2, then their 10 would be my 100. There should be a scale with pictures. Something like this that I got off another blog! Such an awesome blog! http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com poeple should really check this out.

1. This food is Chilli-free. I shouldn't be on the scale at all!

2. I am completely unsure if this is spicy or over-salty. Maybe I'm just looking for chopsticks.

3. Oh wow. Okay. It's spreading all over my tongue.

4. Whoa, this is spicy. I thought I ordered no chilli in my food! Water!


5. Why was Chilli ever invented?!


6. Ow. Okay, HOT HOT HOT!! hee-hah! hee-hah!


7. Why would anyone ever torture themselves like this?!

8. OMG. I'm dying. Goodbye friends. Goodbye family.

9. Stand back. Chilli is about to explode out of my face at any moment!

TOO HOT FOR NUMBERS: I see Jesus coming for me!


So I guess I'll spend the rest of my life forever being Pwned by Chilli. =(

THE END

PS: I added a dictionary by the side. I'm all for improving people's English. Haha.
PSS: I took it down. It was so ugly.