We have been eating jalapeños from the garden for months now. I’ve pickled tons of them, we’ve had them on burgers, in pasta sauce, in burritos…so the other day, as I was slicing one for on pizza, I popped a generous slice in my mouth, expecting the mild heat of all the others we’ve eaten.

Boy, was I in for a surprise! I may as well have eaten a Thai hot pepper! For some reason, this jalapeño was screaming hot. My eyes began to water, I started to hiccup from the heat, all the while laughing at myself. It was half an hour before my mouth settled down to a mild tingle from the fiery pain of that pepper.

The remainder of the pepper went straight into the compost—I didn’t want any spice at all on my pizza that night! I have treated the jalapeños with more respect since then.

It’s not the first time I’ve been surprised by spice. In Peace Corps, we regularly had training events at a nearby Girl Scout camp. The camp cook always set a huge jar of homemade hot sauce on the table. The size of the jar was deceptive—served in that quantity, it couldn’t be very spicy, right? The first time, I took a large spoonful and stirred it into my beans. I wondered if I’d ever recover! A tiny bit of that hot sauce was enough to bring tears to my eyes—it was nothing but ground up habañeros. I have to wonder if the cook didn’t do it on purpose in order to laugh at all of us with smoke coming out of our ears! It was a good joke, but not a surprise I want frequently.