The Jalapeno

**PARENTAL ADVISORY: consider yourself warned**

Beau is damn near a gourmet-level of chefery. When we started dating and lived on opposite sides of the city, I looked forward to visiting his South Boston apartment because, among other things, it meant one less night of eating ramen, salad, or my infamous bachelorette chili (one can of black beans, sprinkle of taco seasoning packet, ground turkey, sometimes a little shredded cheddar on top if I felt fancy). I’ve considered submitting his name to Hell’s Kitchen but I don’t want to be responsible for showing up at Gordon Ramsey’s house with a flaming bag of my own feces should he abuse my Beau.

Instead, I graciously allow Beau to cook all of my dinners thereby providing him with time to hone his art form and only occasionally berate him for making me fatter. Last night was chorizo and rice with a fantastic mango-avocado-tomato salsa. Awesome. I was in the middle of licking my plate when he started whining about jalapeño juice burning his upper lip. I nodded as best I could while maintaining eye contact with the television and mouth-vacuuming my dish. As I set it down on the coffee table with an appreciative belch, he leapt up from the couch and ran upstairs. I took the opportunity to similarly clear his plate.

Moments later, the floor shook and the sounds of “owwwww, ow, ow, ow” trailed down the staircase. I followed the wailing and found him in the bathroom, jumping up and down with a wash cloth pressed to his eyes. He very helpfully told me, “OWWWWW.”

“But what is the matter, Beau?” I calmly queried (no, really. I call him Beau at home. I barely remember his real name at this point. They’re going to have to use that nickname in our wedding vows).

He squinted from his hunched position and said, “I have jalapeño juice in my eyes. OWWWW.” Normally, this sort of calamity would earn a mute head shake as I left the room and closed the door behind myself. Like the time he fell down the steps 10 seconds after I said, “Remember they redid the back stoop. Watch your step.” Normally I’m used to that kind of clumsiness. But this incident occurred on the coattails of a conversation about a pepper so hot, there are laws banning outdoor cultivation in the US because if an animal gets the oil in its eyes, it will literally scratch them out. In a characteristic fit of paranoia, I didn’t see Beau hopping around my bathroom. I saw a panicked squirrel gouging out its eyes with a stick. There was only one reasonable course of action: chemical shower.

I got the water running while he stripped, pushed him into the shower stall, and instructed him to flush his eyes out with water and to scrub the oil off his hands with soap. While he followed orders, I perched nervously on the nearby toilet. Finally, the water turned off and he popped his head out, blinking cautiously. I retrieved his towel and enjoyed the descending calm. It didn’t last. Suddenly he was shrieking and flailing and hopping around my bathroom again. He shoved past me and jumped back in the shower. I settled on the toilet again and reprimanded, “Really wash your hands or you’re going to keep getting it in your eyes!”

“It’s not in my eyes,” he called back.

I’d settled on the toilet again. From there, I leaned over to peer into the shower stall. What I saw was Beau, face planted against the wall with his back side in the water. I asked, “What are you doing?! Where did you…”

“It’s on my bunghole.”

There’s so little in this world that makes me speechless. But when I saw my darling fiancé flayed, spread-eagle, using his hands to pry apart his butt cheeks to best flush the jalapeño oil from his anus, my mouth dropped open and I was without words. Usually, I recover from those rare moments quickly and return with some witty turn of phrase. Last night, I just laughed until I cried and clutched the bathroom counter convulsing with waves of laughter until I could finally breathe again. By then, he was drying off, scowling at me and asking if I was quite through laughing.

But I didn’t finish laughing until this morning when I realized that mango salsa is probably no longer on the menu.