Do Not Eat

A few weeks ago, we were on a road trip to Lake Louise in Banff national park. We were well on our way when we stopped in the town of Canmore, to get some gas and walk the dog. Of course, you can’t leave Canmore without going to the candy store, so we went there while we walked the dog. It was there that we saw it, in all its splendour; the world’s hottest gummy bear. L’il Nitro stared at me from his throne through the little plastic window allowing me to get a glimpse of this bugger.

Just recently, my brother Ariel had brought me back a ball of white chocolate, infused with the fifth hottest hot sauce in the world. I ate it, of course, and suffered for maybe an hour, to varying degrees. I did not learn my lesson.

After we found the gummy bear we considered buying it immediately, thankfully I had no money, so too bad, better luck next time! Nope, Ariel bought it for me! He spent ten dollars, on a single gummy bear. I’m not sure who lost more from the purchase of that thing, my brother or I.

We then felt the need to, rather than enjoy this thing all on our own, make sure I had an audience while consuming this thing. We waited until that night, we invited the Sabo family (our friends accompanying us on this trip) to our room, I prepared myself, we laughed a bit, and I ate the gummy bear.

The challenge was to go five minutes without relief, and that was surprisingly easy. Well, not easy, but compared to the hot sauce I’d eaten before, it didn’t burn too bad. When five minutes went by, I actually didn’t really feel like eating the yogurt that had been prepared for me. That’s when it hit bottom. My stomach started to feel queasy, and I soon had to stumble to the bathroom. The Sabos politely departed.

The next half an hour was awful. I would say that the pain in my mouth from before was only about a quarter of that I experienced in my stomach afterwards. I wanted to vomit, just to get the thing out of my system, and I almost did. I felt muscles contract in my throat a couple of times as if I were going to, but it never happened. Instead I lay on the soothing cold tile on my left side, the only position that seemed to ease the pain. I felt a crazy buzzing radiating down my arms and through my body, probably my body’s natural painkillers kicking in. I heated up quite a bit and sweated a lot. I thought about just staying where I was on the tile, but moving my upper body so it was in the shower and just turning on the cold water. I didn’t end up doing that, as the pain started lessening a bit afterwards. Finally I felt alright enough to try standing again. It hurt again for a little bit, and for a while I could only really be comfortable lying on my side, but gradually my body returned to pretty much normal. Lesson learned I hope.

I hope this gives you all a decent warning as well. I can’t fully describe what it was like, but I wouldn’t quite say that it was a good decision. If you really want to know what its like for yourself, I hope that you can just take my word for it when I say it’s bad, and find some other, cooler thing to do. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the video and blog post.

Afterwards my Dad told me to write a note on a piece of paper, reminding me to never do that again. I did, and it turned into this poem:

Note to self –

Remember how it hurt?
And remember how it burned?
And remember, can you tell me
If there's anything you've learned?

I remember how you did it,
I remember why you tried,
If we're honest was it worth it
For the humour in their eyes?

I couldn't tell you now,
Not even with the pain,
If all it was was vanity
With nothing real to gain.

There's one thing I can tell you,
Which I could not before,
It's that it was insanity,
And that, don't you ignore.

So listen when I tell you,
From one who really knows,
There's better ways with much more
Worth
To go through
Hurt
And live to tell it all again.

A better way to go through
Pain
With more to gain
And more to learn
And share
And grow.

So bottom line,
Now here it is:

There's better ways to spend your
Time
Than eating fiery gummy bears.

Remember L’il Nitro, who sacrificed his life, so that I could share this important message. Thank you.