Apartment complex evacuated due to microwaved hot pepper

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/08/30/apartment-complex-evacuated-du-2.html

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Ghost pepper or that new pepper from South Carolina.

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“A proprietary mix of piri-piri, bhut jolikia and a genetically engineered hot pepper called ‘The Doom Bringer’ that is only grown deep in the Scottish Highlands where it can’t hurt anyone.”

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Kids graduate to cooking hot peppers once urine is no longer spicy enough.

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Good quote I heard recently: “White people conquer half the planet looking for spices and don’t even use them in their damn food.”

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Even a plain old jalapeno can turn into a lethal - okay not lethal, but tear gas - bomb if you microwave it too much. I have done this once accidentally (not thinking hard enough about what I had on the plate). All that vaporized capsaicin floating around gets everywhere. It doesn’t take much in the eyes, note, throat, and lungs.

I do roast and grind ghost peppers to turn into paprika, but at that point I’m veeeeerry careful using outdoor smoker, mask and goggles while grinding.

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Get one of these: Good for roasting chilis and later on you can play BINGO!

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Reminds me of the Christmas office party wherein the teenage son of the receptionist decided that it would be a good idea to activate the can of pepper spray that one engineer had in his office. We smelled it all over the building as the HVAC system distributed the fine aroma. Fortunately, the only person left with burning eyes was the perpetrator.

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Burns going down and burns coming out. What more could you ask for? Oh, put the TP in the freezer, sounds crazy, but it works.

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when I was chef to some bigwig RAF officer and his Mr’s was away (who was not a fan of the hot). I spiced up some premade curry with some chopped up green chillies I boiled up then stirred into the curry. There was some workman upstairs fixing a sash window who staggered into the kitchen with eyes streaming so yes it’s true. The curry had the desired effect with the boss and got 2 thumbs up from him the next day.

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If you ever want to clear out your house, all you have to do is drop 1 mL of a pepper sauce (REAL pepper sauce, like Blaire’s Megadeath, or Dave’s Insanity Sauce) into a smoking hot skillet.

I accidentally ruined a dinner party this way :frowning:

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Late stage capitalism.

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This just sounds like the start of a great meal in my house!
Its not unusual for a Mexican household to have chilies burning on a skillet or roasting directly on the burner.
Doesn’t matter how mild the chili is, you’re going to feel it.

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Related story:
I was once staying in a boarding house with some other interns; the only permanent resident was the slightly wacky hippie housekeeper. As we were watching TV one day, we all started smelling something acrid. It got worse really fast, and soon we were all coughing and running outside, eyes streaming from the burning smoke. The fire department arrived, and luckily didn’t hose anything down, but they found the housekeeper and the source of the mustard gas. She’d been trying to ‘melt’ all of the shards of soap in the house into one bar by putting them in a frying pan over high heat, and the house filled with burning soap smoke.

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Ah, so that’s what I was smelling yesterday! :smiley:

(joking aside, I think I heard the commotion yesterday; I only live a couple of miles away, and drive past that high rise all the time)

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I once sautéed habañero powder. It stuck to the pan and burned. My dogs were coughing, my eyes were burning, and I couldn’t breathe. It doesn’t take the hottest peppers in the world to make it unbearable!

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I just gave away two Carolina Reapers. If this doesn’t get me that Subpoena Badge, nothing will.

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I’m growing ghosts, reapers and scorpions. My wife roasts or dries them outside then grinds them into powder in the kitchen. It takes me back to my days as a doughboy in the Belgian trench.

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This is marginally literate:

“A HAZMAT team evacuated a Rochester, New York high-rise apartment building yesterday after residents complained of burning sensations in their eyes and once the fire department investigated. They found a 55-gallon sealed drum in one of the apartments. Turns out, it contained donated clothes packed for Africa. The cause of the tennants’ breathing difficulties and watery eyes was actually a hot pepper microwaved by one of the building’s residents.”

And why mention the drum of donated clothes if it has nothing to do with the story?

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Presumably they at first thought the drum was leaking industrial waste or chemicals - if everyone’s eyes are burning and you find a 55-gallon drum, that’s not a terrible suspect.

But definitely not well written.

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