Every year. Every goddamn year.
"Hold that football tight this time, alright Lucy?"
"You got it Charlie Brown, come give it a real good kick."
I know you can't grow peppers in Canada. The people who say you can are just filthy liars, lying all the lie-long day. Yes, even you. You know who you are. You liar.
But for some reason I feel compelled to try.
You know those shows about people with weird afflictions, where they're sitting there eating their couch, or their laundry detergent? Well, I'm a lot like that, except those fuckers look at me, their mouths crammed full of blue-powdered couch stuffing, saying "dude, you ca't gwow peppuhs id cadada, aw you toopid?"
Yes, DetergentFlavoredStuffingEater72, I am stupid.
Stupid enough to put 11 each of Carolina Reapers, Ghost peppers, and Butch T Trinidad Scorpions in some paper towel in a ziploc bag.
Stupid enough to let myself feel hope as 6 of those carolina reapers have already grown vigorously enough to have earned their own pots.
Stupid enough to dare to dream that the ghosts and tscorps will pop as well, and not just sit in that humidity and fester and rot until they're as black as my heart will be after another failed season.
Logically my brain understands that even if they survive the cold, the heat, the drought, the overmoisturing, the bugs, the animals, the kids, the transplanting, and even the giant middle finger plunged down from the heavens themselves by Zeus at the mere possibility of my peppers growing, there's no way that they'll survive my own personal ineptitude.
But logic holds no sway here.
That primal portion of my brain holds the reins. The portion that drove ancient man to toss virgins into volcanoes, because surely that is the missing puzzle piece needed for good crops. The portion that screams to burn the witches in the neighbourhood, for surely it is her pox that interferes and not the impossibility of the task itself.
Yes, this year shall be different.
Surely this year, no mountain shall be high enough, no valley low enough, to keep me from growing peppers.
Surely this year I shall not be afraid, i shall not be petrified, i shall not spend so many nights, thinking how i did peppers wrong.
For this year I'm holding out for a pepper till the end of the blight, it's gotta grow strong, it's gotta grow fast, and it's gotta be larger than life.
"Hold that football tight this time, alright Lucy?"
"You got it Charlie Brown, come give it a real good kick."
I know you can't grow peppers in Canada. The people who say you can are just filthy liars, lying all the lie-long day. Yes, even you. You know who you are. You liar.
But for some reason I feel compelled to try.
You know those shows about people with weird afflictions, where they're sitting there eating their couch, or their laundry detergent? Well, I'm a lot like that, except those fuckers look at me, their mouths crammed full of blue-powdered couch stuffing, saying "dude, you ca't gwow peppuhs id cadada, aw you toopid?"
Yes, DetergentFlavoredStuffingEater72, I am stupid.
Stupid enough to put 11 each of Carolina Reapers, Ghost peppers, and Butch T Trinidad Scorpions in some paper towel in a ziploc bag.
Stupid enough to let myself feel hope as 6 of those carolina reapers have already grown vigorously enough to have earned their own pots.
Stupid enough to dare to dream that the ghosts and tscorps will pop as well, and not just sit in that humidity and fester and rot until they're as black as my heart will be after another failed season.
Logically my brain understands that even if they survive the cold, the heat, the drought, the overmoisturing, the bugs, the animals, the kids, the transplanting, and even the giant middle finger plunged down from the heavens themselves by Zeus at the mere possibility of my peppers growing, there's no way that they'll survive my own personal ineptitude.
But logic holds no sway here.
That primal portion of my brain holds the reins. The portion that drove ancient man to toss virgins into volcanoes, because surely that is the missing puzzle piece needed for good crops. The portion that screams to burn the witches in the neighbourhood, for surely it is her pox that interferes and not the impossibility of the task itself.
Yes, this year shall be different.
Surely this year, no mountain shall be high enough, no valley low enough, to keep me from growing peppers.
Surely this year I shall not be afraid, i shall not be petrified, i shall not spend so many nights, thinking how i did peppers wrong.
For this year I'm holding out for a pepper till the end of the blight, it's gotta grow strong, it's gotta grow fast, and it's gotta be larger than life.
