When I put the garden in at the church, I included two pepper plants I had bought from Home Depot, almost as an oversight. Several weeks later, I looked at the little tags that were still stuck in the ground near them--"Cayenne Banana." They're the only peppers that have grown for me. About a week ago, I grabbed one and picked it. It was almost 10" long. Not really thinking, I took a bite out of it . . . and suddenly realized that the local Stewart's Shop (Carl knows about these) was three miles away, and I needed to get there
right away. When I got there, the manager (who was my sister's manager 20-some years ago, in a Stewart's near my parents) had little sample ice cream cones of Philly Vanilla in the freezer case near a register. That took care of the immediate problem. I bought a bottle of water and returned to the car, and continued to munch on the pepper as I went to work. I got half of the thing down before pulling into the lot, and I gave the other half to one of the place's resident hot-foods eaters. He said that he didn't need another hot pepper for the rest of the year. I distributed more of these peppers over the next few days.
One of the guys who I gave one to, Monday, left it in his car overnight. Then, he drove his car to work, and finding the pepper, figured that he could leave it in the car for the day. There's
lots of exposure to the sun where this guy parks. When he got to his car and drove away, he noticed that his eyes were watering . . . profusely, as it turned out. He remembered the culprit--the cayenne banana pepper that I had given him the day before, and he had forgotten to remove from his car. He remembered this time, and had it that night--and the damned thing was still pretty hot, he told me.
I found a new prank idea, I think . . .
