Hello!!!!!!!   Warning to the world – do not consume whole a Moroccan hot red pepper!!!!

Do you get my drift????

Do not, under any circumstance take a bite, much less consume in one bite an entire Moroccan hot red pepper.

Do I need to repeat this again?

As Winston Churchill said in not quite these exact words, “never, never, never, never, never give up”. Modify this by substituting for the last two words, “eat a Moroccan hot red pepper”.

Wow!!!

Let me give you a little back story. A few nights ago, Team Peterson had a very good dinner in an upper end restaurant in the new part of Marrakesh – in short, a very high end spot.

Yours truly ordered one of the favorite Moroccan dishes – couscous with vegetables. The couscous overwhelmed the vegetables in the dish.  So, each bite had a vegetable covered by couscous.  In fact the couscous often camouflaged the vegetable.  I could not even see the specific vegetable in each bite since the couscous was surrounding it.

And then I took another bite, and holy cow, I thought the world had come to an end. I swallowed the bite and in the process without being aware of it, an entire hot red pepper.

I don’t know how to put in writing what happened for the next 15 minutes. It was unbelievable.  First, I started to hyperventilate.  My daughter asked what was wrong.  My son asked if I was OK.  I shook my head back and forth.

I was on fire!!!!!

Holy cow!!!! Then I started to cough.  Then I started to cry, tears running down my cheeks.  Then I started to squirm, wondering if I was going to be able to take another breath.  My son was thinking that he should do a Heimlich maneuver.

I reach for water, which does no good. I reach for couscous, which does not good.  I reach for bread, which does no good.  I reach for more water, which does no good.

I am flush at this point. I am sweating like a mad man.  I am in need of a firehose.  Something to dowse the flames.

Oh my God!!! Will I live???

If you can imagine this lasting for 15 minutes, you may have some idea of what it was like. It was hell!!

Bottom line, do not eat Moroccan hot red peppers whole.

The evening was made a little bit better by having a very attractive belly dancer (balancing on her head numerous lit candles) come to our table later and encourage me to take the floor with her to do a few belly dancing steps with her.

In order not to create an international incident, I acquiesced, and for some reason the Moroccan hot red pepper became a distant memory.

Isn’t life great!