Recently, at a family gathering, I mentioned that I can’t really take over-the-counter cold medicines because of another medication I take. The truth is that it makes me trip out. Maybe that would have been nice in college, but it’s a real drag when you’re trying to meet a deadline.

Anyway, my auntie recommended Sinus Buster, whose active ingredient is not some latent psychedelic, but capsaicin. It probably wouldn’t interact badly with medication, but it was essentially recommending the snorting of hot peppers. This is where the conflict began, because although my auntie has never steered me wrong in a product recommendation, snorting hot peppers seems like a terrible idea on a very fundamental level.

The following evening, I was presented with my very own bottle of hot pepper nasal spray and an exhortation to try it. I was again conflicted: pressure from my family versus what I suspected would be a very unpleasant experience. My younger cousins confirmed that I would, in fact, be insane for snorting hot peppers, and that it would indeed be the unpleasant experience I anticipated. My auntie, however, took a snort and didn’t even flinch. She looked rather pleased, in fact.

Finally, my curiosity got the better of me. I took the daintiest little spritz of the stuff… and promptly experienced what it would be like to set my brain on fire by jamming a propane torch through my sinus cavity.

“Oh, don’t inhale it your first time,” my auntie offered helpfully. In between flashes of all reason abandoning my mental inferno through any available exit point, I managed to wonder, “First time? Doesn’t that imply that I would actually do this again?”

Jeebus help me, I got talked into doing it on the other side, just to “even things up.” Like I said: reason had bailed. Hell if that time wasn’t as bad, though. Maybe it was possible to become a casual pepper snorter like my auntie, for whom it is apparently merely “warm and tingly” rather than “excruciating and foolhardy.” In any case, it would certainly be a boon to have a shot of pepper spray handy in case of assault, or just to spice up one’s entree.

I tried it again a few days later, in the hopes of building up a hardcore user’s tolerance like my auntie’s. I think I’m on my way.