One, Two Twenty ~ Vetter Get Going

Being a fan of Thai cuisine, I've grown accustomed to the standardized "Heat Scale" choices when ordering a curry dish. But what happens when the new kid on the block decides to change the game and up the ante?

-by Alan Vetter

So I'm at this Thai restaurant the other day ordering some "Curry with assorted animal", and the waitress asks me, "How spicy?"
I say “Spicy”.

The waitress asks “10?”

I say “What?”

She says “10 hot?”

I say “On a scale of what?”

She says “20”.

I say, “Are you kidding me?”

She says “No I no kid.”

I say “Seriously? 1 to 20?”

She says “Yes 1 to 20”

Now I'm German. The spiciest food in the Fatherland is mustard, and that comes in two types- spicy or mild. If you’re lucky you’ll get a third "sweet" option, but that’s it- end of discussion. I stare blankly at the Chinese Zodiac place mat before me and realize I am having a difficult time comprehending the question that was just asked of me. I also realize that this whole time I thought I was born in the Year of the Rat.

I start contemplating the subtle differences between an 8 and a 7. Are there any? Is there a magic number of hotness after which all following levels of hotness are too hot? And after that, does it begin to venture into some sort of calculation requiring an abacus...where a 12 is somehow exponentially hotter than an 11? Does 1 hot have any hotness at all, and is it pretty close to 2 hot? Or does 2 hot make a quantitative leap into the “kind of hot” arena, but noticeably less hot than say a 3 hot or a 4 hot which may or may not be substantially less hot than a 5 or 6 hot?

At this point I start wishing that the Zodiac place mat was something I could use- like a curry heat scale guideline. It would probably read something like this:

I had a similar problem one day in the emergency room several years ago.

My leg had impaled itself on a cactus in the mountains of New Mexico and I found myself driving at the speed of sound to the local hospital. After filling out the required paperwork while standing in a puddle of blood, the nurse asks me, “On a scale of 1-5, with 5 being the worst, how bad would you say your pain is?” An hour earlier on the hiking trail, watching the rivulets of red cascade down into my socks, the pain was definitely off the charts. That was a 20 hot. But now that I’m in the waiting room with the pain scale presented to me, I can't possibly go with a “5”. What if some guy waltzes in with a pair of scissors through his head? He should get the 5 right? I wouldn't feel justified taking the “5” while I’m still breathing without a machine.

"How bad is your pain?" the nurse asks again.

By this time my leg is the size of a small blimp and resembles a porcupine that hasn't taken a breath in a week. I compare my pain to that of the guy with the scissors through his head, and I say “3”. I’m not going lower as I don’t want to be here all day, and I figure that coming in at slightly above the 50% mark is a safe bet.

“Have a seat”, the nurse says, “The doctor will be with you shortly."

I know what “shortly” means in medical jargon, so I pick up a copy of "War and Peace" and settle in.

Ten minutes later, a frantic mother races in with screaming child. I give a quick looksey to evaluate the competition. I don't see any gadget of any sort protruding out of the little girl’s body which is a good sign. Apparently she had only scraped her elbow.

This is where it goes south.

When presented with the paperwork, mom pushes it aside and states the obvious. “This is an emergency." She says.

Really idiot? I thought "Emergency Room" was just a clever name for this cute but sterile little cafe. Now where the hell is my latte? And why are all these people bleeding?

The nurse asks the child, “On a scale of 1-5 how bad would you say the pain is?” The girl thinks for a moment, does some infantile mental math and blurts out “Five!” The nurse then instructs the mother to go through the double doors, down the corridor and into the first room on the left. “The doctor will be right in.” She says.

Great.

Unless she scraped her elbow with a meat slicer, this is totally unacceptable. Why didn’t I just say 5? I should have never thought about scissor head guy. If he’s still alive after driving all the way over here, he’ll be fine. Plus anyone who can’t handle scissors should be ejected from the gene pool anyway. It’s already way too murky in here. Ten minutes later the little girl comes out with a lollipop in her hand and a Band-Aid on her elbow. 45 minutes after that, I see the doctor.