Posted With His Permission

After feeling rotten about it for the last couple of days, I decided to make my guys some salsa. They love my salsa. Even But, who--much like me--does not have a mouth lined with heat absorbing cheek skin. Coach and Jock? Bring on the fire, baby!

Anyway, by the time I got off work, went to the store, bought the ingredients and got home, Coach was on his way to bed and Jock was hanging out in his room, basically too cool to come hang out with me in the kitchen. That left my Bug. Who, by a happy coincidence, actually enjoys puttering around in the kitchen and cooking. He loves it when he gets to help me make the salsa, too. I'm still just enough of a paranoid mama to keep the knife in my own hands, but he's a good sport. He humors me, and just puts the ingredients all together for me.

The time came for the Taste Test. If you do any sort of work with food in the kitchen, you understand the importance of the Taste Test. Entire meals are either made or broken over the results of this test. And my Certified Taste Tester (CTT) was in bed. The Apprentice Taste Tester (ATT) was in full blown Invisible Mode, his current status only recognizable by the steady thump-thump-thump coming from his room. With any other food product I would not have hesitated to call on the Rookie. But salsa? I was, understandably, somewhat skeptical.

He grabbed a chip, and headed for the bowl. Stepped up to the counter, and sunk that chip right in. I warned him it would be hot. He assured me he would be up to the task. After all, he WAS Coach's son. He should be able to handle it, right?

With no reason to doubt that logic, The Rookie scooped. He scooped a scoop bigger than any he'd scooped before. Of a salsa of unknown heat levels. If the CTT had been up, he would have pointed out that rookie mistake. Of course, if the CTT had been up, the poor Rookie would not have needed to scoop, now would he?

After that massive bite, he looked at me and then quite calmly walked over to the fridge, grabbed a bottle of water and drank half of it without breaking for air once. Looked at me, and kept drinking.

His little pale face was red.

His beautiful blue eyes were crying.

He couldn't speak at all.

I handed him a slice of tomato and told him to grab a slice of bread. Several minutes and heat absorbing slices of things later, he looked at me to tell me

This will make a great story for your blog, won't it Mom?

Yes, yes it will.