How Spicy?

Four. Well, that’s what I normally say when I go out for Thai or Indian food. Not today, though. I went to get some Phad See Ew for dinner and they denied me when I asked for “four” spiciness and boy did that throw me off. This got me thinking about a couple interesting things regarding this situation.

First, it’s amazing how instinctively I blurted out the number four. While yes it’s a preference I have come to re-use it’s more of an instinct than a decision for me anymore. The majority of restaurants that I’ve been to over the last several years whether or not their scale is 1-5 will accept the answer four because its a widely recognized scale that lots of people use.

Another example of an instinctual choice is which lane of multi-lane roads people choose to drive on. I would have to say that I often instincuatlly choose the second-most left lane for no good reason. Even if traffic is moving slower it’s a comfortable choice in my mind. Despite the state of the traffic that’s what I choose.

It’s weird to get smacked in the face in times like this that a lot of what I do is habit and could be completely illogical if I re-thought things through.

Second, does it really matter what I choose? I choose four by habit but I’m so accustomed to places having drastically different scales of spiciness that the range of what that number actually means makes it almost irrelevant. Maybe we need a more internationalized standard of “choice of spiciness”. That would be nice.

I chose three. I assumed that because of their shortened scale that their hottest choice would not be as hot as another place that has a 5-point scale. And, it’s hot… very hot.

One Response

  1. You deleted my comment…. and you changed things…




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