One Two Twenty

So I’m at the Thai restaurant this afternoon ordering some “Curry with assorted animal”, and the waitress asks me “How spicy?”
I say “Spicy”.
The waitress says “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”

     For the record, I’m German. The spiciest food in the Fatherland is mustard. And that only comes in two types. Spicy or mild. If you’re lucky you’ll get a third option- “sweet”. But that’s about it. End of discussion. Seriously, I can’t comprehend this. My mind starts contemplating the subtle differences between a 5 and a 7. Are there any? Is there a magic number after which all following levels of hotness are too hot? And after that, does it begin to venture into calculus 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”?
At this point I start wishing for a menu guideline, which would probably read something like this:

1 hot – Not hot.
2 hot – Hotter than 1 hot but still not hot.
3 hot – A little hot but still not really hot.
4 hot – Somewhat hot, but not too much hot.
5 hot – Kind of sort of hot but not really that hot.
6 hot – Hotter than 5 hot.
7 hot – Hotter.
8 hot – Hotter still but still not really that hot hot.
9 hot – Almost really hot.
10 hot – Hot.
11 hot – Getting hotter.
12 hot – Caution. Hot.
13 hot – Be more cautious. Hotter still.
14 hot – Hot Hot.
15 hot – Hotter than 10-14 hot, but not as hot hot as 16-20 hot.
16 hot – Almost too hot.
17 hot – Almost almost too hot hot.
18 hot – Too hot
19 hot – Way too hot.
20 hot – Not available at this time.

I had a similar problem the first time I went to Italy. I almost lost my mind when I was asked to pay 300,000 Lira for a cup of coffee. “No coffee is that good” I said to myself. But after doing the math I had no problem with the two dollar price tag.
Unfortunately the largest denomination of currency was a 20 Lira note.
People were walking around Italy with wheelbarrows full of cash just to have lunch.
Before switching over to the Euro, the Italian department of financial absurdities decided to shave off a few dozen zeros, leaving the cost of a cappuccino at a palpable 3,000 Lira.

On another occasion, I found myself in the emergency room several years ago, after my leg impaled itself on a cactus in the foothills of New Mexico. After filling out the required medical questionnaire, (read- novella), the receptionist asks me “On a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being the worst), how bad would you say your pain is?” For the record, an hour earlier on the hiking trail, doubled over in the throes of agony, the pain was definitely off the charts. That was a 20 hot. But now that I’m in the waiting room, I can’t possibly go with a “5”. What if a guy waltzes in with a pair of scissors through his head? He gets to have the 5 right? I can’t possibly take the “5” while I’m still breathing on my own.

By this time my leg is the size of a blimp and resembles an inverted porcupine but with the quills still on the outside. But I compare my pain to that of scissor head guy, and I say “3”. I’m definitely not going to go lower as I don’t want to be here all day at the end of the line. 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, but I’m feeling optimistic.
Ten minutes later a mother enters the room with a screaming child, and I give a quick looksey to evaluate the competition. No foreign objects protruding out of the girl’s body…good. Turns out the urchin had only scraped her elbow.
And 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? That’s probably why you, I, and half a dozen other injured, maimed and malfunctioning people are all gathered in something called “The Emergency Room.”
“On a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being the worst), how bad would you say the pain is?” the nurse asks her.
“5” the little girl replies.
The nurse then instructs the mother to go through the door, down the corridor and into the first room on the left. “The doctor will be right in.”

Fantastic.
Unless she scraped her elbow on a meat slicer, this is totally unacceptable.
Why didn’t I just say 5?  I should have just said “Screw scissor 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 Band-Aid on her elbow.
Thirty minutes after that, I see the doctor.

So take my advice. In the emergency room, on a scale of 1-5 (with 5 being the worst), always say 10. (Unless the scale is 1-20 then say 40.)

As far as the Thai restaurant story goes, I told the waitress that I couldn’t decide between “12 hot” and “13 hot”.
“Can you do a twelve and a half hot?” I asked.
“No problem.”, She said. “Red, Green or yellow curry?”
“How hot is the green?” I ask.
“On a scale of 1-50”.