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My father works with a gentleman who grows and pickles an assortment of peppers at his home, and they’re wonderfully hot. This man recently gave my dad a small habanero bush so my parents could try pickling their own batch.

Well, last night my mother, father, and I harvested about a quarter pound of peppers from the bush and began preparing them for pickling. This delicate procedure involves removing the peppers’ rib meat and seeds, and chopping the flesh.

And we did it the hard way—by hand.

My mother commandeered the pickling operation and insisted on using a new chef knife she had just purchased. Apparently, this was the big mistake. Minutes later, she’s coughing and complaining that her throat feels like it’s on fire. So my dad relieves her from chopping duties, and soon enough he’s crying and coughing too.

At this point, the capsaicin mushroom cloud looming over the cutting area began to spread throughout the house. It felt like we were getting maced, right in the eyes. I made the brilliant suggestion to stop using the knife and chop these little firecrackers in a food processor. But my mother did not back down. Her new knife was better.

Naturally, I’m third in line and step in to relieve my father. My only tool, you guessed it, a really sharp, brand-new knife. Each cut released more capsaicin into the caustic air, which was already thick with invisible fire, but I pressed on and cut through my share of peppers. At first it was easy and relatively pain-free. Little did I know that thirty minutes later my hands would sizzle with spicy electricity all the way down to the deep tissue.

Finally, we completed this tortuous first step in pickling the peppers, but it wasn’t worth the chemical burn.

Instead of counting sheep before falling asleep last night, I repeated to myself, "Don’t touch your eyes in the morning." When I woke up, my hands were ablaze. During my morning shower, I washed my hair and residual capsaicin transferred into the shampoo. Suds dripping onto my face burned like lava. I cursed to myself, "We should’ve used a food processor, not that stupid knife!"

Mistakes like our "pickled pepper predicament" happen everywhere, all the time. You get excited about a new tool and stubbornly use it just for that reason, without evaluating its objective worth as the best tool for the task.

Have you ever witnessed someone using a new tool in the wrong setting, just because he wanted to be the first to use it? How did you treat the situation? Email me with your stories.

In the meantime, I’m going to dip my hands in a bucket of aloe vera.

Until next time . . . live well, don’t chop your own peppers, and build better software.

Francesca Matteu
fmatteu@sqe.com