We all meet them, the tight arse that never pays for a thing and no matter what it is they always seem to get out of paying up. For many years our compare had always managed to avoid paying his share of things one way or another, but I had my own way of getting him back.

We’d arrived in Leeds to do the last show of the week having already done four so far, as you can imagine we were all worn out and looking forward to getting home for some well earned rest. The night before I knew that our compare had stolen my bottle of drinking water so I was determined to make him pay one way or another. Now before you say that it was just a bottle of water, when you come off of stage you are very hot and very dehydrated, I had a chilled bottle of water ready to drink as soon as I’d finished. Instead I had to make do with a warm one that hadn’t been in the fridge. Also it’s worth pointing out that this was the end of a long line of things that the compare had taken without asking, and to put it mildly I was getting irritated with it.

When we can we will always cook our own food to save on expenses. It was my turn to cook that night and I decided to do a chilli for everybody. We all sat down to eat with our compare being the only one not around, perfect. I tell the the lads it’s time for some payback! They all look at me with blank expressions not having a clue what I have in mind. So I told them about my shopping trip earlier that day to a Mexican food supplier who sold me “Naga Jolokia” peppers, they still all have blank expressions on their faces, so I tell them all about my purchase. For those of you that don’t know Naga Jolokia is considered the hottest chilli pepper in the world. There was plenty of food left in the pot for the compare so I proceeded to cut up a small amount of the chilli pepper and stir it .

In walks the compare; “Mmmm, that smells nice!”. I tell him to help himself, and being the greedy guy he is he takes all that was left in the pot without asking if anybody else would like more; not that we would have! We all continue eating while watching him dig into his chilli. “Fuck guys this is hot, is yours?”. “Yeah.”, we all reply, and tell him not to be a big baby and to eat up. We leave him with his chilli and start making our way into the club giggling amongst ourselves.

As we’re setting up for the show the compare walks into the club, by this point he isn’t looking that great, running eyes and complaining that he can’t breath! Anyway, on with the show. The next morning there is no sign of the compare anywhere, not in his bed, and not outside the van. Some time later as we are getting our gear together to leave the compare appears. “Fuck boys I had a terrible night.”, “Why’s that?”, we ask. “That food last night was the hottest I’ve ever eaten, my arse is on fire, I can hardly walk!”. “That’s odd”, we all reply, “we’re all fine.”. We never did tell him about the chilli, just one of those things that makes you chuckle to yourself now and then. Maybe one day… 😉