There was an Indian restaurant I used to go to in Minneapolis. On my first visit, I asked them to make it "Indian hot, times two." The waiter kinda laughed at me, but I assured him I was serious. He shrugged, and took the order.

While eating it, the entire kitchen and wait staff kept peeking watching me to see what would happen.

It was delicious, and I damned near licked the plate clean.

I know this sounds like an "and then everybody clapped" story, but I swear to Zeus.

My mom once ordered some Thai curry for me while I was sick, and asked for it to be made "double Thai hot." The server thought maybe she was playing a prank on me and requested that my mom get me on the phone to prove that I actually wanted the food that spicy. I told the server to tell the chefs to imagine that they hate someone and are trying to kill them with spiciness, then double that.

That was some of the best food I'd ever eaten, and by far the spiciest until I started doing food challenges. Now I have GERD...

The problem becomes that unless they actually have legit peppers or hot sauce, just throwing in more thai chilis and cayenne has a diminishing return. I can eat thai chilis and habaneros raw without much problem. Ironically, being a dedicated spice lover means it all comes back full circle once you accept that even proper "Indian spicy" or "thai spicy" just isn't going to be shit unless they have some exotic ingredients in the back.

The last thing which made me properly tap out was chicken wings coated in 1-2M scoville sauce (basically reapers, vinegar and salt). At a hot wing contest. And now I've been through three of those bottles since then so it really feels like there are no more mountains to climb, outside of these dumb events where they are basically tossing wings in bear spray at this point.