Feelin' Hot, Hot, Hot

Our friendly neighbors offered some hot pepper seeds last spring when I was cleaning up the lawn and around the house. All efforts seem wasted as I look out the window to several pushy rosebushes, knee-high weeds among what's left of the grass, and three lonely sunflowers just dying for company in the flower bed. Nevertheless, I just harvested a healthy crop of the spicy little chili buggers tonight to add to our curried vegetables. I removed the seeds, diced the rest, and was quite pleased with myself when I scraped them into the pot Laura had so lovingly prepared.

Then, I scratched my eye. I immediately discovered my error when I could no longer physically open the eye, and it felt like I had developed the worst sunburn of my life that just kept spreading... first, the upper lid, then the lower lid, and eventually the whole brow and right cheek were absolutely on fire. Much worse than the time the gym's hand sanitizer ended up in my eye instead of on the paper towel. You'll notice I have a history of eyeball abuse... My eyeball felt like it might burst into flames, so I ran to the bathroom and let the cold water flow for a good 2 minutes before I attempted to force my eye open. It burns, it burns! And in the process of rinsing one eye, I managed to spread that evil hotness to the other eye and lid.

Two solid hours later, my eyes are open and still working, but there's an interesting heat radiating from the sockets. My eyelids are a little tender and almost feel chapped, and reading Pride and Prejudice is proving to be more of a chore than I'm up for this evening.

One of those lessons one wishes to have learned the easy way--read a book, hear it from a friend, use common sense...