Pain and Consequences
4/9/1

My wife just bought shoes over the internet. This just reeks of having to return them later. But this isn�t what I really want to talk about. I want to talk about pain and consequences.

Yeah, everyone wants to talk pain and consequences these days, you say. But this is First Person!

Friday, I make hot sauce using, among other things, two pounds of hot jalape�os and two onions. Everything I read told me to put on gloves. I didn�t listen.

I�m no wimpy man who has to wear gloves when handling produce. The fruit of the earth cannot harm me.

Well, in the short run, my hands did puff up a bit and get very hot. But by midnight that evening they were back to normal. Or so I thought.

First, let me tell you that I�d washed my hands at least five times while making my hot sauce. I washed them around three times afterward. Maybe just cooled them with water one time since they were very big and hot hands that night. And right before I took out my contacts, I washed them again.

I�ve never been sprayed by pepper spray but I�m sure it hurts rather bad. Most of the people who get sprayed by pepper spray, on general principles I assume, are drunks, and due to the lack of sobriety, don�t get the full effect. Maybe they do. But you�ll never find anyone willing to test this who isn�t� already a drunken masochist, and who could claim that a drunken masochist represents �the set of all people�.

So, my allegedly clean fingers go into my right eye. I highly suspect it was really the thumb which got me. I had been using my thumbnail to scrape seeds out of the peppers. As soon as I got the contact out, my synapses decided, �This is bad.� and the synapse foreman said, not unlike the weird guys in the movie Dark City �SHUT IT DOWN!�

I was blind and making odd, animal pain noises. I remember saying to Aisai, �Take it. Take it.� since I had my contact pinched between my fingers. She took it and put it in its little storage thing.

Five minutes later. My body allowed me to open my left eye. I hadn�t touched the left eye, but my system decided that capsaicin in one eye is good enough and had put the out of order sign on all optical sensors.

It had to be done. So I took out the left contact. It hurt as much, but since I was mentally prepared for it, there was no sound. Maybe a small sound like �HRRRRRRRRRRRRURUUUUH!�, but definitely less than 80 decibels.

Aisai stored it for me and I walked to the bed and sat down. I was blind again. Aisai got me a cold wet washcloth and it helped me out. I was able to open both eyes within three minutes.

I didn�t wear my contacts Saturday. But I did try to put them in on Sunday morning. Ouch. I was able to pry my right eye open and take it out. Total time of contact was around 20 seconds.

I tried again this morning after soaking the little guys in their enzyme treatment. The right contact was quite uncomfortable. I left it in for around 40 seconds before I realized there was no way that I�d be able to tolerate them for a full day. Maybe 10 minutes, tops. They are soaking in normal soaking solution now. I�m wearing my glasses for the third day in a row.

An interesting thing: when I got enzyme water on my fingers this morning, they immediately reeked of onion. It was just as if I had been chopping onions right there, but I hadn�t had Onion Hands since Friday.

I hate Onion Hands.