Score: Jalapenos 2.5, Patchoulia 0

Everybody knows (or should know) that it's dangerous to wipe one's eye(s) after handling hot peppers.

I semi-learned this lesson via an experience, several years ago, when I absentmindedly touched my eye after slicing a jalapeno...as such, I try to be super-diligent, whenever I am cooking with jalapenos or any hot peppers, to wash my hands thoroughly after touching them.

Of course, if I had, in fact, fully learned the aforementioned lesson and if I were, in fact, super-diligent with regards to washing my hands after handling hot peppers, I likely wouldn't be typing this post right now, would I?

Last night I made a delicious, spicy, tomato-based cabbage/veggie soup for dinner.

One note about my cooking...when I have the time, I enjoy cutting up all my veggies beforehand, putting them in bowls, prepped & ready to enter the skillet/pot/saucepan/frying pan when it's their turn.

Why? My reasoning is twofold:

1. a) I like to pretend I'm a hostess/chef on a television cooking program. Even though those chefs do some chopping/demonstrating during the course of their program, that's frequently just for "show"--they always have their ingredients prepped, measured and ready to go!

1. b) Speaking of television cooking shows, I really miss The Urban Peasant. I wish I'd had the opportunity to meet and/or cook with him before he went to that big gourmet kitchen in the sky. Sometimes, when I'm cooking, I like to adopt his accent and use his phrases & mannerisms (even if I'm alone), "NOW! If you haven't got wine, use apple juice, if you haven't got apple juice, use water--use what you LIKE! It's YOUR KITCHEN!!"

(If you were wondering, I *was* dropped on my head as a child. Seriously.)

2. I don't like the pressure that's put on me when I've already begun the cooking part of the meal preparation and I still have chopping left to do...it's extremely stressful!

"The onions are sauteing, but I still need to chop the carrots, mince the garlic, locate the oregano & the basil...NO!! Crap! NO!!!! The onions are going to be too cooked, the meal's going to be ruined...AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH!"

(See? Dropped on head=Julia kooky)

Anyway, last night, I chopped up all my veggies before I started cooking.

The jalapeno was the 3rd item I chopped. I stopped, washed my hands, and continued my chopping, cutting up the carrots, garlic & cabbage. I them proceeded to cook my soup...in went the onions, then the carrots & celery, followed by the jalapeno & the garlic...

If you deduced that I did not wash my jalapeno-tainted hands a second time, after putting the peppers into the soup pot, you would be correct.

Once all the ingredients were added, and my soup was simmering, I began tidying up the kitchen. The cutting board was still, apparently, infested with onion, because my eyes started watering. I wiped away the tears from my right eye and was immediately besieged by a horrific burning sensation...I realized we were dealing with a jalapeno-eyeball situation...

I couldn't even open my eye, the burning, searing pain was far too intense. I tried to flush the eye with water, but couldn't keep it open to do so. I tried bawling (not difficult)in an effort to wash away the jalapeno oil, with little effect.

I rubbed the eye a bit, with a towel, and then came to the appalling realization that not only had I rubbed jalapeno oil in my eye, but a teeny piece of the pepper was actually lodged under my eyelid! The blinding (literally) pain suddenly made more sense...

While all this was going on, I had also been crying out of my left eye and my face was covered in mascara...so I tried to wipe it off...at which point, I rubbed some still lingering jalapeno under the (previously unaffected) left eye!

I am a moron.

With my eyes squeezed shut, I then washed both my hands, thoroughly.

Poopypants conducted a quick internet search that revealed pouring milk in an affected eye supposedly helps neutralize the pepper acid/juice.

Naturally, we didn't have any milk in the house.

Another online suggestion was to use Visine, which I do have in my medicine cabinet.

Visine did succeed in quelling the burning, after a few minutes, which was, as you can imagine, a tremendous relief.

The reason I report the score as Jalapeno 2.5, Julia 0, is because not only did I actually end up rubbing both of my eyes with my pepper-infested hands, but, I think I may have infected the Visine with jalapeno as well! When I woke up this morning, I realized that my (still extremely red) eyes could use another shot of Visine...and when I inserted the drops, my eyes began burning all over again!

Summary: All homes should be equipped with one of those chemical eyewash stations, like they have in laboratories & high school chemistry classrooms. It's just good sense.