Eye Sauce

Yesterday, while bottling the Carolina reaper and scorpion/ghost pepper sauces, a stray bullet of mash flew directly into my eye. Immediately, panic took hold. I could feel the pulp as I instinctually rubbed my eye – spreading the fire like a thick film. The burn instantly set in. “Maria, I need milk!” I called out.

“What? Why?” she calmly responded to my panic with 27 years of experience.

“The sauce! My eye!”

“Flush it with water,” she instructed as I ran blindly to the bathroom with my hands covering, but not touching, my face.

“It really fucking burns!”

“I bet it does.”

“No, the water is making it worse.”

She started pouring milk into a shot glass.

“Here.”

“I can’t see,” as I bathed my eyeball. “I’m blind!”

“Want to go to the hospital?” This must be the 88^th time she’s asked me this over the years.

“I dunno. It’s now burning my other eye!” Even my cheeks were scalding.

“Relax.”

“Really. I can’t see.” I could. But I couldn’t. Really blurry – no sense of depth. [I panic easily.]

I flushed out my eyes for 15 minutes and they eventually cleared up. The pain, however, lasted for a few hours.

Would you believe me if I wrote, “My sight seems much clearer today”? I shit you not.