burning!!!

tabasco sauce is amazing. i love my spicy almost as much as my sweet. we have a jumbo bottle at home, and i've gone overboard with the tabasco lately... i drench my meals in it. one of the reasons i love tabasco sauce so much is cuz it actually tastes good to me. i like the fermented pepper taste, and the fact that it's not a thick sauce. for example, i really don't dig the ketchup-thick hot sauces they serve at pho's... i'd rather use the chili oil, and it's quite upsetting when restaurants don't carry the chili oil.

so i was having some tabasco-soaked salmon yesterday as a "late-night" snack. anyway, the problem with sauces in general is that they tend to get messy. but i don't remember it getting messy last night. and so i was careless enough to rub my eyes before going to bed, and...

ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

my first reaction was to wash it out. but then (and i hate it when this happens), my idiotic curiosity took over and i wondered to myself, how long does burning last? i wanted to find out.

so i lay down and closed my eyes and.... buuuurrrnnneddd.... for a while. in the meantime, i was thinking of other things... like, what molecular properties constitute spicy? how is it that we are able to sense spicy only in certain places (like the mouth, eyes, nose, etc.)? what do those areas have that other areas lack? are there unique spicy receptors? how is sensing spicy related to sensing hot? does spicy do any damage to the areas that can sense it? why is it that the spicy feeling lasts so much longer than the spicy taste?

i may have drifted off, i'm not sure... but i was aware that my eyes were no longer burning about 40 minutes after i first closed them.

i dunno if i'll ever get around to answering all of my questions. maybe if this happens again. and knowing absent-minded little me, it just might ;)