Happy Holidays, dangers of hot sauce,and do something good

[Chinookhead]

Well, I decided to do a little community service this week because I am on break from school. Yesterday I went to the Ecumenical food pantry in Washington Heights on 172nd. The MTA is on strike and a friend of mine walked from 101st!!! I arrived 30 minutes late due to a catastrophe.

I decided to have a hardy meal before going to the food pantry because I was expecting a day of manual labor...but also Romanian (Chicago) hot dogs are good....I ate them at 10:15AM!! I thought that I was running pretty on time and that I would have no problem making it.......Wrong!!!

After I finished my last hot dog I scratched my left eye which was itching me. Then, a couple seconds later it's burning like nothing I've ever felt before....my vision went blurry in my left eye and even started tearing in both eyes because of the pain and my eyes automatic reaction to squint....Next, i see out of my right eye what appears to be something red on my index finger....Ahhhhh..that's what's going on. I had hot sauce on that finger and rubbed my eye with that finger....And this was not any hot sauce...It was habenero sauce (one of the hottest pepppers out there)!!!

So I run to the sink and splash some water into my eye and it does nothing...Ahhhh, it's burning. I'm thinking that I am going to have to go to the emergency room...my thoughts: "it's really going to damage my eye and burn me etc". Therefore I jump into the shower and use warm water and try to keep my eyes open as much as possible...finally 10 minutes later i'm ok.

I arrived at the Ecumenical food pantry at 11:30 feeling pretty stupid and explained my tardiness to my friends. I had a great time and worked hard. The workers/volunteers at the pantry were so nice, friendly , and appreciative. They tried as much as possible to make us feel welcome. We tried our best to speak a broken spanish (from 2 years in high school).

All in all, it was a great experience with great people. It also gave me a good perspective on things. I learned things that we all "know", but seeing it once in a while really changes things. U should have seen how this 5 year old girl reacted when one of the workers gave this little girl a plastic bag with 3 little homemade cookies as a bonus along with the normal food package. Her eyes lit up, and she hugged them, and swung with them against her chest. My relationship with cookies are: "how much more hydrogenated fat am I going to eat? Or I feel nauseated after eating that whole box of cookies". Obviously I enjoyed my dinner after work and will enjoy and truly apperciate the little things until this experience wears off.

Bottom line: Go out there and do something good like volunteer at a food pantry or blast a whole in Zarqauwi's head. Oh yeah, and think twice about eating hot dogs for breakfast with hot sauce...It could be dangerous!!Hahahahah!!!!!

[JakeF]

Great story Chin! I had Tabasco sauce in the eye once and that was no fun,, can't imagine habanero sauce, .

[Striperjim]

That was a nice thing to do chin. I especially hate to see children suffering. This is the time of year to be thankfull for what we have.
I worked for a little while in Washington Heights on 169th street a few years back.
nice story.

[kkevvy]

Great story Chin! Its good to hear your helpin out in the community. And I agree, seeing kids in the street, taht can't afford anything always makes me sad too. Its not thier fault, they are full of innocence and have minds like books, its a shame to see them out thier in the cold and such.

And about the hot sauce thing, that happened to me when I was like 6... I brought some chili peppers my mom used as a decoration for the house down to the compost pile, forget to wash my hands, rubbed my eye, got in my mouth, nose, etc. Long story short, after 12 emergency eye washes and 13 spoonfuls of sugar in my mouth later, I was good. Hehe.