I'm hot.....like a jalapeno!

This weekend we had another couple over for dinner, and we decided to make some jalapeno poppers! I had never made them before, but we had some at a cook out we went to this summer, so I figured they couldn't be that hard to make. We stopped at the Farmers Market and I picked out twenty fresh jalapenos. I was so excited to make my yummy little appetizers!

After I got home, I washed all of them before I started to cut them open and de-seed them. My friend Christina hadn't arrived yet, so I was cutting them up all by myself. At one point, I happened to remember that I had read somewhere that when one is cutting up peppers, one should wear rubber gloves. I rolled my eyes, thinking, "Wow, that person must have been a complete wimp! These don't burn my fingers at all!".

As I was cutting the jalapenos open, my friend Chrisitina arrived, and she began to stuff the peppers with cheddar cheese while I finished my de-seeding process. Once they were all stuffed with cheese and wrapped with bacon, I handed them over to Greg to put on the grill. After a few minutes, Greg, Corey, and Christina all came back inside. Apparently they had tasted one of them after it had been on the grill for a few minutes. And apparently they were pretty hot. Even Greg had tears in his eyes! They decided to cook them a little while longer, and I proceeded to get everything else ready.

Eventually, everything was prepared, so we all sat down to eat. And all three of them stared at me when I took my first bite of the jalapeno popper. "This isn't that hot." I said after my first bite. Everyone shrugged their shoulders and decided it was fine to dig in. Well, apparently I had a somewhat mild pepper. My next pepper, not so mild. I look around the table, and Greg, Christina, and myself are all red faced and teary eyed. I couldn't even eat the rest of my second jalapeno popper. Then I got the bright idea that maybe the cheese by itself would not be so hot. Wrong! My eyes teared up, yet again. To make matters worse, Christina didn't believe me when I said the cheese was spicy, so she took two big bites of just the cheese from one of her peppers. Let's just say I think next time she'll learn from my mistakes! By this time, everyone basically has sweat rolling down their faces. Except Corey....he's pretty much the man! (I sent the remaining sixteen or so poppers home with him.)

It gets better. Several hours later, I notice that my fingers are really starting to burn. Basically, they felt like they were on fire and I literally expected to look down at them and see them throbbing. I had no idea what to do, so I soaked them in a bowl of cold water and dawn dishwashing soap. That helped for a little bit. After that I decided to look online for some home remedies. The first thing I did was poured rubbing alcohol all over my hands. That helped. For about five minutes. After that, the burning intensified! My next plan was to soak them in vinegar. Again, it didn't help and to top it off, the trailer then smelt like rotten eggs. So then I decided to take a shower. Surely the hot water will help wash off the pepper oil on my hands. WRONG!!! Oh. My. God. Let's just say don't mix hot water with a burn. And to make matters worse my whole face began to burn while I was in the shower. I guess I touched my face on accident.

After the whole shower fiasco, my fingers were still throbbing like you wouldn't believe. The main piece of advice that I had read online was to wash my hands with baking soda and water. Of course, I had no baking soda. But, I was desperate! I drove to the only store still open; Wal-Mart! After I got back home, I proceeded to wash my hands multiple times with it. I even made a paste and left it on my hands for several minutes at a time. It did seem to help a little. After that, I just gave up. I went to bed with throbbing, burning hands. Yesterday, the pain was still there. It wasn't as bad, it came and went. Thankfully, today I haven't had any issues!

Let's just say that the next time I decide to cut any type of hot pepper, I'll wear rubber gloves!