Hot Sauce Vision

Moving from Washington DC to NYC was a critical move for me that I needed to undertake on many levels. Fortunately, I was able to make this move knowing a couple other people who had made the same move. Some were friends from GW others from my post-GW DC life. One of my GW friends was my friend Jason who I lived with my freshman year at GW and maintained a friendship throughout my time there. After GW, Jason moved to Hoboken, NJ and later to the upper east side of Manhattan. When I made my move to NYC, Jason helped me find an apartment through a friend of his who was looking for a roommate. After having officially relocated to NYC I met Jason and many of this friends including eventually Jamie, a woman who later became his wife. When they were still dating, I sometimes felt like they were trying to hook me up with one of Jamie's girl friends. These would be unofficial double dates or larger group efforts with a decent mixture of women and men. One of these nights that involved a larger group came at a birthday party for Jamie on the upper west side barbecue establishment known as the Firehouse. The Firehouse was a big drinking/party/fun place that drew a large crowd. On this particular night this large crowd included several drunk women including Jamie and a few of her friends. This group of perhaps 10 or 15 also partook of the The Firehouse's famous hot wings. Get it? Fire - hot spicy food? The fire from the hot spicy food/wings is so great that it would take an actual fire hose from an actual fire house to put out your own personal fire from the great spicy food! They dare you to eat those wings!

Despite this name and the clever play on words I did not fully grasp its meaning. Maybe because I was not a particularly big hot wing eater the thought that these hot wings might be a source of great physical pain did not occur to me. For most of the night I had avoided the wings, sticking mainly to beer. I believe I had a proper meal before (Lipton Noodles and Sauce - mmmm!) and simply wasn't hungry. But after 2 or so hours of drinking and chatting up girls I began to feel a little hungry. So when a bucket of wings was placed in front of me for all to share I couldn't help but take a couple. The only thing was that the sauce was so hot (again - "Fire!") I began to sweat. Not being particularly comfortable sweating while drinking and trying to be sociable I quickly started to wipe the sweat off of my forehead and out of my eyes with my hands. Unfortunately for me, I did this wiping with my hands without properly cleaning them to make sure that they were completely free of the "nuclear" hot wing sauce. For this oversight, I payed a great price.

It took only a little bit of sauce, but it turned out to be enough to make my eyes sting and water some more. I wiped them yet again with my unclean hands before I realized what was happening. The sauce, like some active airborne virus, was in the process of completely taking over my body! It was inside me, covering my hands and had now entered infiltrated my eyes! I couldn't keep my eyes open for the pain and could barely see. I dropped the wing on a plate and without anyone really noticing, headed downstairs to the men's room to create some hot sauce-free space.

A quick washing up was all that I needed but my escape was a narrow one. My adventure with the hot sauce could've been far worse and more harrowing. This experience had given me a great newfound respect for the sauce and I knew it was not to be messed with. I made sure to properly clean my hands before touching anything - beer bottle, another person and definitely myself. If there had been a shower there at The Firehouse I probably would've used it too just to make sure that I was clear of the sauce. I returned to the party and tried to collect myself hoping that no one had witnessed this episode of the burning hot sauce.