When grinding peppers . . .

. . . one should be very careful with respect to what one touches.

I was drying and grinding peppers from the garden yesterday and last night, with what I suppose are predictable results. For those of you who have never grown, dried and preserved peppers, let me tell you that touching them turns your fingers into lethal weapons, regardless of whether your fingers feel "hot." Your fingers are tough. The body parts they touch might not be.

This is a lesson I have learned repeated over the years, and so I try very hard not to touch my face, eyes, etc. when I am grinding peppers. I probably ought to invest in surgeon's gloves, but that seems a bit much to me. In any event, last night I had a pretty good batch of dried peppers:

 That actually is only about half the peppers I had to dry and grind. Naturally, grinding peppers turns them into powder, which gets into the air:

Pepper powder in the air will get you every time -- no matter how hard you try, no matter what you don't tough with your pepper-fired fingers, your nose, eyes and lips will burn. They are sensitive and there is pepper dust in the air. You will be uncomfortable.

To avoid even greater discomfort, I have to recommend two things if you insist upon grinding peppers: First, go to the bathroom beforehand. And second, don't go to the bathroom again until the peppers are a distant memory. Otherwise, you might suffer the fate that I am currently living with (and this isn't a Springsteen song): My dick is on fire. Don't know how else to put it. I didn't give it a lot of thought, just washed my hands (I know what I'm working with, after all) and went to the bathroom. Never again.