A Terrible Experience - Beware The Viper

Today I decided to cut up some chillies I had drying in my office, with a view to pulverizing them and making chillie pepper. When I cut into them they were unfortunately going mouldy inside and I realized I should have cut them into small pieces before leaving them to dry spread out on paper.

So I discarded them and and went out to the bush in the backyard and picked those remaining. Red crinkly little buggers, triangular ugly things. There was enough to fill a small saucepan. I took them inside and cut them up quite finely and spread them out on paper towel. I went off to do something else. I've been home in "Isolation" having been tested for positive Covid on Monday. After a short while I started feeling heat on my eyelids and surrounds and realized I must have rubbed my eyes and touched my face with chillie residue on my hands. This quickly escalated into the worst pain I have ever experienced. Off the charts agonizing burning. Ice packs, or cold running water, gave slight relief for a few seconds then bang it was back excruciating. I had to keep changing tactics. The running water got in my eyes and they started to burn. I closed them and was not game to open them fearing blindness. Lib was trying to help me, we tried bathing my face in milk, then raw eggs, then back to ice, running water, it was thirty minutes of hell till it slowly began to subside in intensity. 

I would not wish such a thing on my worst enemy. It was like a hundred European wasps stinging your face at the same time and not being able to stop them. That's ridiculous because that many wasp stings would kill you, but during my ordeal I thought I might have a heart attack, it was that bad.

This chillie was a single bush I bought as a small plant at the vegie shop in spring. I planted it in a planter box with capsicums. The capsicums, 4 plants, were a huge success producing many delicious fruit we've been enjoying for months, right up till now. One morning when neighbour Helen was visiting my phone rang. It was my mate Ralphie and we had quite a long chat. Helen went outside, I watched her through the window. She picked some silverbeet leaves, a sprig of basil, some parsley. That OK I often give her stuff, she's never shown interest in the capsicums so I assumed she didn't like them. She saw all the red orange little chillies and picked one. I was still on the phone when she came back in, so she waved goodbye and left. That night about 7.30 there was a knock on the door. Helen. Said she put the chillie in her dinner and it ruined it. Couldn't eat it. Burned her.

I looked at the bush the next day and found the tag. It was named 'The Viper'

Should be banned from sale. Beware The Viper.

This photo was after the pain had subsided a good while later.