DING! Next slide, please.

I'm not usually bothered by allergies, but today I was sneezing my head off and my eyes were so itchy that I couldn't stop rubbing them.

DISCLAIMER:  I'm not a doctor or health professional, and probably what I did is incredibly stupid, but anyway...

I took a generic clone of Claritin, which worked surprisingly quickly, but my eyes kept itching and itching, and after I rubbed the hell out of them, I suddenly remembered something about cayenne pepper in the eyes.

That's about all I remembered, but I shook a bit of the red stuff into my palm, and with a wet forefinger transferred some of the grains to each eye.

Guess what happened?  They started burning like mad!  I ran to the bathroom and washed them with cold water until the burning stopped.  Still, each time I blinked, it burned, so I kept a cold washcloth on them until my eyes felt normal.  I must have put a lot in there, because the washcloth was stained orangy-red.

Emma cried, "What are you, crazy?  Now they itch even more, right?"

Me: "No, actually, they just burn, but they don't itch."

Now my eyes feel great.

Still, I'm sure I overdid it.  I've tried to Google some better instructions, because I think there is a danger of burning something, but it did the trick, in spite of Emma's incredulous laughter.