The post you've all been waiting for...

...pepper spray, and just how bad it hurt. (And all of you who say we're wussies *cough*The Former 786*cough* because we only got sprayed in one eye, I am here to testify that it didn't hurt any less.)

To be perfectly honest, I didn't feel anything for about 15 seconds or so. 709 took my hand and led me to the hose, where he started hosing off my face. (If you want a tender picture-perfect moment of this, you can find it on the far right computer in the control room.)

THEN it started BURNING!!!

It burned like someone funneled the fires of Hell into a big spiked mace, and then smacked me across the face with it.

I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see, and all the orifices in my face were running like a raging river, trying to rid me of the "refreshing" cayenne spray. (I'm pretty sure I either spit on/blew my nose on 709's sweet loafers while he was helping me decontaminate myself. )

"Wait, let me hose your head," 709 offered.

"Okay," I spluttered.

So he hosed down my head, which then trickled some of the fire down my face and neck, soaking my t-shirt. Now I was burning all down my face AND sopping wet AND freezing to death. Goody.

And I couldn't get my eyes open. Could NOT. I would lift my eyebrows as high as they would go, and then squeal, "Are they open?"

"Nope," 709 said.

I lifted my eyebrows higher this time, as if my skull was trying to struggle out of my burning scalp.

"NOW are they open?!"

"No. Look, let me help you," he said, and pried open one eye with the hose-free hand.

Enter the burning-Hell-mace again, this time stabbing my supposedly uncontaminated eye.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!" I screamed, hopping away.

"C'mon, you gotta get your eyes open," 709 said, spritzing me in the face with a water bottle.

"I c-c-can't open my eyes!" I wailed, hopping up and down in front of the fan. "It BURNS!!"

To make a long story short, there was a lot of screaming, a lot of water, a bit of swearing, and about an hour in front of the fans until the worst of the burning stopped. And I had to sleep with an ice pack last night because I recontaminated my right hand when I washed the cayenne out of my hair.

And I wondered, as I stood in front of the fans, my ice-cold fists clenched at my side and my face feeling well-done, why I had ever consented to do it. I'm still wondering.

So there, Former. Comments, all ye sufferers?