Burnt (014)

I consider myself a fairly well trained cook. This means I’ve spent much of my life in the kitchen chopping vegetables, seasoning meats, reading recipes, sautéing, frying, roasting, trying new combinations, and feeding my friends because that’s one way I show love. With all of this time in the kitchen comes accidents with knives, broken glass and plates, scrapes, and burns. Burns top my most hated list of physical injuries. Scrapes and cuts you can cover and protect and they will mostly feel okay within a day because they scab over—with the exception of forgetting you have one and squeezing citrus into a dish. Burns, depending on how hot the item that you touched was, stick around and continually feel like you’re on fire for a few days, and they blister and get disgusting. People will offer you advice on how to best heal them or make burns feel not as bad. The only things that have ever helped me at home are ice and lidocaine. There was one time when an older Chinese lady slathered me in a mystery brown bottle ointment.

I worked in a Chinese restaurant for three whole shifts at 16 years old gathering the carry out orders for pickup. During my last shift, I managed to tip over a freshly poured 16oz container of egg drop soup, pouring it down the front of my bare legs. It was July and they allowed me to wear shorts. The lady who owned the restaurant sat me down quickly, wiped off the soup, and pulled out a little brown mystery bottle of magic. She tipped it over, pouring out the ointment onto her fingers, and rubbed it all over my legs. There was instant relief, despite redness setting in. I will never forget that experience. I would give anything for some of that magic ointment right now. 

After pulling a skillet out of the 425° oven, I proceeded to grab the handle to serve up the homestyle chicken pot pie. I grabbed a 425° metal handle! With my bare, dominant hand! My neighbors might have heard me scream as I ran cold water over my hand and yelled for Mike to get me ice. It’s been six hours of holding ice cubes since the initial burn. I cannot stop touching ice for more than a couple minutes without feeling like my thumb and fingers are still touching the hot handle. 

One of my first thoughts was, how am I going to paint my nails and write in my planner now? Here’s to hoping it feels better in the morning. I’m fully expecting to wake up to some bizarre blisters. Maybe these messed up finger prints are my way into a criminal life.