Me vs Green Chile Peppers

First, I will spare you the agony of wondering: the green chiles won this battle.

It's the end of a three-day weekend. Last week, I was looking forward to this weekend as one that would be both productive and relaxing; I was going to budget my time just-so in order to get my work done and take a little time for myself after a long week.

Up until today, I had managed to achieve that to a certain degree. I'd managed to edit 5 chapters of the book I'm working on (which is not fun, believe me) and I also managed to go to a party, go on a date, and kick my friend's ass in pool (again). Though, admitedly, the only reason I "kicked his ass" was because he kept scratching on the eight ball, but I digress.

This morning I set my alarm for 9 am, which, if you know me at all, you know is early for me to wake up when I don't absolutely have to. But I wanted to get a jumpstart on my work for the day so I could enjoy my President's Day evening with, perhaps, a nice glass of wine and a chick flick. I managed to edit three chapters in a few hours (really only pausing to eat, go to the bathroom, and, of course, Twitter) I wanted to edit a fourth chapter before I called it a day, but I figured I should go to the grocery store and prepare some dinner before I got to be too hungry. So my roommate and I headed out to Trade Fair, which, in the two weeks we've lived in Astoria, has proven to be a pretty awesome super market.

I was planning to make a very simple recipe: chicken chili, which, according to the website from which I obtained the recipe, is one of the healthiest meals you can make because it's chock full of nutrients. Consider the ingredients:

10 oz chicken, diced
1 1/2 tsp cumin
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
2 14.5 oz cans diced tomatoes
1 15 oz can yellow, whole kernel corn
1 15 oz can black or red beans
1 small can diced green chiles

The greatest thing about this recipe to me, besides of course its nutrional value, is the fact that most of the ingredients are canned which means that the prep time is reduced by like 30 minutes. Fabulous.

I gathered all of the ingredients until the only thing missing was the can of chiles. I had never had a problem finidng these at a New York grocer in the past, and I figured, since I was at a superior New York grocery store, it would be doubly easy. Boy, oh boy, was I wrong.

I looked up and down the Mexican food aisle, figuring it was a safe bet. No go. I went into the other, regular canned veggie aisle but still couldn't locate them. I asked a stock boy where I might find a can of chiles. "Next aisle," he said, nodding his head toward the aisle I'd just left. Okay, fine. I guess I just hadn't looked hard enough.

I went back to the Mexican food aisle and found another stock boy. "Excuse me," I said. "Where can I find a can of green chiles."

He led me over to a shelf full of canned peppers that I'd already looked at. He pointed to a can of pickled jalepenos.

"These are jalepenos," I said, annoyed. "I need chiles." I wanted to say to him "You're Mexican, you should know the difference!" but I refrained because my mom taught me better manners than that.

He shrugged his shoulders and walked away. Then I got pissed. I used to work in customer service and whenever someone needed something that I couldn't find, I asked a manager or another person who had worked there longer than I had. Not this guy. He went back to shelving. Fuck.

I found my roommate who had since retrieved several other items on my list. "I can't find chiles," I said, trying to hide my annoyance since we've only lived together two weeks and I didn't want her to see that side of me yet.

She told me there was another aisle she'd just been down where there were a bunch of jarred peppers. Maybe we'd find them there.

We walked down it. Nope. There were lots of other things in that aisle - several types of canned grape leaves, a variety of pickled beets imported from Poland - but not one single, effing can of chiles.

My roommate offered to look for them while I got deli meat, but she didn't have any luck either. I looked again, especially carefully this time, but, meanwhile, I was becoming increasingly annoyed with everything around me. Ugh. People. IT SHOULDN'T BE THIS HARD!

Fnally, I gave up and went to the produce section to find some fresh chiles. I had no idea how many to get as I'd never made this recipe with fresh chiles before. Hell, I don't know if I'd ever used a fresh chile for anything. I grabbed a handful and got in line behind two women who kept leaving the line to get more stuff. I was still pissed. The chiles cost me 20 cents. I figured I'd saved about 50 cents than if I'd bought a can and I felt a little better. I felt 50 cents better.

My roommate and I lugged the groceries home, and I proceded to prepare the chili. I cut the peppers last, and then when it was ready, my roommate and I each served ourselves a bowl. "Mm. It's good," my roommate said. "It's spicy though."

I started to eat. It was spicy. Really spicy. I started to tear up, my nose started to run, and I could feel my face getting flushed. I went to get myself some crackers to help take the sting out, and in the process rubbed my eye to wipe away a tear.

Shit.

My eye instantly began to burn. The chili residue was still on my fingers, and now it was in my eye. I started yelling. "Ouch! I rubbed my eye!" My roommate, always sympathetic, suggested I flush it out with water. In order to do that, I needed to take my contact out. I washed my hands quickly and pulled out the lense.

I started screaming more. That had just made the pain worse. I began flushing out my eye with water. After a minute or two it started to feel better, but I didn't want to put the contact back in because my hands were still covered in chile residue. I now had one contact in, but I didn't want to take it out because I didn't want to burn the other eye too. Plus, my glasses were with the optometrist because I was having the lenses replaced in them and they hadn't come back from the lab yet.

I wanted to go out and get some sour cream to cut the spiciness of the chili. Plus, I needed floss. So, I decided to walk with my roommate, who was on her way to the subway, and retrieve the necessary items while my eye healed. I figured I'd do that, come back, put my contact back in, and finish the last few pages of editing I needed to do before bed.

I went to Rite Aid. They didn't have sour cream. Whatever. I wasn't going back to Trade Fair. I was still pissed at that place and needed a few days to cool off. But I got floss. What the hell.

I went home and washed my hands again before attempting to re-insert my contact. The second I attempted this, my eye began to burn again and I threw the contact in the garbage. Since that one was tainted, I figured I'd throw the other one out too, so I pulled it out quickly (though my eye still started burning) and tossed it. Now I was completely blind and I had no spare glasses, and I still had 15 pages of editing to do.

That fucking chicken chili blinded me goddammit.

So I got my editing done (though it sucked even more than usual) and now I'm sitting here typing on a blog that I can barely read (My apologies for any spelling errors). Why did I feel the need to share this with you? Well, for one thing, I had nothing better to do and for another, I wanted to share this message wth you all: nothing in life--not even a simple chicken chili recipe--is ever as easy as advertised.

God bless.