My Latest Misadventure

I know that my Mom doesn't want to hear about this, but there are many ways that bad things can happen when you are travelling and living in a foreign country. Some are highly unlikely, but cool (e.g., getting mauled by a tiger or mistaken for plankton by a whale shark) and others have a much greater chance of occuring, but are quite mundane (e.g., getting run into by some damn idiot on a scooter or dehydration from the sweat-fest that is daily life in KL). However, every now and then something totally unexpected will reach up and poke you in the eye.

The Dangers of Lunch
As I am sure I have mentioned before, eating Malaysian food usually means rice or noodles. Lunch today was noodle time- Uncle Chilli's Curry Noodle (soup). I am slowly learning how to eat soupy noodle dishes without making a complete mess of it (you try getting noodles out of a bowl with only a spoon and chopsticks!) Usually, I am still hesitant to order this whenever I have on a white shirt because I am sure to end up wearing some of it, but today I had on a red TTU shirt, so I was confident that I could at least hide any minor spillage until I got home.

I was carefully leaning over my bowl when a bean slipped from my spoon, landed in my bowl, and splashed a drop of spicy curry into my left eye. "Oh Shoot" I thought (maybe that is not an exact translation), "I just got Malahysian spice in my eye, this can't be good". I have learned to always keep the last sip of my drink in reserve becasue there is always that undiscovered chili waiting at the bottom of every dish. I wasn't sure how spashing a thimble full of ice lemon tea into my eye was going to help me (where was that eye-wash that we see in the Biology Department safety video every year when I needed it?!?). I quickly looked around the room to enjoy my last moment of binocular vision because I knew that Uncle Chili's spices were eating through my optic nerve as I sat there. Luckily, after only a few moments and a few tears I was able to open my eye, take out my contact, and continue on with my meal. Disaster averted. From now on, I am only eating at McDonalds. We all know how good that stuff is for us.