Important information about spicy peppers

Today I learned a valuable lesson. I made Pico de Gallo today. It consists of tomatoes, red onions, cilantro, jalepeno peppers, lime juice, oil, salt, and pepper. I've done this many times before with no problems. I guess in the past I've always washed my hands soon after chopping the jalepenos. Never really gave much thought to it. About a half hour after I was done my hands started to tingle a little. Then a burning sensation developed. This sensation lingered without diminishing for a few hours before I finally asked Jeremy wtf is up with my hands. He said that the spicy chemical seeps into your skin and onto your nerves. It was as if my hands had eaten something too spicy. Apparently this "spicy chemical" is a base so I tried washing my hands with lemon juice and then vinegar. Both Dawn and bleach had already failed to have any effect. Unfortunately it seems I was past the point at which lemon juice and vinegar would do any good. Jason told me that "ball sweat" was the best thing to remedy this problem but I think that would have just made the situation much worse. My hands still burn, although it's been weakening over the past hour or so. Next time I chop jalepenos I'm going to wear gloves. I would encourage you to do the same, or at least wash your hands promptly because it really sucks when your hands burn for 8 hours.

Something I just realized: if you need to get back at someone REALLY bad, try rubbing some halved spicy peppers in their underwear. But please, only if they REALLY deserve it.