Overreaction

Normally it is pretty difficult to gross me out. I'm not squeamish in the least bit. Blood, gaping wounds, corpses, etc, etc.; none of it really bothers me. I mean, I'm the girl who at the age of ten wanted to be a coroner when she grew up. Just to give you an idea of how bizarrely okay I am with situations one would typically react to poorly.

Oh, hey. Is that a dead body? Neat.

Until this morning.

Just before the weekend, Aaron's mother gave him a recipe for tasty fried corn fritters. One of the ingredients is a cup of corn kernels. The recipe says you can add more or less depending on preference, so for our first batch Aaron used half a cup. The recipe also states to, "BEWARE OF EXPLODING KERNELS!" Because apparently when you rapidly heat corn kernels in just such a way, they may explode sending scalding oil and corn bits all over the kitchen like a carpet bomb. Our frying however went down safely.

The fritters were indeed very good, but could have used more corn. Fast forward to Sunday. We decide to make the tasty fritters again, this time with chopped up jalapeno and a full cup of corn kernels. Everything is going fine. Aaron and I are chatting in the kitchen when POP! A kernel explodes, soaring across the kitchen three feet and hitting him in the face. In the freaking face! It stung, but luckily the kernel had cooled enough mid-air to not actually burn him. Thank goodness. Okay, we confirm, more corn does in fact mean explosions.

He proceeds with caution. The rest of the fritters are fried up without major incidence. Then, as he moves in to scoop out the very last fritter, POP! Another kernel explodes, right beneath his hand coating his fingers in boiling hot oil. Immediately the skin on his ring and pinky finger blisters and sloughs off. He thrusts his hand into running water and I'm pretty sure there was a string of expletives involved. It's a bad burn, but not one that warrants a hospital, so we take care of it at home: a shot of whiskey, burn cream, gauze pads and gauze.

This morning we wake up and the ooze has soaked through the pads and the gauze. He needs to change the bandages. I was there as his skin blistered off and even helped him cut away the left-over dead skin that hadn't come off on its own and I was fine. However, watching him painstakingly peel the pads from the wound this morning invoked in me such a violent internal reaction that I had to leave the room. If I didn't gtfo right then and there and lay down for a minute, I was going to boat.

If I don't go away right now, I'll die.

I've never had that reaction to anything before. It was such a surreal experience. Under usual circumstances the only things that could cause that manner of response in me are actual physical stimuli. Such as a virus, bacteria, or spinning in circles for too long. Luckily he was able to tend the wound on his own today, because honestly I'm not sure I could have helped him.

Once I had calmed myself down enough to where I didn't think I would spew uncontrollably, the mere thought of going back into the restroom to assist caused the reaction a second time. I wasn't even actually in the room! The wound isn't even that gross. I have no idea what the hell the problem is.

Edit: Oh, for #$%@'s sake. Proof reading this before posting it made me nauseous again. What the crap?