Liquid Hell

This is Josh, if you don't alread know. If you keep reading my grammatical mistakes will probably give me away. I should warn you I can't promise to keep my up coming story free of creative words.

This last week has been the one of the hardest weeks of my life. I am learning so much and just as much mental stuff as emotional stuff. Just how to control my emotions and my thoughts, and my "brain power" (what little there is). Me and lens are not enjoying being apart, it is much harder than I thought. But here we are about half way.

My week: Monday we got to shoot all day, very good day. Tuesday was incedibly hard, we had to get certified to handcuff people....tremedously tedious. Wednesday......OH WENDNESDAY...

Wednesday we got shot with OC spray. Oleoresin Capsicum as it is scientifically known, liquid hell to anyone who has ever been sprayed with it. It in an all natural spray that is made from the juices of peppers that are grown in hell. So they make this stuff and put in a pressurized container and spray it in peoples eyes to obtain compliance through pain. So being a peace officer that will have to carry OC we have to get sprayed with it to determine the effects for ourselves and also to know how long we can react if it gets in our eyes. So one at a time they take us into a field (while everyone else gets to watch) and we have to stand there and take a shot of this orange liquid in the forehead and eyes. Then we have to run over to a punching bag and hit it for a couple of seconds, then run and pick up a gun and follow a man that is running side to side while hollaring directions at him. Doesn't sound that hard, or at least that is what I thought.

So I see a couple of other guys taking shots in the face and I start to get worried. I decide I better go next or I might not go at all. So I step up and stick out my chest and suck in my gut. Close my eyes and shut my mouth then this cold liquid hits me in the face. I open my eyes and go run to the bag, hit it a couple of times, then run to the gun and pick it up and follow the LT around yelling at him. Not too bad so far. Then my partner escorts me to the water. Still not that bad (about 30 seconds after impact). I then stick my head in a bucket of water and when it comes out.....pain beyond reason. You are physically incapable of opening your eyes, and it feels like someone cut the top of your face and is activley peeling you skin from your skull while pouring battery acid on it at the same time.

I had thought this whole thing was going to be bad, but never anything to this extent. So I utter a few choice words, the commence to try to keep washing while trying to keep breathing. It is so bad that there were several times when i really thought that I might not make it through all of this. I wanted to lay down and die. I was like f*ck this....game wardens can keep it and I just want my eye balls back. Mean while your nose just lets go. I had snot from my nose all the way to the ground in one continous stream (yuck I know you should have been there).

Not only is my eyes burning but my whole face and ears and hands. 20 mins go by and I can finally open my eyes to see the world. I can tell you I have never been so excited to have my sight back. I really didn't think it was possible for a human to be able to see after something like that. The SHU was 2,000,000. Next time you are on the net looking up SHU you will see how damn hot this stuff was.

Thats all. I am sorry I don't have a really cool anology like my wife, which was pretty impressive. But OC day is behind me and I couldn't be happier. Feels like a huge step in our journey to game wardeness.

Oh yeah, everything subsides in about 50 mins. Then you go take a shower that night and the water and steam reactivate it all over again. Like I have heard before, I wish I could find the guy that decided to put something like that in a bottle and spray it in someones eyes and when I found him I would kick him in the...... shin