a tasteful predicament

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I don't know about all y'all, but I love spicy food.  Like when the sauce bottle cautions, "Use one drop at a time." No, really.  (If you've ever had Dave's Gourmet Total Insanity, you know what I'm talking about.  If you think that stuff hurts going in...).  Whether it's salsa, sauce, or some other form of the blessed kick, spicy shows up on a daily basis in my diet.  Great, right?

Well.

That all changes when your taste buds grow - and I'm not talking about developing a pansy-er palate as you get older.  I mean, something is wrong and they swell to three times their normal size.  Your tongue hurts and every taste is amplified.  You can still taste what you ate last Thursday for your mid-morning snack kind of amplified.  You never knew that dish you are currently masticating does not, in fact, comprise ONE flavor, but thirty-four - and now you can identify each of them.

As an individual unfortunately prone to cold sores for the past couple years (apparently people in the U.S. start getting them when they hit age 20), I am used to taking a collective month-long fast from spicy foods each year (acids/spicy food exacerbate symptoms).  This past week, however, has been a novel adventure.  Yes, I have a cold sore... but no, this is not the typical experience.  My tongue looks like it's a petri dish of pink warts (too grotesque? sorry...), and needless to say, my regular consumption of spicy foods has been drastically altered.  I've waited it out a while, but recently I've decided to get others' opinions:

Mom:  "Oh, Sara, you better get that checked out."
Christian:  "Whoa, sweet."
Dad:  "Buck up."
Dentist:  "I'm not alarmed."
Internet:  absolutely nothing helpful

Although these sources have been largely unhelpful, I have learned that enlarged taste buds are probably the result of the same things that spike cold sores: stress, heat, tiredness, eating spicy foods, etc.  I tend to get pretty severe cold sores, so the taste bud weirdness is probably part of the package.  Ugh.  Hopefully these puppies cool down soon.  Seriously.  This whole being-burned-by-mild-salsa thing is killing me.


In the meantime, given the probable causes, I think I have ample argument to go sleep in a nice, air conditioned room.  For a long time.  And have ice cream when I wake up.  Eh? :)