Inquiring Minds Want to Know

I was just entering into kindergarten when our family finally got our first TV.  I was at that age where I was starting to figure out that not everything that happens in cartoons happens in real life.  For example, I knew that if an anvil dropped out from the sky, little cartoon birds would circle around your head.  I was however, not quite sure about pepper.  In cartoons when a character is exposed to pepper there is a sneezing fit of epic proportions.  Now this is where I was confused, because violent sneezing of epic proportions is certainly a plausible human reaction.  But really,  could pepper really cause someone to sneeze with the same epic proportions as seen on TV?  It was one of those questions which kept nagging my young, curious mind. 

Now, I have always possessed an innate curiosity that must be tested out, and during one boring road trip I had my chance to satisfy my curiosity.  As a small child I found road trips to be incredibly boring.  My brother would instantly fall asleep the minute the car pulled out of the driveway, so I was stuck in the back with a sleeping brother on one side of me and the window showing endless field after field on the other side.

My sleeping brother would be the key ingredient I needed in satisfying my curiosity.  You see, after one stop at a restaurant for a bite to eat and a bit of respite from the confines of the car, I took  few packets of pepper and kept them for myself.  Back on the road, my brother quickly fell back asleep, leaving me to quietly contemplate the possible outcomes of what my actions could generate.  Unfortunately for my brother, he was sleeping with his head towards me and his nostril pointing skyward.  It was too perfect to resist.  I took that pepper package out from my pocket, tore the corner off, and then poured the entire contents of that pepper package into the nostril of my innocent brother.   YEP . . . Pepper definitely causes a person to sneeze violently JUST like the cartoons.  

I have learned not to test out any hypothesis when stuck in a confined space.  There is just no place to go when you are stuck inside a moving vehicle, sitting beside a brother who is fuming mad at you because he just found out what you did to him.