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The thread by It's Me about eating Wasabi peas before bed reminded me of an incident in the good ol' days when I was a reporter.
Pepper spray was just coming into use then, and the local OPP officers were going on a training session in a town a couple of hours away. Part of the training session would be for each of them to be sprayed with the stuff so they would know what it felt like. I was invited to go along and get a story and photos about it.
So we get there, and listen to the lecture, and then we get to see a video about pepper spray and how it affects people. Part of it involved somebody who was very highly trained in martial arts, and he was going through a set of martial arts movements after being sprayed ... apparently using the discipline he'd learned in his martial arts training to stay focused on the set, rather than rolling around on the floor screaming.
Then the video switched to a local reporter at some other town, who'd also agreed to be sprayed ...
The cop I'd driven up with turned and gave me an evil grin.
Me: "Not on your life."
Cop: *evil grin gets wider* "It's a LOOOONNNG walk back ..."
Me:
"Ok, FINE ..."
In all fairness, if I'd stuck to my "NO" I would most certainly not have ended up walking back.
Also, I got the lightest spritz possible. Still was pretty unpleasant, though. One guy, trying to be macho or something, got blasted three times before his knees buckled. He spent the next hour sticking his head in a tub of cold water, trying to get rid of the effects.
The cop I'd driven up with got a fairly standard blast, and recovered well ... except when we were all sitting down to lunch ... when, without thinking, he rubbed his eyes.
Pepper spray was just coming into use then, and the local OPP officers were going on a training session in a town a couple of hours away. Part of the training session would be for each of them to be sprayed with the stuff so they would know what it felt like. I was invited to go along and get a story and photos about it.
So we get there, and listen to the lecture, and then we get to see a video about pepper spray and how it affects people. Part of it involved somebody who was very highly trained in martial arts, and he was going through a set of martial arts movements after being sprayed ... apparently using the discipline he'd learned in his martial arts training to stay focused on the set, rather than rolling around on the floor screaming.
Then the video switched to a local reporter at some other town, who'd also agreed to be sprayed ...
The cop I'd driven up with turned and gave me an evil grin.
Me: "Not on your life."
Cop: *evil grin gets wider* "It's a LOOOONNNG walk back ..."
Me:
"Ok, FINE ..."In all fairness, if I'd stuck to my "NO" I would most certainly not have ended up walking back.
Also, I got the lightest spritz possible. Still was pretty unpleasant, though. One guy, trying to be macho or something, got blasted three times before his knees buckled. He spent the next hour sticking his head in a tub of cold water, trying to get rid of the effects.
The cop I'd driven up with got a fairly standard blast, and recovered well ... except when we were all sitting down to lunch ... when, without thinking, he rubbed his eyes.
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