Got Pepper?

I had lunch with Tori today and as always after every meal we've eaten together since she turned twelve of so, she looked at me and flashed her teeth, tilting her head from side-to-side. While no longer accompanied by the words, "Is there pepper in my teeth?", I can still hear them resounding loudly from years past.

As I sit there listening to her and my best friend talk, I actually noticed pepper in Tori's teeth and it got me to thinking. Tori is the only person I have ever known who is so fanatical about checking her teeth after every meal. If there is no one at the table she trusts for her pepper check, she'll take a napkin and wipe each tooth off, just in case.

While that's odd enough for me, the really strange thing is that Tori is the only person I have ever known who always gets pepper stuck on her teeth. Seriously, I've been married the majority of my life. Have eaten at least one meal a day with the same person sitting across from me, and may have seen pepper on his teeth once. Tori, every other time I check.

So I got to wondering . . .

Does the fear of something happening, i.e., getting pepper stuck on your teeth, make it a reality? Or, did the fact that pepper always got stuck on her teeth make her fanatic about checking for it?

It's the age old question, which came first, the pepper or the fear of the pepper?