A young girl cannot sleep, which is bad considering the tooth fairy wants one of her teeth. Right when the girl is about to drift off into dreamland, her curiosity rises. Do snakes sneeze? What’s up with old photographs? Why are pigs roasted with an apple in their mouth? How does aspirin find a headache? Curiosity takes this girl on an amazing adventure to learn the answer to all of these questions. By the time the story is finished, the tooth fairy is unable to get the tooth from the girl, and goes home empty-handed.

This story is strange from start to finish, but answers a lot of questions the audience did not know they had. These questions were answered in a short theatrical performance by the Joliet West Speech Team’s very first Performance in the Round, often abbreviated PIR.

This year’s PIR, How Does Aspirin Find a Heachache? was directed by A.J. Galli, the Assistant Speech Team Coach. The cast was Amy Gerwert-Valdez, Casey Snow, Estefania Unzueta, Haylee Powers, Humberto Ortiz, Kara Starasinich, Kendall Schlegel, Noah Garcia, and Zoë Manning. The young girl played by Zoë Manning, Curiosity played by Noah Garcia, the Tooth Fairy played by Casey Snow, the Answerer played by Amy Gerwert-Valdez, and everyone else played the part of ensemble. At regionals tournament the Joliet West PIR placed fourth and was able to advance to sectionals.

            But this whole article raises the questions: DO snakes sneeze? WHAT’S UP with old photographs, WHY are pigs roasted with an apple in their mouth? How DOES aspirin find a headache? Well the answers are simple:

Snakes do not sneeze, but instead clear fluid from their throat with an explosive blast of air from their lungs.

Old photographs took a lot more time to take than modern photographs. Someone being forced to smile for 5-10 minutes could get tiring, so in many old photographs the people simply wouldn’t smile to make it more comfortable for themselves.

Pigs actually are not roasted with the apple in their mouth. Instead, an apple is placed in the pig’s mouth for decoration. During the roasting process a piece of wood is placed in the mouth to prevent it from sealing shut so the apple can be added later.

Aspirin enters the bloodstream and then it works with the blood cells to block prostaglandins. The prostaglandins carry the message in the brain saying, “I AM HURTING OVER HERE!” So by stopping the prostaglandins from delivering that message, the brain will not experience a headache. If the headache has already started, it will trick the brain into thinking the headache has gone away.

Those are the answers given in the performance. While a lot of it may be viewed as useless knowledge, as most people cannot even pronounce “prostaglandins,” they are interesting things to know. One never knows when their knowledge of how snakes sneeze will come in handy.