A random memory….

During a high school discussion of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition to sail around the world, one classmate asked, in all apparent seriousness, why Magellan didn’t just go through the Panama Canal.

The question may have possibly led to some merriment.

In these more enlightened days, I assume everyone understands he was either trying to save some money on tolls or possibly had left his E-Z Pass transponder in the other ship.

(Spanish Galleon image used according to Pixabay license.)

It was no ordinary sneeze.

A particularly vigorous sneeze of the ordinary variety might, at best, upset a small gravy boat. This was not such a sneeze.

A sneeze of the super-human variety might propel the entire Spanish Armada across the world so quickly that would be no time to drop a coin in the toll basket at the Panama Canal, even if one had existed at that time. A sneeze of this sort would not be troubled by such an anachronism.

No, this was a category 45 sneeze. The sort which, had it occurred within the pages of a Fantastic Four comic book, would have caused even Galactus, Devourer of Worlds, to stop midmeal to say “Bless You” while offering you a solar-system sized handkerchief.

(Header image: public domain via WikiMedia Commons.)