Have you ever maced yourself?

I remember being a kid, and watching a little TV, when I chanced to look over at my brother Josh. I remember that his eyes were all red, and they were watering badly.
I asked him if he was alright, and he just said,

"I'm fine.", without making any eye contact, or turning his head in my direction.

"Are you sure Josh?" I asked, inspecting him further, "You're eyes look really red."

"There's no problem." He said, "I'm not having any problems."

The situation was suspicious, so I decided to investigate.

I got up and I went into his bedroom, which was the last room he had been in, and there I found on the floor one of those bottles of mace that women carry on their key chains.

Then, I looked at his bedroom wall, and I immediately took note of the fact that there was clearly a red spot, about at Josh's eye level, that looked an awful lot like someone had maced the wall.

My mother was sleeping, so I went running into her room to inform her that Josh had maced himself.

She told us to put some ice on his eyes, but when I checked the freezer, there was no ice.

So then, I went running back to her room to tell her that there was no ice.

She told us to put milk on it then, instead.

I checked the fridge, but there was no milk either.
Things were looking grim for poor Josh, who could not stop blinking his running eyes and saying things like,

"It's not mace. I'd never mace myself. Anyway, it doesn't hurt that bad. I can handle the pain."

After I informed my mother that there was no milk, she then suggested that Josh put cheese on his eyes.

So, I dug through the fridge, and I did indeed find a few of those individually wrapped cheese slices.

I gave the cheese to Josh, who put a square of cheese in both his hands, and then held them over his eyes.

It was incredibly funny to me, at the time. I just sat there, snickering.

Then I had to grill him.

"How did this happen?" I asked.

"I don't know," He said, "It went so fast. I just remember looking at the mace, and then boom. The mace bottle maced me."

"Did you trip?" I asked him, "Did you fall down and press the spray thing? Did you slip and hit the wall? How did you do this?"

He told me he didn't know, and he couldn't remember. All he knew, was that mace wasn't a cool thing to mess around with.

Josh finally abandoned the cheese and went to flush his eyes with water, so as to assuage* the pain, which was probably a better a plan than the cheese slices were.

He got better after a little while. He wasn't blinded for life.

Still though, in my opinion, my brother will never live down the fact that he is a man who accidentally maced his own self once.

The only thing he could possible reflect back on, regarding this particular issue, is that he was not fervid*. Indeed, he was very laconic*, with his description of the pain, and I would have actually described him as taciturn* while he held the cheese over his eyes.

In fact, he was so stolid* about the whole, 'Accidentally macing himself' issue, I would now describe him as quite imperturbable, and even. . .dare I say. . . . Manly.

I found my GRE book!!!!

Top words found most often on the GRE:

Assuage: To make something unpleasant less sever.
Fervid: Intensely emotional; feverish
Laconic: Using few words
Taciturn: Silent, not talkative
Stolid: Unemotional; lacking sensitivity