Dumbfounded: My State Most Days

     Even at my great age (I recently had a birthday) I am still astonished by how much I do not know. This is in reference to things both big and small. On a daily basis I discover some idea, concept, place, or thing that I had no previous knowledge of.
     The other day my sister sent me a link about Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome, AKA ACHOO.
     Now, this is actually not one of my unknowns as it is something that I deal with quite often. It does, however, remind me of a small but important lesson I learned over a decade ago. Or Re-learned. Or was reminded of, as I often forget.
     I was busily working away on the factory floor, helping my team build the headliners for BMW SUVs. A colleague complained that he had a tickle in his nose and really wished he could just sneeze and get it over with. I cheerily told him to just walk over to one of our super bright lights at the end inspection station and gaze up in it briefly as it would surely induce the sinus clearing sneeze he was looking for.
     He looked at me somewhat quizzically. My co-worker Krista asked if I had just gone plain loopy. Now it was time for me to be baffled. I walked over to the light to show them what I meant. I looked in to the light and a sneeze soon followed, just as it does when I exit a dark room/building and walk out to a bright, sunny parking lot, or any other similar scenarios.
     The thing that was most surprising to me was I thought this was something everyone experiences. It was an assumption on my part that it would be common to how everyone experiences the world.
     It was a small but good admonition not everything is a shared event, feeling, or thought. It also reminded me, again, to not make assumptions about what others think, feel, understand, or have had as a common experience.