And then I mislaid the pepper mill during a move and bought a glass of ready - to - use pepper from the supermarket . Fast forward to a couple of months ago when I stared somewhat helplessly and the damn as - yet - unused mortar . And I was out of pepper . Again . An insane idea arose . If one combined peppercorns with the instrument designed to crack and crush - I can honestly say that while it 's a lot of work - and you * will * get peppercorns jumping out of the mortar and going _ everywhere _ - freshly cracked pepper has a quality that even pepper straight out of the mill can not beat .

Question: What may be the point of the story ?
Answer: None of the above choices .They do n't like the alternative they came up with .They want people to start planning ahead .They started using peppercorn as a last resort when they did n't have pepper .