Water in a Coiled Hose

Sometimes things just don't work the way that you think they should. The problem “Coming up Empty,” described in Bet You Can't! Science Impossibilities to Fool You by Vicki Cobb and Kathy Darling is a perfect example.1 In this problem, when water is poured into the top open end of a coiled garden hose, common sense tells us that it should eventually come out of the other end. However, in this case the water will overflow from the top instead of coming out of the other end!