The Hiccups

I despise the hiccups. They're always really funny at first. Even the person who has them can't help but laugh at the ridiculous sounds coming out. But after a while, they really get annoying. Fortunately for most people this strange affliction only lasts a few moments. As time stretches on, people start to look for those ridiculous cures; you know, drinking from the opposite side of the glass, eating a spoonful of peanut butter or brown sugar, being frightened, holding your breath, etc. What's fascinating (and infuriating) is that no one, not even doctors, really know how to cure them.

In fact, there have been some very extreme cases. See:

http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/long44.html

So...why am I sharing this? Last night, after Eric and I finished watching "The Illusionist" with Edward Norton, Jessica Biel, and Paul Giamatti (interesting movie by the way), I started to hiccup. And, as I said before, at first these are amusing. I don't get them very often, and typically when I do they don't last too long. Unfortunately for me, last night they did. I swear I must have had them for an hour. And they weren't the little annoying hiccups. They were the deep, almost painful ones. Eric, mind you, is still laughing because he said they were the strangest sounding hiccups. Do you have any idea how hard it is to perform ordinary routine activities with the hiccups. I tried to brush my teeth--almost squeezed a huge glop of toothpaste into the sink because my hand jerked when I went to put it on the toothbrush. Needless to say, it was one of the most frustrating hours of my life.

Eventually, I was able to hold my breath and try to force myself to hiccup. Praise the Lord that worked because I was gonna have to start going to extremes to cure them.