I woke up early on the first day of class with the hiccups. These weren't your run-of-the-mill, just-hold-your-breath hiccups. They were gut-wrenching spleen-splitters-and they were loud.
My first class was at 11 a.m., and it seemed unlikely the hiccups would stick around that long. I tried a deep-breathing exercise my older brother picked up in college. He went to school in rural North Carolina and has the accent to prove it. He explained it like this:
\Man, what you need to do is, you got the hiccups, right? So you go over there and you sit, and concentrate on breathing, but you gotta simultaneously concentrate on not hiccupping. And when you start doin' that you're gonna wanna hiccup, so you gotta have a kill switch. So when you feel yourself about to hiccup, don't.""
This has worked for me on several occasions, but proved powerless against the mutant alien hiccups from which I was suffering. I knew of only one other cure. I called my girlfriend.
""I need you to scare me,"" I said.
""I'm breaking up with you,"" she said.
""No,"" I said. ""I mean really scare me.""
""You haven't called in two weeks,"" she said. ""I'm breaking up with you.""
""Oh,"" I said. ""Gotcha. Know any good hiccup cures?""
She recommended breathing into a paper bag for five minutes. I'd heard of this before, always dismissing it as pure bunk, but things were desperate. I couldn't find anything smaller than a paper grocery bag, though, and I couldn't really crumple up the top enough to make a small breathing hole. But like I said, things were desperate, and I was suddenly single, and sitting alone with a paper bag over my head didn't seem like such a bad idea. It didn't work, either.
One thing I noticed about having a severe case of the hiccups is that people feel no shame about staring at you. I went to class and sat in the back row, hand pressed against my mouth to muffle the enormous gulping noise that accompanied each spasm. It was still audible to those in nearby seats, however, and each time I hiccupped people turned to look. Now, if I'd been sitting there with a gas problem or violent sneeze attacks, they wouldn't have stared. They might have glanced back at first. After that they'd have rolled their eyes and whispered and giggled, but more or less left me to my state of bodily dysfunction. Such is not the case with hiccups.
It got to the point where they were expecting the hiccups. If I had a good long pause between hiccups they'd turn to look. Was I cured? Had I left the room? No, I was just writing in my notebook, hand away from my mouth, and when the much-anticipated hiccup erupted it was loud enough to make even the professor turn his head. They sat back and smiled, satisfied the hiccup kid was still there. Laugh at me, you heartless bastards, laugh it up, but it'll be you someday. And when it is, I'll be right there to put a paper bag over your head and set it on fire.