Mar 21 2009
How *uck* are you today?
Crazy day at the library today. I don’t know if it’s the nice weather we’ve been having or what, but today at the library was HOPPING!
To add to all of the fun, I had the worst case of hiccups you can imagine come on right after lunch. In true Hava fashion, I of course didn’t have quiet ladylike hiccups - that would be too much to ask for. Noooo…I had loud, can-hear-it-across-the-room-library hiccups.
It all started off with a quiet *uck*. I thought, “Was that a hiccup? No, it couldn’t be. I will NOT have the hiccups!” Then I got five in a row.
Crap.
Do you know how hard it is to be serious when you’re talking to someone, when at any moment your whole body could converse like you just got hit with a jolt of electricity, and then a loud noise comes out of your mouth that sounds strangely like a dying cow? I felt like scribbling on a piece of paper and hanging it around my neck: “Warning: I just have the hiccups, not some dread disease, and no, I am not drunk, although quite frankly, if these don’t hiccups don’t stop soon, I might driven to drink.”
But that would have made for an awfully long sign.
I was helping a patron whom I had just warned that I had the hiccups, and as I was leaning over the counter, looking at a book with her, my whole body conversed and out of my mouth came the loudest hiccup ever recorded in the history of mankind. If anyone in the Guinness Book of World Records had been standing by when that came out of my mouth, I would have instantly made my mark on history.
Instead, the poor lady reared her head back and said, “Good gracious child! Bless you!” while my face turned about 13 shades of red.
Ahh…the joys.
It only got worse when I was forced to answer the phone. When I am talking to someone face to face, they can see that I am not a drunken sailor on some bender (I do look normal, which helps) but over the phone, it’s a whole ‘nother ballpark. Strange noises emitting from the handset tends to make the callers think that I just had a heart attack and had keeled over dead on them.
“Are you okay?!” a lady shouted. “Do I need to call someone? Are you there?!” I was so embarrassed, I almost couldn’t talk. But don’t worry, if there’s even a hint of life in me, I will be able to talk. I am just that dedicated. And talkative.
The hiccups stopped as suddenly as they started. My throat eased up, and I could tell that with just the blink of an eye, they were gone and they weren’t coming back.
Glory hallelujah, I was free of the hiccups!
*uck*
Havs
Thanks for the comment and for stopping by, Jeane. I am lucky that I don’t get hiccups often - it’s probably been several years since the last time I had an attack.
But I seemed to have made up for time in terms of loudness, LOL!
I checked out your site - very cool! There were a couple of books on your site that I have reviewed too - Marley & Me, Seabiscuit, and another one too, but now I can’t remember the name….Anyway, it was interesting to see the same books reviewed by someone else and see your perspective on them.
I really enjoyed your site and have added you to my blogroll.
Have a wonderful weekend,
Havs
I don’t get the hiccups often, though I hate them when I do. My husband and daughter are both prone to *painful* hiccups, which I think would be worse than the noisy kind. Of course, neither of them works in a library…
Stephanie, as I suffered through my hiccups yesterday, I thought about the girl who had them for months, and thought, “No freaking way. If I had to live with this for months, I’d go insane.” I started honestly contemplating it as I hiccuped my way through the day - would I eventually get fired from the library because my hiccups would keep me from doing my job? How would I ever sleep?
Luckily, mine went away within 30 minutes or so.
I just did a Google search and saw that some people have suffered from hiccups for a year or more at a time. Now THAT would surely drive me insane.
Thorsten, now you tell me. Ya know, that advice would have been a lot more helpful if you had told me that BEFORE I hit the moonshine.
Havs
Lol, I wish I was there to see that…I guess you miss things when you start messing with schedules….anyway, if you wanna know embarrassing, my hiccups are usually accompanied by a short paues, then a wonderful burp. *hiccup! bleh*
Oh my, that is too funny. I had something similar happen to me when I was teaching - just hours before my class was to perform a play for parents. I was supposed to introduce them. Thankfully they stopped in time - otherwise can you imagine standing in front of a huge crowd of parents (Thanksgiving play) and hiccuping every other word? LOL
http://www.storytimeforchildren.today.com
When I get the hiccups, I get them BAD! I can so relate to you!
fyi, I was told of a hiccup cure only a month ago, and saw it work almost instantaneously on a friend, and later I tried it on myself and it worked too.
The cure: put a little bit of sugar on your tongue, and keep in there.
Seriously, that’s all it takes. Keep iton your tongue for a bout a minute or so. By then, the hiccups should have stopped. Then just swallow the sugar, I guess
Chris, I do have to say that adding burps into the hiccup mess would have been much too much for me! LOL! And yeah, that’s what you get for switching Saturdays and spending time with your friend on his birthday. Sheesh. Like that’s important or something.
Oh laneerg, I am just imagining that: A gym full of people, and you up on the stage, hiccuping every other word. That is something nightmares are composed of! I’m so glad that the hiccups went away before you had to do that.
Of course, if that did happen and your spouse got it on video tape, you could have made a lot of money selling it to America’s Funniest Home Videos, because I swear, I would have laughed my butt off watching that on TV! LOL!!!
Lynne, when it happened, the girl I was working with told me that you just have to drink water from the far side of a cup. I just said, “Yeah right” and laughed, which in retrospect was not that nice (whoops) but seriously, who came up with that old wive’s tale in the first place? And more importantly: Why won’t it die?
Now sugar on the tongue sounds a lot better. And even if your hiccups don’t go away, at least you’ve had some sugar. That should make up for something…
Havs
Actually, I have actually had hiccups disappear after drinking water from the far side of the glass. The trick is that you should be drinking upside down. Your lower lip should be inside the glass and your upper lip on the outside of the glass. For some reason, this often works. Strange, but true!