Hiccups
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Everyone has their cure.
I remember being very little with the hiccups, at the beach house, upstairs in the wood-walled bedroom I shared with my sister closest in age to me. She watched with the kind of interest older siblings have in seeing something unpleasant happen to their youngers.
Our older sister brought me a glass of water and tried to teach me to drink from the far edge of the glass. I don’t think that worked very well. Water may or may not have come out of my nose.
If holding your breath works, well, I cannot hold my breath that long. Dying of hiccup treatment? I think not.
Many years later I would be exposed to the theory that a spoonful of sugar would cure hiccups. Never worked for me.
I remember my babies having hiccups in utero, a phenomenon that tends to make prospective dads a little nervous due to the apparent impossibility of having hiccups when you don’t even breathe air.
How did I not die of hiccups before I found my cure, convinced the whole while I had some incurable kidney affliction? I don’t remember.
My cure: a giant spoon of peanut butter, taken straight up. Works every time. I have no memory of the source of this cure; I only knows it is fail-proof for me.
My best friend Mary has peanut butter at her house expressly for this purpose. There’s a best friend for you.
Here’s a snippet of love language: recently I was stricken with hiccups while in bed. Watching The Great British Baking Show, no doubt. Out of nowhere the hiccups struck.
Within minutes my dear spouse was at my bedside with a big old spoonful of peanut butter.
What’s your hiccup cure?
