I'm not 100% certain which deity invented hiccups... But it was one with an irksome sense of humor.
I spent the brunt of yesterday hicc-ing around my office and causing general mayhem. This is unfortunate on a number of levels:
1) Hiccups aren't very lady like. And in an office, anything unladylike must be excused. Which means I have to say "Please excuse me" after every hiccup... Which is about every 18 seconds.
2) Hiccups hurt. I've always been an overachiever, so my hiccups are more like full-body heaves. My diaphram goes beyond the realm of the normal contraction: it attempts to implode my ribcage. So I end up making this weird "gasp" after every hiccup. Which is unsettling, both to me as my body collapses around itself, and to onlookers who think I've been taken with an apopleptic fit.
3) Hiccups aren't exactly office-friendly. As noted previously, it's been quiet lately. There's no noise to drown out my intense "HIC-uh." "HIC-uh." So people around the office go "What's that?" and toddle out to see The Source Of The Incredible Noise. And believe you me, there's nothing so exciting on a dreary afternoon as settling in for a pleasant game of "Watch The Receptionist In Her Fit of Uncontrollable Gastric Joy."
4) Hiccuping into the phone makes me sound like a nincompoop.
There is a typical chain of events that occurs with the onset of hiccups. It typically goes like this:
<little hic>
Me: Hmm... Maybe it was just a burp.
<slightly larger Hic>
Me: Nothing to fret about. It's coinci <HIC-uh.>
Me: Fuck.
From here, I sit quietly for a moment and think about the hiccups. Are they induced by anything in particular that I could change? Are they tasting like anything I ate that I could counteract with something different? Are they really going to make my ribcage implode?
Once I'm sick of that game, and have accepted the realization that I am indeed doomed to die a painful and tragic Hiccup Death if I don't do *something*, I begin my counterattack.
STEP ONE: Holding The Breath.
Any schoolchild who ever succumbs to hiccups can tell you: The first defense is the holding of the breath. Goodness knows why it works... Maybe it's the throwing-off of the normal equilibrium that pushes everything into appropriate action. Maybe it's just a time-killer until the everything settles in to normal again. Or maybe it's a Commie plot. In any case, it was my first attempt at a return to normalcy.
This must be carefully planned. One cannot go all willy-nilly with their breath holding: a certain sequence of events must be followed. A deep inhalation, a settling into the chair and a closing of the eyes to await the peaceful calm...
And the phone rings.
Not once. Not twice. Four different phone calls, interrupting four different breath-holdings. Four.
Every time it happens I breathe out, answer the phone, realize I need to breathe in, and it sounds like this:
<ring>
<whoosh>
<pick up phone>
<gasp>
Me: Good afternoon, this is <HIC-uh>. Ugh. Excuse me. Hi. How can I help you?
<laughter>
Client: Hiccups? Have you tried holding your breath?
STEP TWO: Ingesting Something Crazy To Make Them Stop.
As a child, I was taught that there are a number of homeopathic cures for hiccups. I was given small shots of whiskey, teaspoons of sugar, tablespoons of honey, peanut butter sandwiches... You name it, I ingested it in the name of science and getting-me-to-stop-hicc-ing-
Which was still a remarkable endeavor.
First, I had to obtain sugar. Not entirely difficult in an office, but still. It required going into the kitchen and grabbing a great gaumy** handful of 1 oz. sugar packets and a paper cup, and then sneaking back to my desk and not looking entirely guilty of snitching them.
From there, each individual packet is opened and dumped into the cup. This leaves my trashcan full of sugar wrappers and me looking like an incompetent addict with white powder all over my desk.
Eventually, enough sugar will accumulate in the bottom of my cup that it is scoopable with a spoon.
From which point it goes like this:
<insert spoon into mouth, start swishing sugar about to try to regain proper control of tongue>
<HIC-uh>
<splutter of sugar all over desk>
Fail.
Okay, trying again
<insert spoon into mouth, start swishing sugar about to try to regain proper control of tongue>
<Phone ring>
<prematurely attempt to swallow sugar-spit, choke slightly, gasp>
Me: Good afternoon, this is <HIC-uh>. Sorry. Excuse me. <sigh> Hi, how can I help you?
<laughter>
Client: Hiccups? Have you tried eating something?
STEP THREE: Alcohol.
Thankfully, this step didn't need to be implemented until after quitting time. I went home, and unsuccessfully tried to drown my hiccups in rum. When that didn't work, I tried Klondike bars. And then finally, after wasting a solid portion of my evening trying to make them go away, they subsided because I stopped thinking about them and sat down to eat my dinner.
And thus... steak and cheese, For The Win.
** This word has a little red squiggle under it. I tried lots of different spellings but couldn't find anything to call it out as properly spelled. Finally, I googled and came up with this result:
"'Gaumy' is [a] great Maine word for something kind of messy or awkward." http://www.panbo.
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