Courtney's Cauldron

The other day I had the hiccups. A lot. I’m talking in dang near every single one of my classes, after school, in the shower, while I was sleeping, etc. And they were loud. And violent. People seriously stopped in the hallway to stare at me because of my hiccups.

Of course, when somebody has hiccups, people stop to give them advice. Over the course of the day I got tons of different suggestions on getting rid of my hiccups, and I realized that the ways to get rid of hiccups got more and more exotic and ridiculous as the day went on:

Hold your breath for two minutes.
Drink water until you stop hiccuping.
Jump up and down on one foot while holding your breath.
Look up and swallow.
Look down and swallow.
Drink water from the opposite side of the glass.
Put an ice cube on the back of your neck.
Hold your breath for five minutes.
Cross your eyes and breath only out of your nose.
Look at the sun.
Think of a Beethoven song.
Hold your breath for ten minutes.
Spin in circles.
Pet a dog.
Drink soda.
Hold your tongue in your fingers.
Hold your breath for two hours, fifty seven minutes, and twelve seconds.

Okay, I’m only over exaggerating a little. I was seriously told to put an ice cube on the back of my neck and to hold my breath and do various forms of jumping jacks or to drink several different drinks. A girl actually told me that every time she gets the hiccups she pets a dog and they go away and my choir teacher told me (sarcastically, I think) to think of a Beethoven song. Then to play it backwards in my head.

By the end of the day I had a theory: If I spun counter clockwise in six circles while holding my breath and drinking hot green mint tea while holding a dog, then stopping to clap four times, then spinning clockwise three times (while holding my breath) and stopping at a 78º angle from the ground, my