by Tracy Chesney
I would rather say pineapple than stand on my head. Or how about saying white horse, eating a spoonful of peanut butter or breathing into a paper bag? What in the world am I talking about? The cure for hiccups, of course.
These were only a few examples of the cure for hiccups that I found through my extensive research on the Internet. I never found anything that works until I did some research.
Once I had several pages of cures, no one around me ever got the hiccups. Several months ago, my son came home for a visit, and later that night he got the hiccups. I was so excited, I started jumping up and down and looking all over for my cure for hiccups notes.
Trying to be a good mom, I spent more than an hour trying to cure his hiccups. I told him, try screaming for as long as you can; hold your head back and stroke your throat; rub your earlobes; count to twenty with your fingers in your ears. Well, that didn’t work. Count backwards to twenty.
I tried to make him eat green grapes, peanut butter, lemon slices, sugar. I tried to get him to stand on his head and drink water upside down, but he would not do it.
Then I stuck a can of black pepper under his nose and tried to get him to sneeze. If you sneeze, the hiccups will go away, I told him. But, Mom. Pepper doesn’t make me sneeze. Pepper is our dog. Well, try it anyway. It makes me sneeze, so it should be hereditary.
Finally, I left the room and scrounged the pantry for more cures. When I returned, however, his hiccups had gone away. Go figure. I was so disappointed, because we had not tried everything on the list.
At Friendlee Place, several folks put their two cents worth in. Venita Kay Black said she holds her breath and swallows three times. Gabriel Medina votes for beer, either before or after, the hiccups. I eat a teaspoon of sugar. Jim Satterwhite said snakes. Especially if it’s a surprise.
Anyway, here is my Top 10 pick of some of the unusual, funny or wilder cures that were found on the Internet. These are in no way endorsed, or encouraged by Friendlee Place, but are for entertainment purposes only.
1. Blow on your thumb.
2. Tell yourself, “I am not going to hiccup again.”
3. Sing to your favorite music while standing on your head and drinking a glass of water.
4. Hold your right ear with your left hand and your left ear with your right hand and slightly pinch the lobes. Then have someone hold a glass of water to your mouth and drink it.
5. Have someone scare you. One Internet site said picking someone up and holding them over the balcony works pretty well. But that has been copyrighted by Michael Jackson.
6. Think of all the bald men you can. It didn’t specify whether it was totally bald or partially bald men.
7. Get someone to offer you some money if you hiccup again. The only problem is you don’t win the money if it works.
8. Take a finger full of your hair and pull as hard as you can for 10 seconds.
9. Close your eyes and jump backwards nine times.
10. Jump out of an airplane. I’m not sure if you are
supposed to use a parachute on this one. I guess it depends on how bad you want to get rid of your hiccups.
