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"Paranormal Activity 4: the Machete-Wielding Hiccuper"
Published: 11/10/2011 8:00 AM
Last Modified: 11/9/2011 6:43 PM


I don't remember seeing this creepy part of "Paranormal Activity 3" on Monday night, but I may have been distracted by someone's hiccups. Or my fingers in front of my face. (Photo from Paramount)


This is Mr. Hiccup. Yeah, I didn't know he existed either until Googling possible images for "Mr. Hiccup."

I used to enjoy hiccups as a kid.

Of course, I also used to like chin puppets and, as I strangely admitted to my co-workers on Wednesday afternoon, raw (i.e., fresh from the box) lasagna noodles. (By the way, co-workers, I lied when I said my Mamaw fed them to me and called them an "EYE-talian Sugar Daddy." Sorry.) So it's probably no wonder I found hiccups HIGH-larious -- specifically, how you'd be in the middle of a sentence, hiccup and ... Well, y'all probably know how hiccups work.

Anyway, now that I'm 30-something and boring, I find hiccups irritating -- and, if you're in public or on a date, embarrassing, if not emotionally scarring.

But I find them especially annoying in a movie theater, at least since I went with Lubbock, Sylvia and Fireman J to see "Paranormal Activity 3" at Tulsa Promenade the other evening.

We sat on the next to back row, as chairs on the very back row don't recline and seats closer to the screen are just that much farther from the doors, should we need to make an escape in case an explosion occur in the room behind the projector screen and send large shrapnel into the audience, impaling us in unflattering fashion right where we sat. I know that's less than rational; but, in my defense, this was my first cinema experience since seeing "Final Destination 4" at Halloween.

Anyway, we get there right as the previews start. After the second trailer, the movie began immediately -- no opening credits, no title, nothing. Kinda weird. But whatever, I sunk into my usual movie position, with my feet propped up on the empty chairs ahead of us.

Halfway through the movie, some guy walks in -- I know it was a guy because every time the door opened, I turned to make sure it wasn't someone about to kill me. He sat on the back row, in that single chair next to where wheelchairs can park.

My first thought was, "Movie-hopper." I didn't stare, so that made my condescension OK.

Almost immediately, he started hiccuping. The first few times, it kinda scared me -- like it was a nervous tic, something he'd do right before he unsheathed his bloody machete and came at me, whackety-whackety-splat.

So the hiccups keep happening and continue throughout the show. "Poor guy," I should've thought. Seriously, though, it ain't like he could've helped it. Or could he?

Mr. Hiccup proved that a good scare doesn't cure hiccups. Had we all been there on Tuesday night, I could've shown him my bruised hip from my altercation with gravity outside the Super Eleven. That might've stopped his diaphragm from spazzing. Might've also ended my lifelong record of no arrests.

It's not like I can be mad at Mr. Hiccup. I mean, I may have been tempting him to unsheathe his machete each time I screamed out loud when something happened onscreen -- like that bed sheet thing. Well, it wasn't so much a scream as a high-pitched "DOH!" -- just like Homer Simpson except in a key of Lisa. Or Maggie, if she actually talked.

Next time any of us have hiccups in a movie theater, I first suggest holding your breath -- not so long that you pass out but almost. Stop when you feel light-headed. If that doesn't work, just leave the theater. Some folks say you can stand on your head and drink water, but I'm apparently challenged enough lately just to stand, period, let ALONE do it upside down.

Do you have a favorite cure for hiccups? Let's hear 'em.

Peace, love and diaphragms ... XOXO

Today's non sequitur: I had no idea that corporal punishment has been banned in Sweden since the late '70s. Learned that in a CNN story about corporal punishment, which looks unlikely to ever be banned here in the United States. What do y'all think about that? And who was spanked in school? Happened to me once -- by a teacher who was fired for embezzling kids' lunch money, no less.


Reader Comments 3 Total
220158 (last year)
Not my cure but my husband says blow in a paper sack. Sister says ignore !!
220158 (last year)
Not my cure but my husband says blow in a paper sack. Sister says ignore !!
121757 (last year)
Take a really deep breath, hold it as long as possible (even if you hiccup during this part), and blow it out through pursed lips. Works for me every time. Love your articles on Tuesdays. Great way to start the day!
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Living Wright

While other kids were watching "The Smurfs," Scene Writer Jason Ashley Wright was tuned in to "Style with Elsa Klensch." By fourth grade, he knew he wanted to write, and spent almost three years publishing a weekly teen-oriented magazine, Teen-Zine -- circulation: 2. After earning a degree in journalism from the University of Southern Mississippi, he became the medical reporter and teen board coordinator for the Hattiesburg (Miss.) American, a Gannett newspaper. Eight months later, with visions of Elsa dancing in his head, he applied for the fashion writer position at the Tulsa World, where he began working on Aug. 3, 1998. He is now a general assignment reporter for Scene.

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