comedy hiccups

[freckles_and_doubt]

I'm attacked by hiccups fairly often, and when they hit, it's violently, with full-body twitches, and, owing to the correlation between hiccups and booze, and my tendency to verbosity when slightly sloshed, the intrusion of loud and helpless "hics" into my usual babbling. All of the above has caused my loving friends to invent the notion of "comedy hiccups", and to point out their arrival, loudly and with mockery. We will not go into the horrid litany of "you're married to..." which they fling at me in an effort to shock me out of the wretched things. The fact that it frequently works is a testament to their inventiveness.

I hadn't realised for how long the hiccup affliction has been a feature in my life until I stumbled on the scrap of paper reproduced below, which egadfly scribbled, I suspect during a late-night role-playing tournament design session, lo these many years ago (as in decades). I feel his essentially minimalist style captures the full-body nature of the phenomenon very well.



This is a Microfiction weekend, and owing to a terminal difficulty with this theme ("Silver") I've actually put up two, "Silver" and "Household God". I don't like either of them much. YMMV. I don't like most of what I write, after all.

Comments

[stringgeek.livejournal.com]

"You're married to"? Sounds like an entertaining game...especially if it works!

Also, LOVE the illustration! You should frame that and hang it up in your study or something.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

It's an extremely entertaining game, at least for them, and frequently works. I've actually blogged it before; see here (http://extemporanea.livejournal.com/59855.html). The trick is apparently to raise the bar on the loathesomeness of the potential husband with every iteration. George Bush is difficult to top.

[springonmars.wordpress.com (from livejournal.com)]

I too suffer from comedy hiccups. It is strangely reassuring to know I'm in such good company.

Elfbaby started the hiccup affliction early, as in, in the womb. It was *extremely* startling to figure out what that weird, rhythmic thumping was.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if I would categorise hiccuping babies on the giant list under "reasons not to have babies" or "reasons to have babies". There is, as you point out, a consolation in knowing that one is not alone in the eruptions of small embarassment.

[stringgeek.livejournal.com]

I love how they are both about silver, yet are so very different. :-D

Microfiction should get profit, goldarnit!

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Microfiction does get profit. It's brought my writing out of the closet. I feel rich ;>.

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

Good lord. I'd forgotten about the hiccups, and indeed about the, erm, "artwork". But that cave drawing does ring vague bells! Good times* :)

* At least, for those of us not bouncing uncontrollably around the room...

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

Oh, definitely good times for all concerned. I could post more of your immortal artwork, but probably won't in the interests of keeping the surreal levels of the universe manageable. That piece of paper has a note from Careena on the back, identifying the year as 1992, when I was DMing her; it also features drawings by you of (a) the "something quite unlike anything anyone had seen before" from 13 Clocks, and (b) a revolted mouse imagining the Bastard Ex-Boyfriend From Hell juggling Jos. No, I have no idea either.

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

Once again, good lord. Keep those - one day they may be worth millyins!

(We shall not speculate as to millyins of what, exactly.)