Find your tribe in a Sea of Creativity
Okay, so I have this weird thing: I have the hiccups. Perpetually. I always have the hiccups. Every single day, since I was about eleven years old. Yeah, seriously. Now, it’s not like I hiccup all the time. They just kind of happen randomly throughout the day. For all I know, the next one will be in two minutes, twenty minutes, or two hours. All of this is weird enough. But they’re not just consistent, they’re loud. And ridiculously high-pitched. I emit a high-pitched squeak that is frequently mistaken for a puppy, a bird, or a dying mouse. (And on one odd occasion, a horse.) Now, I have quite a lot of stories relating to my hiccups, but this is the one that people tend to find the funniest. Actually, it’s more like a series of funny vignettes.
So, in my freshman year of university, I was taking Astronomy 101. And you know, it was one of those big lecture hall classes with a couple hundred people in it. So when I hiccuped during class, it echoed around the room. Everyone could hear it, but no one could figure out where it was coming from. When it happened, my professor would pause for a second, and everyone would glance around, looking for the source of the strange sound. Again and again it happened, throughout the semester. Then in the last two weeks of school, this happened:
First: I was standing in line at Starbucks on campus one morning, and I hiccuped. The girl two people in front of me turned around, stared for a second and said, I kid you not, “Are you in my Astro 101 class?” She recognized me purely from the sound of my hiccups.
Second: Astronomy had just let out, and as I was walking out of class, I hiccuped. The two guys in front of me were like, “Did you hear that?” And then they started speculating about the weird noise that had plagued the class the entire semester. I’m standing behind them, blushing bright red, and so I interject into their conversation. “I have really weird hiccups!” I said. They both turned to look at me like I was insane. “That sound,” I explained. “It’s me. I have really strange hiccups.” Then of course they started laughing. One of them suggested that I should go up in front of class and explain to everyone – actually, that I should just stand up and announce my hiccups in every class at the beginning of the semester. I was still blushing, and I was like, no! I’m not going to do that.
Third: My dorm was having a movie night at the end of the semester to watch The Polar Express. So I’m sitting on the couch in the basement in front of the TV chatting with this guy, and I hiccuped. And he gives me an odd look, hesitates, and says, “I’m sorry, but are you taking astronomy this semester?” And I was ready to facepalm. This was the second time in like six days that someone from that class had recognized me by my hiccups. It hadn’t happened all semester – it hadn’t ever happened like this at all, really.
Finally: Spring semester starts. I’m taking Astro 102 and I have the same professor. This time, the class is a lot smaller. There were thirty-six people in the class. (Only four of us were girls, by the way.) On the first day of class, I hiccuped. The professor stops. This time, instead of brushing it off and moving on, he asks the class, “What is that sound?” I suppose because it was a smaller class. So anyway, I ended up explaining my hiccups to him in front of the entire class. Sigh.
That’s basically it for the Hiccups in Astronomy Vignettes.