Context: 

This piece was collected over a casual FaceTime in which we were previously just catching up and talking about our elementary school experiences. We are close friends who met in high school and have known each other for five years. My informant (JS) was born in California and is now attending Carnegie Mellon as Computer Science major. He enjoys coding, playing video games, and weight lifting.

Main Piece:

The following is transcribed from a conversation between the informant (JS) and interviewer.

Interviewer: So what’s your hiccup cure?

JS: I have a few. There are the common ones, like holding your breath or scaring the hiccups away, but I like the spoon in water one the best.

Interviewer: Wait tell me more about that one.

JS: So when you have hiccups, to get rid of them, you have to put a metal spoon inside a glass of water and drink it. That’ll get rid of the hiccups really fast. My third grade teacher told this to our class and we had the “hiccup cup” in the back of the classroom. I still use this trick today if I really can’t get rid of my hiccups.

Thoughts: 

I have heard of this method before and I’m sure it is just as effective as other hiccup home-remedies, like holding your breath, biting a lemon,  or eating a spoon of peanut butter. In the end, I think these are just placebo remedies meant to calm children down and feel more in control of a situation.