Unacceptable

(Given that airplanes are a touchy subject lately, let me assure you that despite what the first few sentences sound like, this post has nothing to do with terrorism)

Hello, Dear Reader. How was your Christmas and New Years? That’s nice. Let me tell you about a crime that has been committed. The scene of this malicious offense was the United 767 that escorted Corelyn and I across the country to LAX. We had landed smoothly and were preparing to disembark our trusty vehicle. Problem was, Corelyn had inexplicably come down with the hiccups, and it was one of those really annoying ones where you can’t say two words without a violent upward motion. At first, I assumed it would pass, but as the minutes wore on I decided to accept this as a challenge. I began imparting priceless wisdom to my wife, gems of long lost prophecy that kings have scoured the earth to uncover. You see, hiccups and I are bitter enemies: I cannot tolerate their existence, they cannot tolerate mine. They’re useless, Dear Reader. Coughs and sneezes I can appreciate as functional, but hiccups exist purely to piss you off. I guess the diaphragm gets sick of hearing about how great the stomach is and decides to draw some attention to itself, or something like that. The point is, they are pure evil and cannot be condoned in proper society. I treat the recipient of this condition much the way a Catholic priest would a victim of demonic possession: I must pierce through the mortal flesh in front of me, and fight the legion within.

Problem is, Corelyn announced her intent to “let them go away on their own.” I balked at this (a little too loudly, a few heads turned…balking is a strange thing to do at high volume), but she shook her head quietly and closed her eyes for a moment, which to the trained eye means: “I don’t have the energy to care about this as much as you do.” More than a year at sea on the good ship matrimony has taught me that this expression is a firm wall that cannot be scaled. One can maneuver around Corelyn’s sadness, fear, even rage, but not her disinterest; there is no cure for that one, because if you attack it, it marshals all the other negative emotions in successive order. This was an impasse, I knew, so if my crusade was to be successful, I would have to do it old-school.

I next informed my wife that I was a superhero, and possessed preternatural capabilities for destroying hiccups. Obviously, I didn’t put it quite that way, I said: “I am a superhero, and possess preternatural capabilities for getting rid of hiccups.” You see what I did there? I made it more down to earth, so as not to come off like a lunatic; it’s these touches that make all the difference. For some reason this did not sway her, and she said something ridiculous like, “Move out of the aisle, you’re blocking a 90 year old woman from her crying grandchild.” Ignoring her meaningless babble, and shoving away some obnoxious person who kept shouting and pointing around me, I focused on the task at hand. I was going to cure hiccups without the victim’s consent. No mean feat.

…All right look, some of that stuff was just put in there for comic effect, okay? We both know I do that. But I’m going to shatter the hyperbolic tone of this post so you can understand how rigidly, scientifically real this next part is. She was hiccuping up a storm, I told her I could cure them, she ignored me. I raised my hands into a Bruce Lee kind of position (I’m really not kidding), and locked eye contact with my wife. She frowned at me and looked away, and when she looked back in my direction she seemed displeased that I had not moved. I remained motionless for about ten seconds, aimed right at her.

AND THEN HER HICCUPS WERE GONE.

Even she admitted they had vanished, but in a cruel twist of fate, she refused to grant me even the slightest recognition for my efforts. Her response contained the four worst words ever strung together by a human being: “You didn’t do anything.” I didn’t do anything? I said I would get rid of her hiccups, I made weird hand gestures, and they vanished! They vanished, Dear Reader, in the exact moment I commanded them to! And she says “You didn’t do anything!”

I…words fail me. The woman cannot be impressed. I felt like Moses turning sticks into freaking snakes while the Pharaoh just sits there on his dumb throne and refuses to admit that I can cure hiccups! It’s not cool, Dear Reader, it’s not cool! This aggression will not stand. If you’re as angry as I am at my wife’s inability to recognize my status as some kind of wunderkind shaman, there’s something you can do! Send her the following message:

“Dear Corelyn, Your husband is the scourge of hiccups. I feel strongly about this issue. Signed, ________.”

Actually you may not want to do that, Corelyn hates it when I pull pranks like these. Maybe I’ll make a Facebook group about it or something.