BOO!

Boo! That simple word has many meanings. Usually it’s used when someone jumps out and shouts “Boo!” to frighten another person. It’s especially popular during the Halloween holiday. Ghosts and goblins are a mainstay of that scary holiday along with rotted teeth from all that unhealthy candy given out during “trick or treat.”

Another interesting use of the word “Boo!” is when a husband jumps out of a closet and surprises his wife cheating with her tennis pro. It’s usually followed with many epithets and warnings of divorce. In the Geezer’s case, when I suspected my ex-wife of cheating and hid in our closet I was prepared to leap out and yell, “Boo!” on hearing moans and groans from our bed. Imagine my astonishment to find her making love to a plate of parsley.

A report from Bogota, Columbia tells of a man who should have screamed, “Boo!” in trying to cure his nephew of his hiccups but didn’t. There are many home remedy cures for hiccups, of course. One is to have the victim blow air into a paper bag until their eyes pop out of their head. Another is to place the hiccupping person’s head in a plastic bag, tie it tight around their neck and fling them into a lake or river. This remedy is usually used by fascist police and not recommended against loved ones unless it’s an in-law. Many folks believe that by scaring the hiccupee with a loud “Boo!” will also cure them. If you should try all three of these remedies and the hiccups still don’t stop – you might consider trying the method by this Columbian man.

The uncle decided to try a new theory in hiccup curing but sadly it didn’t work too well. He had seen the action in a Three Stooges movie and since he believed everything that Curly ever said or did he felt he was on safe ground. He decided that his nephew needed drastic action to get his hiccups to stop. Drastic action to him was to pull out a handgun and point it at his young nephew. Heck if that didn’t scare the boy than nothing would. There was one hiccup in his plan – while pointing the gun it accidentally went off. Talk about surprising his nephew – the young man was so surprised that he immediately stopped hiccupping and dropped to the ground dead, as a doornail, from the bullet in his eye.

The uncle was betwixt and between – his cure certainly worked. The boy stopped hiccupping…and everything else. But the distraught uncle was not satisfied with his success. He turned the gun on himself and committed suicide. Some who witnessed the event thought that he over-reacted but, they couldn’t convince him since he was in rigor.

The only lesson to be learned from this incident is that it’s probably better to stick to a loud “Boo!” when trying to cure hiccupping and not try something you’ve seen in a Stooges movie unless it was done by Moe.