Attention: Sufferers of IBR (Involuntary Body Responses)

     Involuntary body responses rarely occur in convenient locations or at convenient times. Their untimely arrival are inevitably accompanied by public mortification and followed by a lifetime of emotional scarring. While gainfully employed at a McDonald's at age seventeen, I was diligently scrubbing dishes, bent over a deep sink that faced the wall when a guy took the opportunity to goose me. I'm not sure who was more surprised by the result of this action. "The Great Goosing Debacle of '87 "eruptly" ended my fast food career and discouraged that boy's penchant for pinching the posteriors of unsuspecting women. Twenty years later, the two parties in this particularly sordid drama were reunited on a school field trip. Needless to say, reminiscing was unnecessary.

     Hiccups got us expelled from a solemn exhibition dedicated to our 16th president. "Hic!" Savannah choked out, the sound echoing though the dimly lit corridor. A glare from her father had her immediately taking deep breaths to prevent a recurrence. "Hic!" came the second one. "They're hurt-y hiccups," Savannah hissed at me, now bracing herself bodily for the next onslaught. "Hic!" Her body convulsed with the violence of the hiccup and I began convulsing with giggles. A mind-over-matter guy, my husband claims to have developed complete control over the spasmatic responses of his diaphragm. Consequently, he has no pity for the luxury of rampant hiccuping. Three times and you're out, in his book. Savannah was unceremoniously evicted from the museum and I was tossed out for hysterical laughter. Just the sight of a stovetop hat takes us back to that dark day.

     A double sneezer, I have developed annoying sneeze-preparation habits that have me looking like a comic-strip character. At the first hint of an on-coming sneeze, I begin waving at my face like a Southern Belle fending off the vapors. Upon the realization that there is no turning back the tide of this nasal explosion, I assume the position: back braced, legs daintily crossed, arms extended. The jolt of the sneeze normally launches me back a few feet, giving me just enough time to prepare for the next sinus onslaught. Having observed this process in action, my summer school students have been offering methods to waylay my sneezes. "Look at the light," they cried as I wound up for a round of sneezing. "I'm not dying," I managed to gasp before receiving my gesundheits. Today, as I felt that familiar tickle, one of my little honeys encouraged me to say "banana" as a defensive mechanism. I waved my hand toward my face, positioned my body and "ah...ah...ah...BANANA," I scream-sneezed. My student fell to the floor, helplessly laughing. I glared at her. "You could get kicked out of Lincoln's museum for that, you know," I said but she was too busy re-enacting the event for her friends a thousand times to be able to hear me.