I looked at him. He looked at me. The hot tub water bubbled around us and the stars flickered overhead.

Hiccup! It happened again. He looked sheepish.

“I bet I can fix that for you,” I said to my cute husband as we sat there in the hot water, melting away the day’s troubles with moonlight and mojitos.

“Uh huh,” he said.

“Uh huh,” I repeated as I moved in close. I smiled at him as I circled my arms around his neck and pulled him in for a longer-than-usual kiss.

Ninety seconds later I smiled at him again.

“That’s not going to work,” he said. I raised my eyebrows and said nothing.

He waited.

I waited.

He looked at me.

I looked at him.

The jets on the hot tub turned off, and we waited together in the still silence.

“You don’t seem to be hiccuping,” I said. Yes, it needed to be said.

“No, I don’t. Where did you hear about that?” He was starting to look slightly impressed.

“My brain, thank you very much. Hiccuping has something to do with your diaphragm muscle getting out of whack and screwing up your breathing pattern. Seemed like kissing would make you relax and force your body to breath regularly through your nose so you don’t suffocate. Seemed plausible.”

He smiled at me. I smiled at him.

When we got back inside, I looked it up online (because what else would you do?), and apparently I’m not the only person to have discovered this. However, since so far my own analysis consists of a statistical sample of one, I think a larger scale trial is needed. No, I’m not going to go kiss everyone I see who has the hiccups. Nice try!

Next time you or whoever you usually smooch has the hiccups though, please test the theory out and report back in the comments. It’s important. For science.