As Louise and I were riding along in a car we decided to have a contest to see which of us could hold his or her breath the longest. While holding our breaths, we were also going to count our heartbeats. We wanted to hold our breaths for four minutes and see how many times our hearts would beat in that time.

We began. I held my breath for a couple minutes and gave up. My heart had only beaten thirty-some times during the two minutes. I momentarily forgot Louise was still holding her breath; but when the four minutes had almost elapsed I saw she still was. She was very close to the four minute mark.

I started talking to her, told her she could stop and tried to coax her into stopping; but actually I rather wanted to see her go the full four minutes. I watched my watch and even let her go a few seconds beyond four minutes before I said, "All right, times up."

She breathed again and said her heart had only beat about 40 times during the entire four minutes. I thought that that was strange and that my heart must beat much faster than hers.

I hugged her and asked, "Do you want to go back to my place?"

She answered, "Yes."

I said, "Good, I'm glad."

She said, "Now that I've crossed the threshold."

I hugged her again.