Diazeugma

Posted on March 22, 2026 | Leave a comment

Diazeugma (di-a-zoog’-ma): The figure by which a single subject governs several verbs or verbal constructions (usually arranged in parallel fashion and expressing a similar idea); the opposite of zeugma.

He struggled, got into his secondhand wheelchair, and rolled toward the kitchen. It was another morning of being disabled. Everything was a struggle, everything was hard. He could still remember being able to stand up and walk—or even jog, or hop, or ice skate. He pounded the kitchen table as he waited for his coffee to brew. He was frustrated and angry.

Like he did every day he tried to stand up on his own. He determined, but he fell on his face every morning. As usual, he got a nosebleed. He locked his wheelchair and struggled to get back in it. Once he was reseated, he grabbed a paper towel from the kitchen counter, dampened it in the sink, and pressed it to his bleeding nose.

His coffee was done. He poured a cup and gulped it down.

Five years ago he had been run over by a teenager speeding through a parking lot. As a consequence, he lost his mobility. He had been angry and bitter, and even murderous, ever since.

Once again, he picked up a kitchen knife. He was about to stab himself in the heart when he heard an old man voice coming from the pouch hanging from one of his wheelchair’s armrests. He looked down. There was what looked like a red cone sticking out of the pouch. Then, a little man wearing a red pointed hat climbed out of the pouch.

He said: “I’ll say it again: Get off your ass and walk.” The man was shocked, but the little man seemed like some kind of supernatural creature who knew what he was talking about. So, the man tried to stand up. He fell on his face. The little man said “Good” and held out his hands in front of him and wiggled his fingers like he was controlling a marionette. Suddenly, the man stood up.

The man and the little man became a team. The little man would follow the man from around five feet behind. The big bonus was that the little man could make himself invisible! Nobody knew he was following the man and orchestrating his mobility. Moreover, the little man assiduously “went” wherever the man wanted go.

The man was blissful. He was overwhelmed by his good fortune, even though he understood he was no more than a a sentient puppet.

Then, one day he and the little man were headed for the library. They were cutting across the library’s parking lot when they were hit by a bookmobile pulling in from a day of serving rural patrons. The little man was unharmed, although his red pointed hit was knocked off his head. When he was hit, he lost his walking spell power and the man fell to the pavement. His head was crushed like an overripe watermelon. He died right there. The little man disappeared.

POSTSCRIPT

Nobody lived happyily ever after. People die and there’s no bringing them back. For the man, he had a pretty good run—no pun intended—before he died a gruesome death.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Dicaeologia

Posted on March 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

Dicaeologia (di-kay-o-lo’-gi-a): Admitting what’s charged against one, but excusing it by necessity.

“Ok ok! I lit the garage on fire! I had to do it. Planet Earth was in jeopardy. The Smudgettes threatened to vaporize New York, and then, the entire planet, if I failed to burn down the garage.” This was my story.

I had been in contact with the Smudgettes since I was 11 years old and one of them kept tickling my hiney when I sat on the toilet. His name was Mel. He kept yelling “you can’t wipe me away Arlo!” with a Smudgettian accent—which sounded like a cross between French and Chinese. At first, it scared me. But after five years it became a nuisance. My mother told me that she had heard me yelling in the bathroom “You can’t wipe me away Arlo!” I asked if it sounded like a French-Chinese accent. Sho looked at me with a combination of pity and fear in her eyes and said “No Arlo. You need help.”

“Help” consisted of my Aunt Hattie giving me a hot bath once a week. She chewed gum and wore smelly perfume and said “ain’t” all the time. She wore a pink spa towel and a black bikini bathing suit top. She locked the bathroom door and got down on her knees by the tub. My heart was beating so fast I thought it would explode. Then, she sang “Puff the Magic Dragon” and made her fingers squeak on the side of the tub. She said: “Arlo, you’re off your rocker, around the bend, over the rainbow, you’ve lost your marbles, you’re not playing with a full deck.” This went on once a week for a year—always the same. The only thing that changed was my heartbeat—it didn’t pump and thump any more. I was bored. Mom called the “weekly therapy” off after I lied about what Aunt Hattie was doing. They haven’t spoken since.

I started dressing up in a pink spa towel and black bra and singing “Puff the Magic Dragon”on street corners. I added high-heel shoes. The local newspaper did a story about me that was picked up by the national press. I was nicknamed “Puff Man” and, in addition to “Puff the Magic Dragon” was invited to perform my new love song “You Can’t Wipe Me Away.” I sang it with a French-Chinese accent at Simon Tredwell Theatre in New York. It was about a man with anal hygiene issues who is taught to properly wipe by a disabled librarian who has no hands and comes from another planet. It was inspired by Mel, the Smudgette in my toilet.

When I finished singing the song, the audience looked at me in horror and I was escorted from the theatre.

I took a bus back home to Night Shift, Wisconsin. The first time I pooped when I got home, the man in the toilet (Mel) told me what to do, and why I had to do it. There was a BIC lighter on my dresser. I picked it up and headed for the garage to save the world. I had no choice. I lit the lighter and held it up to the windowsill. It wouldn’t light. I could see the gas can for the lawnmower through the window. I went into the garage and grabbed it and splashed gasoline all over the place. I flicked the BIC and touched its flame to the puddle of gasoline on the floor. POOF! Flame on! But my pants caught on fire.

I ran outside and couldn’t remember whether I should drop, stop, and roll or roll, stop, and drop. I was severely burned, but I had saved planet Earth. There was no parade or Presidential Medal of Fredo’s. There were just months of skin grafts at the state mental hospital.

The voice in the toilet (Mel) continues to taunt me about wiping. I have been wondering if I put my head in a paper bag or a bucket, or wrap duct tape around it, if I won’t hear him any more. The other option is to eat modeling clay from the crafts room.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Dilemma

Posted on March 20, 2026 | Leave a comment

Dilemma (di-lem’-ma): Offering to an opponent a choice between two (equally unfavorable) alternatives.

“Do you want to shit your pants or go blind?” I offered these alternatives to my little brother. Of course, the answer is shit your pants. Going blind is clearly a worse alternative. But, I was reminded that Carl had fallen out of his crib several times after he learned to stand up. We got a baby-cam so we could monitor him in his crib. That’s when we learned he was not falling from the crib. Rather, he was jumping. So Mom had a metal grommet installed in the waistband of Carl’s pajamas. She would hook him to a bungee chord so he wouldn’t hit the floor when he jumped. Problem solved. This was pre-bungee jumping. Mom was a genius!

I had struggled with dilemmas enough in my life to make me a walking crossroad. No matter where I go or what I do, there’s always somebody hitting me with a dilemma. Way back in the eighth grade, my wood shop teacher told me “If you want to pass this class, you can drive a nail through your thumb, or date my insane daughter who just got out of prison for trying to electrocute our neighbor. I know the options are cruel, but it’s how I roll with assholes like you.” I went out with his daughter. She tried to stick my hand in a blender. I overpowered her and escaped.

Then, there was the time my employer’s accountant told me to start embezzling money and channeling it to him or he would make sure I was fired. My daughter was in college, so I needed my job to pay her tuition and buy her books and a car too. I went down the embezzling road. The accountant got caught and he ratted me out for a reduced sentence. Prison is pretty good. Everything’s free and I have a definite deadline: I got 6 months with work release and weekend home visits.

When I was assigned to work release, I had to choose between two jobs: cleaning graffiti off walls or looking for shell casings on the floor at a well-used notorious crime scene: an abandoned warehouse where gangs kill rival gang members. Given all the manual involved in getting rid of graffiti, I thought the warehouse was a no-brainer until gunfire erupted on my second day. The bullets made a whizzing sound as they flew past my head. This guy came walking toward me with a gun in his hand. He said, “Hey, I’m Tony.” I told him my name. I told him I worked in the warehouse and he said he did too. We made friends. He told me to “Just hide behind something and keep your head down when the shooting starts and you’ll be ok. I did what he said. I was ok. We got to where we’d go down the street for a beer after a shoot-out was finished and I had picked up all the shell casings.

On the weekends I’d go home and this guy named Stan was always there. He Slept in the spare room. I was suspicious, but not enough. One night, I had to pee. As I got up, I noticed my wife wasn’t in bed. That’s when my suspicion kicked in. I peeked in the spare room and there she was taking a ride on Stan’s happy stick.

The next day I asked Tony if he’d murder my wife. He said “Sure. Give me your address and I’ll stop by tonight around eleven and whack her. You’ll have to get rid of her body though I just hit and run.” I agreed. I came home around two and BOTH Stan and my wife were laid out on the living room floor. Stan had a gun in his hand and a hole in his head. It was a bloody mess.

I called the police and their bodies were taken away in an ambulance. I was alibied at Noble Bar & Grill so the cops didn’t even take a second look at me. Since Stan was shot in the head and he had the gun in his hand, they called it a murder suicide.

When I saw Tony the next day, all he said was “Easy peasy.”

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Dirimens Copulatio

Posted on March 19, 2026 | Leave a comment

Dirimens Copulatio (di’-ri-mens ko-pu-la’-ti-o): A figure by which one balances one statement with a contrary, qualifying statement (sometimes conveyed by “not only … but also” clauses). A sort of arguing both sides of an issue.

Protagoras (c. 485-410 BC) asserted that “to every logos (speech or argument) another logos is opposed,” a theme continued in the Dissoi Logoiof his time, later codified as the notion of arguments in utrumque partes (on both sides). Aristotle asserted that thinking in opposites is necessary both to arrive at the true state of a matter (opposition as an epistemological heuristic) and to anticipate counterarguments. This latter, practical purpose for investigating opposing arguments has been central to rhetoric ever since sophists like Antiphon (c. 480-410 BC) provided model speeches (his Tetralogies) showing how one might argue for either the prosecution or for the defense on any given issue. As such, [this] names not so much a figure of speech as a general approach to rhetoric, or an overall argumentative strategy. However, it could be manifest within a speech on a local level as well, especially for the purposes of exhibiting fairness (establishing ethos[audience perception of speaker credibility].

This pragmatic embrace of opposing arguments permeates rhetorical invention, arrangement, and rhetorical pedagogy. [In a sense, ‘two-wayed thinking’ constitutes a way of life—it is tolerant of differences and may interpret their resolution as contingent and provisional, as always open to renegotiation, and never as the final word. Truth, at best, offers cold comfort in social settings and often establishes itself as incontestable, by definition, as immune from untrumque partes, which may be considered an act of heresy and may be punishable by death.]

“Not only is that a dog, but it acts like a cat too.” That was our problem. Now I see it. I had found the animal in a ditch by a country road. It was wet, filthy, covered with ticks and smelled like a wet dog—no surprises there! He has a mask on his face like a raccoon and a giant fluffy tail that was as long as he was. He was the size of a of a large goat, had big pointy ears, and was at least six or seven colors—there was a dispute over his front right leg—whether it was dark brown or black. As we drove home he stood on the back seat wagging his tail, which kept hitting my wife in the back of the head. I kept yelling “sit” but he just looked at me with his tongue hanging out. I gave up.

We named him “Ditch” after where we found him. He was a sort of friendly “dog” (of giant cat?). Hee wasn’t mean. Rather, he was indifferent most of the time. I’d call him—“Here Ditch”—and he wouldn’t even look at me. If he was sleeping, sometimes he lifted up his head when I called him or gave me little wag. I considered that a major accomplishment. Then one Saturday, I decided to take Ditch to the pet store to get some food. Once inside the pet store, when we walked past the cat litter boxes, Ditch sat down and pawed them until the entire display fell over. Clearly, he wanted a litter box, but they were too small for him to fit in. However, I had an idea! I bought 15 bags of kitty litter and we headed to the Dollar Store. I bought a plastic molded kiddie pool to serve as Ditch’s litter box. I put it in the basement and filled it with kitty litter. Ditch loved it. No more poop bombs on the living room carpet!

As time went on, Ditch became more and more like a cat. I had to make him a giant catnip ball—the size of a soccer ball. He would get high on the catnip and run around the house knocking things over. Then, he started scratching furniture. He took the side of our couch off in a 5-minute session. I couldn’t stop him. He was too fast and too strong. It was like paws of fury. To put a stop to the destruction, I made a scratching post from one of the maple trees I had planted five years ago in the front yard. I put it in the living room. It reached to the ceiling. I started buying Ditch live lobsters. I’d throw them on the kitchen floor. The crunching sound the lobsters made when he ate them was unnerving, but he loved seafood. I figured it was his cat side.

One of Ditch’s favorite things to do was to tip over the flat screen TV. I had to glue it to the TV stand. The worst, was his opening the refrigerator and scattering its contents on the floor. I had a hasp installed on the refrigerator door, and we kept it padlocked so Ditch couldn’t open it.

Then one night, I was awakened by a “Meow” that shook the house’s windows and scared our goldfish Lulu out of her bowl. I found her dead on the living room floor. Ditch was crouched over her drooling profusely. It was frightening. It prompted me to find out more about Ditch. I immediately Googled “Giant multi-colored cat-like dog, likes seafood.” I got one hit. It was a missing dog notice for “Number 146.” The description fit Ditch, and the photo was definitely him. It had been posted by “Mr. Big” and there was a $200,000 reward for his return.

I nearly shit my pants! Given Ditch’s character, I had no trouble deciding to turn him in for the reward. I called Mr. Big and gave him my home address. The next day an unmarked van pulled up in front of my house. A man wearing shorts and a T-shirt saying “Mr. Big” hopped out. He was carrying a briefcase and a huge dog biscuit shaped like a rabbit. When Ditch saw Mr. Big, he started running around in circles, chasing his tail. He was clearly overjoyed to see Mr, Big. I was relieved. Mr. Big handed me the briefcase. I opened it and it was filled with $100 bills. Mr. Big handed the dog biscuit to Ditch and he gobbled it up and then passed out. Mr. Big’s assistants carried Ditch on a stretcher out to the waiting van.

I was not the least bit sad. “Good riddance” I thought as I opened the briefcase again and contemplated the neatly arranged $100 bills. I don’t know whether Ditch was a dog or a cat, but one thing I’m sure of: he was a pain in the ass.

The only thing I liked about him was his giant tail.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Distinctio

Posted on March 18, 2026 | Leave a comment

Distinctio (dis-tinc’-ti-o): Eliminating ambiguity surrounding a word by explicitly specifying each of its distinct meanings.

I was on my way to my monthly visit to Madame Legno. Her parents had named her “Legno” because she was born with half a leg—her right leg. She wore a beautiful hand-carved mahogany peg leg. It had the “Last Supper” carved on it along with a portrait of the Beatles and the Empire State Building. For an extra five dollars she would show it to me and let me touch it. I bought “the peg leg tour” every time I went to see her.

Tonight, I had some special questions.

I asked her: “Will my car make it through the winter?” She answered: “Life is too short.” That was pretty straightforward. I would start looking for a “new” car tomorrow. Next, I asked: “Will my wife get pregnant?” She said: “You have to break an egg to make an omelet.” I got it—it had something to do with sperm breaking through an ovum. I needed to take a supplement to make my sperm more aggressive. I had seen this stuff called “Dyno Seed” on the internet. The slogan was “Pump it up baby!” It had a picture of a sperm cell wearing a motorboat engine speeding up a fallopian tube. It was just what I needed. For $250, it seemed like a good deal.

I was going away on a business trip for the weekend to Montreal. I was afraid my wife would fall out of love with me while I was gone. I was the most insecure person in the world. I’m pretty sure it’s a kind of mental illness, that, like my Uncle Eddy’s, and six or seven other relatives, may induce me to duct tape my wife to a chair, or worse, drown her in the bathtub. So, I asked Madame Legno: “Does absence make the heart grow fonder?” She answered: “There will be a miss, but you will miss, and you will miss.” This was the most vague, ambiguous, obscure and unhelpful answer that Madam Legno had ever given me. I was not allowed to ask for clarification of her cryptic responses. It was one of the basic rules of fortune teller consultation. You had to take what you got and do the best that you could with it. Accordingly, I had to figure the jumble of misses out on my own.

“Miss” could mean an unmarried woman. “Miss” could mean wanting somebody who is absent. “Miss” could mean failing to hit the mark. How could all three “misses” pertain to my question? It was vexing.

The next thing I knew I was on my business trip in Montreal. I was in a pub playing darts with a young woman and my wife had become a fading memory.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Distributio

Posted on March 17, 2026 | Leave a comment

Distributio (dis-tri-bu’-ti-o): (1) Assigning roles among or specifying the duties of a list of people, sometimes accompanied by a conclusion. (2) Sometimes this term is simply a synonym for diaeresis or merismus, which are more general figures involving division.

“Joe, you pick the pills up off the floor. Eddie, you bake a cake. Sly, you hit him in the face with that cast-iron skillet over there. Barbara, you put on a Bing Crosby CD and dance with me all night long.”

I was giving orders to my fantasy gang, Now that I was thirty-nine I had a total handle on how this went and why it went the way it did. I’d been at it since I was ten. Oh, there are three additional members of the gang that I forgot to mention. They all have nicknames: Blubber Maloney. He’s so fat he can hardly move, but he can unlock a door pretty much just by looking at it. Then, there’s Fidget Smith. He has severe ADHD. He looks around a lot and he needs a place to constantly pace around. He’s my cousin, so I let him use the hideout. In a weird way, it’s relaxing watching him pace. Last, but not least, is Flemmy Bonami. He has a serious case of post nasal drip. He clears his throat and blows his nose every ten minutes or so. He has what’s called “Full Spectrum Allergy Syndrome.” Flemmy is my driver. He keeps his “snot rag” on the seat alongside him and can drive and blow his nose at the same time. We have outrun many a cop car together. He is invaluable.

I currently work as a high school janitor. I push around a big trashcan on wheels, sweep floors, mop floors, vacuum floors, and empty wastebaskets. Every once in a while, I steal something, mainly from the girls’ lockers. Last week I stole a red scrunchy and hung it on my wall alongside six or seven others already hanging there. They look like little Christmas wreaths. Festive!

My gang is all I have to give me a sense of self worth. The gang is named the “Perky Spooners” to emphasize its appetite for life, good looks, and its romantic orientation—assets giving it “street cred” with other rival gangs. I make up “missions” for the gang each week. They involve things like grocery shopping, paying bills, working in the yard, cleaning the house, cooking, etc..

Barbara is my own true love. She looks like a big Barbie doll. We’ve been together for a really long time. Sometimes she flits around, and was unfaithful to me once. It was with “College Carl.” I caught them having sex under my bed. I murdered College Carl and threw his body in the river behind where I live. He deserved it. I want to marry Barbara, but like the rest of my crew, she doesn’t really exist. I’m trying to find a real girl named Barbara. So far, no luck. I’m thinking of kidnapping a woman named Barbara and being real nice to her. Then, I’ll ask her to marry me. I believe this is a good idea. One of the teachers at my school is named Barbara. Maybe I’ll kidnap her!

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Ecphonesis

Posted on March 16, 2026 | Leave a comment

Ecphonesis (ec-pho-nee’-sis): An emotional exclamation.

“Leave me alone you fu*king scumbag! I’m gonna’ jam this toothbrush in your eye if you don’t fu*k off!” It was morning and I was in my bathroom yelling at the medicine cabinet mirror. I was unhealthy. I was convinced that I had myself under surveillance. Every morning, there I was watching me as I combed my hair, shaved, and brushed my teeth. I was only able to see myself watching me when I looked into a mirror. Otherwise, I just knew “I” was there.

“I” was out of sight, stalking me and playing dirty tricks on me. Yesterday I stepped on a piece of melting bubblegum. There’s no doubt that “I” caused it to happen. I’m not sure how, but I think I was pushed. I had to go to the shoe repair shop to have the gum removed from my shoe’s sole. When I showed the shoemaker my shoe, he held up a mirror to my face and asked if the man in the reflection had done it—had guided me to the gum. The man in the reflection looked like me, but I knew it was “him”!

The shoemaker had slightly pointed ears, but he had soft and friendly baby-blue eyes. He went into the back room of the shop and came out carrying a small bottle labeled “Away!” He told me to put a few drops on a dirty sock and rub it around on my bathroom mirror. He said, “The stalker will go away, and you will be you in the mirror again—a benign reflection showing you as you are. Your troubles will disappear.”

When I got home, I dumped a few drops of “Away!” on one of my dirty black dress socks and rubbed it around on my mirror. My mirror flashed. It turned red and blue and then went back to normal again. I looked at my reflection—it was me! Good old me again! I looked like I looked before when “I” was in the mirror, but I knew it was me. I just knew I was free. “I” was gone.

I had to go back to the shoe repair shop to thank the old man. He told me to stay away unless I had a reflection problem. He was adamant. I looked at the mirror hanging by the cash register—the man reflected in it wasn’t me. He looked like my neighbor Chip. The reflection said “I’m not Chip.” That did it. I thanked the old man and left the shoe repair shop. When I got out on the street, I pulled out the pocket mirror I had started carrying. I looked at it, but it had gone blank. It said “I’m not Chip.” I threw it on the sidewalk, but it was metal and didn’t break. I could hear it saying “I’m not Chip” as I walked away.

I didn’t understand. But life was going well. Now, when I looked in the mirror I was confident it was me looking back at me. Chip was a thing of the past. He had died mysteriously in his bathtub. Somehow, a television set had fallen in his tub and electrocuted him. Also, I rubbed down my mirror with “Away!” every once in a while, just to keep it honest. I dreaded the day when I ran out of “Away!” and my reflection became my enemy again. What the hell would I do? I don’t know. I the meantime I’m shopping for a new TV. I have ruined my old one. It was Chip’s fault.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Effictio

Posted on March 15, 2026 | Leave a comment

Effictio (ef-fik’-ti-o): A verbal depiction of someone’s body, often from head to toe.

“Five foot two, eyes of blue, has anybody seen my girl?” This quotation is from the famous serial killer Arthur Bundy, Ted’s younger brother. He used what’s quoted above to cover his tracks by making it look like he had misplaced his girlfriend—that she wasn’t dead somewhere down by the river hit over the head by a rock, by him. He wrote this as an aspiring writer, as a part of his macabre sensibilities, he would also sketch images of his victims for his drawing class.

Professor Nib was impressed by their meticulous detail. However, they were all nude and had numerous bandaids drawn on their torsos. At first, she thought nothing of it—seeing the bandaids as a surrealistic twist—an expression of artistic license.

Given the nearly perfect realism of the rest of each drawing, she started to wonder if the bandaids were concealing something. Taking a risk, she asked Arthur what was up with the bandaids. He invited her to his hometown to “meet” one of his models so she could see for herself. She had trepidations, but the Bundys were once pillars of the community. Arthur lived in their Victorian mansion that had fallen into disrepair after the elderly Bundys had mysteriously disappeared after the boys had moved back home after completing their one-year prison sentences for breaking into a pet store and killing everything: reptiles, fish, and mammals. Other than the pet store incident, they were considered model sons, although a pair of hamster mummies were found by his mother in Ted’s sock drawer. She said “Boys will be boys” and thought nothing of it. She said the same thing when she found a heart under Arthur’s pillow.

Professor Nib arrived at Arthur’s at 10:00pm as agreed. She thought it was a little late, but she agreed, writing it off to Arthur’s eccentricity. Arthur answered the door in a black silk smoking jacket, gray sweatpants, and gold trainers—Trump’s brand. He was wearing RayBan sunglasses, his blond hair was matted flat on his head with gel, he had a gold cap on one of his front teeth, and a wide belt with a giant oval-shaped red enameled buckle that said “Peterbilt.” He smiled, accenting his sunken cheeks and flashing his gold tooth.

“Come in. My studio’s in the basement. Follow me.” The stairs creaked as they went down. When they went through the studio’s door, it locked behind them. There was what looked like a mummy wrapped in a ground cloth hanging from the ceiling. Arthur said, “I was just about to do the bandaids” and tore off the ground cloth.

There was a nude woman hanging there with multiple stab wounds. Arthur used the bandaids to cover the wounds in his paintings. The woman was dead.

Professor Nib had a decision to make. Arthur was an extremely talented artist, but he was also a serial killer and she was locked in his basement “studio” with him. She told him she would give him an “A” in the drawing class if he let her go. He thought about it for a minute and said “Ok.” She followed through on her promise. After the semester was over and grades were in, she reported Arthur to the police.

Professor Nib was charged with obstructing justice for allowing Arthur to finish the semester, and giving him an “A” before reporting him to the police. She was convicted and sentenced to five years. She’s writing a novel titled “Bandaid.”

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Ellipsis

Posted on March 14, 2026 | Leave a comment

Ellipsis (el-lip’-sis): Omission of a word or short phrase easily understood in context.

I woke up in a pool of blood. I did not know where I was. As I got up with my pants dripping blood on the floor, I thought “How could I sleep in a pool of blood? Gross! What an idiot.” I didn’t know what to do. I sat on the couch for awhile, it soaked up some of the blood. I decided to go outside and sit by what looked like a swimming pool and let the sunshine dry up the rest—to make it crusty and maroon-colored. After about a half-hour, I was dry. I decided to go to a laundromat. I called an Uber and told them I wanted to go to Doozy Duds laundromat. The driver took one look at me and said “What the fu*k happened to you?” I told him I worked in a slaughterhouse and its laundry facility was temporarily out of order. I told him it was my nephew’s birthday and I needed clean clothes to wear, and ironically, my home washing machine had broken down the day before. By the way, I was wearing all white from my job modeling hazmat suits. So, the driver bought my story. Who wouldn’t?

The Weehawken Doozy Duds was open 24-7. I loved the girl who worked there. She was skinny with big bags under her eyes, long black hair, flat chest and a butt like two watermelons resting side-by-side. I had vivid dreams about her butt, circling around my head, talking to me, jiggling, sitting on my lap. It was creepy and beautiful at the same time. It was . . . bliss. She called herself “Sudsy.” I thought that was really creative.

Here I was, outside Doozy Duds watching Sudsy through the window. I opened the door and went in. She gasped and said, “You’re covered with blood. We’ve got to get you cleaned up. I’ve got some stain remover that will do the trick. Take off your clothes. We have to soak them.” I tore off my clothes and threw them to Soapy. She told me to get in one of the zinc hand-washing tubs so she could bathe me. She locked up Doozy Duds.

We soaked my clothes for 2 hours, and then, washed them and dried them. We slept in a basket of laundry that night. It smelled sweaty and so did we. In the morning, Sudsy reopened Doozy Duds. My memory was coming back. I went to International House of Pancakes for breakfast. I ordered the ‘Double-Heeman Whaky Jacks.” When I picked up my knife I saw myself stabbing an elderly woman wearing lipstick, dressed in her underwear, and leaning on a walker. She was at least 80 years old. My god—I recognized her! It was my grandfather’s sister Bernice! I ran out of I-HOP. I was a murderer, a fugitive from justice. I had killed a personal blood relative—and I didn’t know why.

I picked up Sudsy on my motorcycle and we took off for the West Coast, tangled up in blue, riders on the storm, somewhere over the rainbow, way up high. Fugitives.

We ended up in San Francisco, California. Sudsy got a job in a joint called “Rear View.” She waited on tables with the rear cheeks of her pants cut out. The place catered to men who called themselves “ass men.” I got a job picking up trash in Golden Gate Park. I had one of the sticks with a nail on the end and a big orange canvas bag. We were relatively happy. However, I had stopped having dreams about Sudsy’s butt and was worried that my feelings for her were waning.

I came home from work one day, and the place was surrounded by police. Sudsy was sticking her ass out the window and yelling taunts at the police over her shoulder: “Come and get me pigs!” “Dirty coppers.” I asked the cop by me what was going on. He told me she was wanted in New Jersey for killing some old lady wearing lipstick in her underwear, and leaning on a walker.

I started crying and got on my motorcycle and rode away. I needed time—years—to figure this out. Time will heal. . .

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Enallage

Posted on March 13, 2026 | Leave a comment

Enallage (e-nal’-la-ge): The substitution of grammatically different but semantically equivalent constructions.

“Lie tremendous Donny.” I said this to myself when it was time to lie—which was almost always.p. I was such a liar that my friends called me “Don the con.” I told at least a dozen lies every day. Most recently, I lied about my IQ. I told my friends that I’m a genius, that I was being inducted into MENSA next week. I told them my IQ is 220. I figured this was high enough to make me a genius.

Of course, given all the stupid things I’ve done, nobody believed me, but nobody laughed at me. I had inherited millions of dollars from a mystery trust fund and all my friends hoped to get a piece of it when I die, especially since I told them I was estranged from my entire family, all the way down to the most recent newborn. It was a lie—I had no family. The joke was on them! I was leaving all my money to a used car salesman—Honest Sal—who had a car lot on the outskirts of town, adjacent to the oil refinery. He dressed like a pimp, spoke a hundred miles an hour, and lied like crazy about his cars and everything else. When we first met, a black Cadillac on the front of the lot caught my eye. I pulled over and got out of my car.

Sal came running over, shook my hand and said “howdy dowdy” over and over, his gold tooth glittering in the sun. He said “You’re interested in Ho Chi Minh’s limo? It’s a shame. His son fled Vietnam in it after a falling out with his father. He drove the limo to Cambodia and eventually made it to Thailand. He had it shipped to Los Angeles. He went broke after a year of debauchery and sold it at auction to raise funds to start a Vietnamese/Asian grocery store. I picked up the limo at a junkyard in Joliet, Illinois where it was about to be crushed into a block of steel and sold for scrap. After some minor cosmetic work, I put it out here on my lot. It’s for sale for $900.00, or, $850.00 if you pay cash.”

After I purchased Ho Chi Minh’s limo, Honest Sal and I became friends. I would drive out to his lot and we’d sit in his office telling lies to each other. I told Sal I had three balls. He told me he had three brains. I told him I was raised by poisonous snakes in a cave in Maine. He told me he had six dicks. No matter how outrageous a given lie was, we pretended we believed it and asked respectful questions as if it was true. For example, when he told me he had six dicks, I asked him if they were like a cow’s udders. I also asked him if he had a choice about which one became erect when he had sex, or if it was just random.

He told me the dicks weren’t like a cow’s udders. There was a dominant dick that did the peeing naturally with no squeezing necessary. As far as the erection went, he told me it was always a surprise and enhanced the activity.

You can imagine what passed between us in Honest Sal’s office every afternoon! We left reality behind. Our lying together was the soul of our friendship—so much imagination—so much creativity went into our lies.

One day, I told Sal I came from another planet. He asked me questions like: “Do you like plant Earth?” “Do you have a rocket ship hidden somewhere?” “What is the name of your planet?” “What do you eat of your planet?” I answered each question truthfully, but Sal didn’t know it. For example, I told him on my planet I eat “Pangle” a small iron-based organism that we ingest through pores in our armpits. We also have something roughly like fruit. It is called “Vibop.” It is about the size of a grape. When we sit on it, our digestive tract reverses direction and sucks in the “Vibop” through what is called the “anus” on Earth.

After I answered about ten more questions, Sal just sat there with his mouth hanging open, shaking his head. He pushed his chair back. He said: “You really are from another planet you bastard! Holy shit! It’s true!”

I tried to talk him out of his new-found belief. My attempts to change his mind were lies and he knew it. He was getting angry. I erased his memory with my plasma pang-pencil . I left his office, and jumped into my black Cadillac. I pressed the glove compartment button and the engine fired up. I pulled on the steering wheel and the Cadillac took off like a bat out of hell.

I had done my time on Earth.

The retrofitted Cadillac shot through Earth’s atmosphere. It was pre-programmed to take me home. I couldn’t wait to sit on a Vibop and listen to my favorite musical group “Gamma and the Rays.” So relaxing.

On Earth, I had almost forgotten how to tell the truth. It was vexing, but now I’m headed home.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Enantiosis

Posted on March 12, 2026 | Leave a comment

Enantiosis (e-nan-ti-o’-sis): Using opposing or contrary descriptions together, typically in a somewhat paradoxical manner.

What is soft? What is loud? Soft you can hardly hear. Loud may rupture your eardrums. What about everything else? Must sound be loud or soft, or, soft or loud? Goldilocks was looking for the answer to this question as she staged a home invasion of the Three Bears’ den.

She was studying philosophy at Black Forest College. They had been studying Aristotle’s “Primary Axiom,” the first principle of all reasoning; the principle of non-contradiction: “it is impossible for the same thing to belong and not to belong at the same time to the same thing and in the same respect”.

The night before her foray she had gone on a date with Hans Growler at a seafood restaurant. She had trouble choosing what to order, when she saw “jumbo shrimp” on the menu. Given her recent study of Aristotle’s primary axiom, she was perplexed. How could there be such a thing as jumbo shrimp? She ordered it. She ate it. It was delicious. It was “just right.” That gave her an idea for her final research project: “just right.”

Goldilocks had hit the Bears’ den because they were at their winter hibernation cave. It was quite some distance away. Although spring was close, she thought she had enough time to gather the information she needed. The den was loaded with artifacts she could use to test her “just right” thesis. She believed that things that were “just right” violated the Primary Axiom by being “both.” She tested her hypothesis around the den: porridge not too hot and not too cold, a chair not too high and not too short, and the clincher: a bed not too soft and not too hard. All of these things were “just right.”

Goldilocks wrote up her findings: “Just Right: Between the Contradictories.” She submitted her findings to her Professor. Professor Pinkhauser was notoriously crazy and morally suspect. He tried to get Goldilocks to try out the Bears’ bed with him so they could verify her findings. She hit him in the face and changed her thesis advisor to Professor Schoenbubers. She read Goldilocks’ thesis project and declared it “drivel” and had Goldilocks arrested for the Bears’ home invasion.

POSTSCRIPT

Goldilocks escaped arrest and fled Germany. She settled in Argentina. She enrolled in an online university located in Cambodia. Her research was welcomed. She graduated with a PhD, with honors. Currently, Goldilocks holds a tenure-track appointment as an Assistant Professor at Ward Bond University in Reno, Nevada, USA. Her “just right” thesis has become foundational in the field of logic studies. Also, as a “middle way” it has become central to combatting extremism of all kinds and integral to the field of “Peace Studies.”

Goldilocks has been pardoned for home invasion by the German authorities. She has been offered a tenured chair in logic studies at Heidelberg University.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Enigma

Posted on March 11, 2026 | Leave a comment

Enigma (e-nig’-ma): Obscuring one’s meaning by presenting it within a riddle or by means of metaphors that purposefully challenge the reader or hearer to understand.

“The river is wide and deep. The current is strong. We must swim from shore to shore. We will be exhausted. We may drown.” My friend Joseph always spoke in biblical-sounding metaphors and visions—like he was an Old Testament Joseph. He was only 15. He sounded like he was 80.

His father wrote horoscopes for a living and Joseph had been influenced by him and his grave advisory prose style preparing people to more readily cope with their futures. In the example above, we were on our way to the Mall. It was a couple of miles away and we walked. There was a steep hill we had to climb, and we would cut across a busy highway that had a narrow drainage ditch running alongside it. Using a sort of allegory, Joseph had “translated” what was in store for us on our hike. Especially the prospect of drowning.

Two days later, we were going grocery shopping with his mom in the hope of scoring a box of “Little Debbie” honeybuns. Joseph said: “Lo, tomorrow we shall be transported to the heart of abundance. Rows and rows of foods and spices and products that clean surfaces , dishes, clothing, and human bodies await our famished, soiled, and clutching hands. We will fill our shining steel wagons to overflowing, including buns of honey, and pay their price by the beeping glow of numbers pulsing on the green screen.”

Joseph’s dire warnings ever came off as benign versions of themselves. Like getting your foot wet in the a drainage ditch by the highway, instead of drowning. The grocery store pronouncement worked out to be true, but in my opinion, could’ve been captured by two words: “grocery shopping.” Nevertheless, what Joseph said was memorable.

I sat and listened to him out of respect for our friendship. I almost told him to shut up, but I knew it would break his heart. At that point in our friendship, I was the only person who listened to his bloviations. That is, with the exception of our English teacher Ms. Commaski, who encouraged him. She would say things like “Ooh Joseph, you make my hair stand on end—look here behind my ear!” She was quite crazy.

She would do things like make us write about our toenails or what it would be like to kill somebody. I actually had a favorite assignment: Write a letter to Satan. Mine turned out to be 25 pages long and I got an A+.

Anyway, at Ms. Commaski’s prodding, Joseph went to college majoring in Religious Studies. When he graduated he became a soothsayer, using his literary skills to fabricate credible-sounding futures for his clients.

He operates out of a tent he pitches every day in his front yard. It is made of striped awning material. He calls himself “Karma-Cadabra,” I help him set up the tent every day and sit in its back corner wearing a gold-colored turban and sunglasses and nodding my head in agreement while Joseph mystically pontificates. He is quite successful with a substantial group of lost people serving as his growing client base.

I stay until noon and then go to my office where I offer my services as a private detective. My agency is named “Snoopy Eye.” Today, I’m meeting with a woman who believes she actually left her heart in San Fransisco. I’m going to talk to her about her memory issues and offer to help her find her heart. I think I have something worthwhile to say to her: “Have you looked into your soul’s lost and found where the rivers of conscience criss-cross and carry well-preserved fragments of your hopes like sockeye salmon seeing the manifestation of their purpose as, exhausted, they spawn in their queen-sized gravel beds. We shall find your heart! I have booked us tickets to San Fransisco. We leave this afternoon!”

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Ennoia

Posted on March 10, 2026 | Leave a comment

Ennoia (en-no’-i-a): A kind of purposeful holding back of information that nevertheless hints at what is meant. A kind of circuitous speaking.

“Three blind lice.” I thought that was so funny substituting “blind lice” for “blind mice.” But making people laugh didn’t help me with my secret. I couldn’t just blurt out my secret, so I’d hint at it. I would say things like “A foot is bigger than inch.” Or, “That’s a real sneaker.” Or, “This little piggy goes nowhere.”

Why can’t I just come out and tell people I have a prosethic foot?

My foot was eaten by a rotary lawnmower when I was 10. My father was a landscaper and I helped him in the summer. He made us hurry so we could get more lawns done and make more money. We’d start at 7:00 am with people yelling at us because of the noise and we’d finish at around 8:00 pm exhausted.

I’ll never forget. It was 7:55pm, I had just looked at my Timex, and I was mowing up a steep hill when I lost my grip on the mower. It fell backwards over my foot and turned it into something that looked like a smoothie. I was in terrible pain. A ambulance took me to the hospital. I could hear my father ask “How much is this gonna’ cost?” as they loaded me into the ambulance and we headed for the hospital.

I had very extensive surgery. The prosthetic foot is amazing—I can walk, I can jump—I can do it all with my prosethic foot. I have no complaints and I am grateful.

All my father wanted to know after the surgery was when I could go back to work. He was told it would be 1 year at the earliest. He called me into the living room, took a long drag on his cigarette and said “You’re fired” as he blew out the smoke.

Since I couldn’t work for Dad’s “Mighty Mower” any more, I went to college. I couldn’t tell anybody about my foot. If I did, inevitably they’d want to know how it happened. I was too embarrassed to tell—but at the same time, I wanted to tell people about my foot so I could have honest relationships with them. That’s when I think I started giving foot hints or laying out hypothetical foot scenarios: “Imagine if you found out I have a prosthetic foot. Would we still be friends?” Or “Most men have two. I only have one.”

Betty answered this with “Balls?” I said, “No. Feet.” I was out. My secret was known. “I have a prosthetic foot” I said. She was a Nursing Studies major. She asked if she could see my foot. I took off my shoe and sock and there it was. She touched it and said it was beautiful—a work of art.

At that moment my foot trepidations melted away. I was beginning to feel proud of my foot. I started wearing shorts and Birkenstocks. Betty and I became a “thing” and got married when we graduated. We have a little boy named Arch. Sometimes Arch and I play catch with my foot. I’ve come a long, long way. All it took was love.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Enthymeme

Posted on March 9, 2026 | Leave a comment

Enthymeme (en’-thy-meem): 1. The informal method [or figure] of reasoning typical of rhetorical discourse. The enthymeme is sometimes defined as a “truncated syllogism” since either the major or minor premise found in that more formal method of reasoning is left implied. The enthymeme typically occurs as a conclusion coupled with a reason. When several enthymemes are linked together, this becomes sorites. 2. A figure of speech which bases a conclusion on the truth of its contrary. [Depending on its grammatical structure and specific word choice, it may be chiasmus].

“How many times do I have to tell you? If you go around like that, people will be offended. You’ll never get a job. You’ll die cold and lonely on a sheet of cardboard in a back alley clutching a styrofoam cup with a few pennys in it. It’s like not taking an umbrella when it is raining, just because you don’t want to. You get wet. You catch a cold. You die. Now, get back in the bathroom and wipe your ass like I taught you when you were four years old.”

My mother wouldn’t leave alone. She bossed me around like I worked for her in a third-world sweatshop making sneakers. I was 31 years old and she treated me like I was 10 years old—like I still needed motherly advice—her little boy. The ass wiping thing is a case in point.

While I may be careless in cleaning it off, I don’t think I’m much worse than the average person. Sure, I have some pretty thick skid marks on my underpants, but its not like anybody can see them, except my mother when she washes my underpants and scrubs hard to get out the marks. I’m appreciative of that, but it provides her grist for her complaining mill. Everything she does for me results in a litany of complaints.

Every morning she tidies up my room and makes my bed. She stuffs my rubber lover Hilary under my bed and complains about it. She asks every day “Why don’t you get a real girl?” I tell her to ask my therapist. I knew, due patient confidentiality, that she would not tell my mother anything.

I have a rubber lover because I’m too shy to meet real women. My mother did that to me—stoking insecurities. But, when she talked about my rubber lover, she sounded jealous. It was so creepy that I almost got rid of Hilary. But, I decided I needed her as a shield against my mother’s totally inappropriate interest. I realized that she wanted me to stay “her little boy” forever and not develop relationships with “other women” whether flesh or rubber.

Finally, out of some kind of perverted respect for my mother, I stabbed Hilary several times and let her air slowly bleed out. It was sad and exhilarating at the same time. I regret it.

That’s when I decided to kill my mother—it was the only way to shut her up. I wanted to silence her oppressive scolding and soul-wrenching criticism of nearly everything I said or did. So, I pushed her down the basement stairs. She was carrying a basket full of laundry so it looked like she had slipped. The coroner’s investigation determined her death was accidental.

The day after the finding, I ordered a new rubber lover from the internet and I started feeling better about my ass smell. I take a shower before I go to bed with Melania, my new rubber lover. She’s from Eastern Europe and is very submissive. I heard about a liberal minister who will marry rubber and flesh. I am meeting with him next week. I’ve also hired one of my mother’s friends to wash my underpants.

Life is good.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Epanodos

Posted on March 8, 2026 | Leave a comment

Epanodos (e-pan’-o-dos): 1. Repeating the main terms of an argument in the course of presenting it. 2. Returning to the main theme after a digression. 3. Returning to and providing additional detail for items mentioned previously (often using parallelism).

My fellow Armenians. Ha ha. That’s a joke “my fellow Americans.” As “fellows,” we are connected in a way that is more vague, ambiguous and general than “brothers” or “my friends.”

We are fellows. We are connected, Google tells us we are “peers with a common interest.” That’s pretty good. Google adds meaning to our lives via wi-fi and LTE. Sometimes it posts vivid graphics and video clips.

“Fellow” is illustrated by a nighttime Nazi rally and by one of Trump’s daytime rallies. it is the “common interest” of the audience members that matters. The common interest of the Nazi audience is easy to ascertain—hatred of a common enemy and membership in the master race—two roads to war and the killing it entails.

I saw a Hitler impersonator read one of Trump’s speeches at a campaign rally attended by Trump acolytes and fans. It was translated into German and read in Hitler’s tone. It sounded just like Hitler. So much so, that Stephen Miller gave it the Nazi salute, Pam Bondi swooned, Hegseth did a little jig like Hitler in the old film clip, and Ivanka and her husband ran out the door looking over their shoulders, panic stricken.

So anyway, “fellowship” denotes a common interest, but it does not denote what the interest is. As “Fellow Americans” in the 21st century, I think it has less to do with a common interest and moral compass than the geographic border that contains us and the citizenship that certifies us as “Americans.” Nevertheless, there are so-called “American values” afloat everywhere that conflict with each other everywhere.

“Fellow Americans” has lost its power as a morally binding national trope. Now, it may be taken up by conflicted groups to illustrate their difference from each other as “fellow Americans” forming a basis for their alienation from each other, vying for the designation “True Americans.”

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Epizeuxis

Posted on March 7, 2026 | Leave a comment

Epizeuxis: Repetition of the same word, with none between, for vehemence. Synonym for palilogia.

“Milkweed! Milkweed! Milkweed! Milkweed! No mow! No go! Milkweed! Milkweed! Milkweed!”

We were protesting and protesting hard! We were throwing rocks and stomping our feet. “Beltway Boomers” were poised to mow a field of milkweed. As far as we were concerned it was a crime—a crime against the Monarch Butterflies who came here every year to eat milkweed leaves, mate, and lay their eggs underneath the leaves.

Hundreds of Monarchs descended on the field every year. It was a beautiful sight—the fluttering orange wings dancing above the field, but now they were to be destroyed by “Beltway Boomers” for the sake of a “flat and tidy field.” After they mowed the field, they planned on soaking it with herbicide—totally destroying it and replacing the dead Milkweed with gravel and flowering shrubs.

The “Monarch Club” viewed “Beltway Boomers” as a criminal enterprise. Their business model was oriented toward eliminating endangered species from properties before the properties could be declared refuges. Then, they could develop the properties without fear of legal injunctions from environmentalists.

The Monarchs started arriving. The mower operators were struck by their beauty and refused to mow the Milkweed. “Beltway Boomers” went ahead and hired helicopters to spray the field with herbicide. Like the mowers, the helicopter pilots were struck by the butterflies and refused to spray. Subsequently, “Beltway Boomers” decided to soak the field with gasoline and torch it.

Boomers’ CEO, Stan Statan, showed up to “help.” He was carrying 5-gallon can of gasoline to the field, to be the first to saturate it. After all, he was the boss. He set down the can. The field’s geology littered it with flint. When CEO Statan set down the can, it’s steel bottom threw out a spark. The can exploded and set CEO Statan on fire. He looked like a big candle wearing an expensive suit. He burned to a crisp and the fire quickly burned itself out with little damage to the field.

Needless to say, the plans for the field were cancelled and it was made into a Monarch refuge. Ironically, it was named the “Stan Statan Monarch Butterfly Refuge.”

The “Monarch Club” is now protesting the mowing of all milkweed fields in the state of New Jersey. They are making some headway in the legislature on a bill that prohibits milkweed mowing everywhere.

The “Monarch Club” success has spawned a number of other anti-mowing environmentally-grounded initiatives. “Kill the Klover Kutters” (KKK) is the most radical. It includes residential properties and advocates planting land mines in lawns’ clover patches. Their theme song is a bawdy tune titled “Roll Me Over in the Clover.” One of their mines blew up a dog doing its “business” on its neighbor’s clover patch. This is being referred to as “collateral damage” by “Kill the Klover Kutters.” They sent their “thoughts and prayers” for the loss of their clover to the owners of the lawn, ignoring the loss of the dog.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Epicrisis

Posted on March 6, 2026 | Leave a comment

Epicrisis (e-pi-cri’-sis): When a speaker quotes a certain passage and makes comment upon it.

“When the moon becomes a crusty chicken reflected in the arson-fire of life, it is time to get the fu*k out of there. You have lost your marbles and they have lost you. You are nothing. You are the void. You used to love her, but you hate her now.” Pellagra Millapapa.

Millapapa is one of the most obscure philosophers in the canon of Western thought. This is due partially to the fact that he never published a book. Rather, he would tear up small paper squares and dictate to his mistress Esmeralda who would write down what he said for “the posterior’s sake.” He would stuff his writings in toilet dispensers in public restrooms in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. His works would frequently jam the dispensers and he was wanted for vandalism.

The quotation above was found on a paper towel—Millapapa’s longest extant writing. It catalogues his struggle with mental illness and his difficult transformation from a lover to a hater. The “crusty chicken” is clearly a metonymy for his penis and his nearly life long struggles with various strains of what he called “the clap” a trope with the dual meaning of applause and gonorrhea, building a bridge between them and illustrating the complexities of human caring.

When we think of Millapapa, we must think of a man with no compass, no GPS, wandering the hills and dales of life, failing at every turn in the road, yet foolishly driving on. His writings, as they say, “stink.” The only reason we know anything about him at all is from his mistress Esmerellda’s well-publicized trial for murdering Millapapa. She claimed he made her life meaningless with his “constant bullshit. She stabbed him to death when they were planting his writings in toilet paper dispensers on the New Jersey Turnpike. She stabbed him 147 times and was going to stab herself to death too, but she slipped on Millapapa’s blood and knocked herself unconscious. She was revived by a paramedic and taken to jail.

Millapapa’s and Esmerellda’s story is tragic. It is a cliche with no redeeming qualities. It is like most of our lives, without the murder, which gives it a marginal dimension of interest. Ironically, his writings are worth 100s of dollars. Their value has led to the vandalization of numerous public toilet toilet paper dispensers in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Epilogus

Posted on March 5, 2026 | Leave a comment

Epilogus (e-pi-lo’-gus): Providing an inference of what is likely to follow.

Santa was coming to town. He knows if I’ve been bad or good. “Good” was the medium of exchange for desirable high-end gifts. I had expectations. They were low.

You’ve probably figured it out: I was going to get the same shit for Christmas as I did every year. I had the crap piled in my bedroom closet. I had 9 pairs of socks, all of them with weird Nordic snowflake patterns. I had two calculators with giant buttons. One of the calculators was modeled after Tweety Bird, the cartoon character. It was the perfect gift for Son of Nerd—the Prince of Nerdville, home of the nerds pounding on their calculators and twisting their Rubic’s Cubes all day long, picking their noses, and polishing their mood rings.

The worst were the books with stupid titles like Republic, Tom Sawyer, and Clockwork Orange—the stupidest title of all. I immediately threw the books in my closet along with the other crap. I couldn’t picture myself sitting in a chair staring at a book. What a waste of time when I could be playing with fireworks at the playground, or digging for treasure down by the Passaic River where my Uncle Buzz told me pirates buried their treasure on the way back to New Jersey from plundering New York.

What I really wanted was a pellet gun and a “Saucy Susan Doll.” My reason for wanting a pellet gun almost goes without saying! I wanted to shoot things! The neighborhood squirrels loomed large on my hit list. I had a plan for baiting them with peanuts outside my bedroom window. After squirrels, it was streetlights. It was like shooting out stars—I could kill the Big Dipper! Ha ha!

I had discovered Saucy Susan in my big brother’s dresser. I wouldd look through his stuff every month or so—looking for things I could incriminate him with. Since pot had been legalized, there wasn’t anything much I could look for. I would just leave it to chance. It was by chance that Saucy Susan appeared. I pulled too hard on a drawer and it came out of the dresser. Behind where it had been, there was a rolled up flesh-colored vinyl object. When I pulled it out, it unrolled. It was a deflated naked woman! I found her nozzle and blew her up. I was stunned by what I saw.

I rolled her back up and put her back in her hiding place. I asked my brother about her. Initially he was mad because I’d been ransacking his room again. Then, he opened up and told me all about his relationship with Saucy Susan. It was lurid and weird—just what I wanted at that point in my life.

That evening the family went to Willow Tree Mall to meet with Santa and tell him what we wanted for Christmas. I told Santa I wanted a pellet gun and a Saucy Susan doll. After I was done talking to Santa, he called my parents over and they had a talk. Two days later, I met Dr. Rancho for the first time. She is my therapist and she looks a lot like Saucy Susan! She told me her weirdly shaped mouth was the result of a car accident.

Through it all, I didn’t rat out my big brother. He’s the weird one.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Epimone

Posted on March 4, 2026 | Leave a comment

Epimone (e-pi’-mo-nee): Persistent repetition of the same plea in much the same words.

“Give me the apple! Hand over the apple! Give me the goddamn fu*king apple. Adam was going crazy for the shiny red apple that Eve was sensually rubbing up and down her slender firmly-shaped leg. she was what is called a “vixen” taunting Adam with her suggestive behavior. They were naked . . .”

My Sunday School teacher—Mr. Grauler—told it like it was—no watered-down version of the Garden of Eden. He swore. He painted an accurate portrait of the events that led Adam and Eve to get dressed and quit fooling around naked. We were only kids but we got it, much to the delight of Rev. Jones our pastor.

He had a scary gleam in his eye. The elderly church members lined up once a month to give him their Social Security checks after the Sunday service. We had hardly anything, yet Ma handed over her check. She was 70:and had a job cleaning and polishing bed pans at the county hospital. I asked her once why she gave her Social Security check to Rev. Jones. She told me that every check she gives him brings her one mile closer to heaven—12 miles per year. I did the math. Figuring she would die when she was eighty, and she was seventy now. So, she was going to die in 10 years, and she would earn 12 miles toward Heaven per year, she would be 120 miles closer to heaven.

After doing all the figuring, I realized I didn’t know how far away Heaven is. I looked in the Bible. I determined Heaven is “up” but I couldn’t find out how far up. People “ascended” to Heaven, but the Bible didn’t say how far they had to go. It didn’t seem that Ma’s 120 miles would get her to Heaven. At that point, I figured Rev. Jones was ripping her off.

I asked Rev. Jones his he was a fraud. His two minders, who always travelled with him, both reached into their suit coats. Rev. Jones said to me in a kind voivce “Adding miles is a metaphor for showing your commitment to the Lord.” I didn’t know what a metaphor was, so I asked Rev. Jones. He told me it was a non-literal construction of speech—a substitution of the usual word, that makes the speech more vivid and meaningful. In the case of “miles” they are being substituted for “commitment.”

I think I got it. But I think that that Ma and a lot of others took “miles” literally enough so it formed an incentive to fork over their Social Security checks each month.

One Sunday I went to Sunday School and nobody was there. The chairs were folded up and leaning against the wall. The stick-on cellophane “stained glass” had been removed from the windows. The candles were gone too.

We learned that Rev. Jones had fled to Belize after he had been accused of defrauding 100s of people with his “Miles to Heaven” scam. My mother was heartbroken. I vowed to hunt Rev. Jones down and bring him to justice.

I found him living in a luxury condo in Belize City. I confronted him with a baseball bat. He held up his hands and asked me if I wanted a job.

Now, I skipper a trawler off of Belize. We all know, Jesus was a fisher of men. I’m a fisher of Wahoo, MahiMahi, Tuna, etc. I have forgiven Rev. Jim his But, trespasses—to err is human. To forgive is divine. on the other hand, I’m waiting for an opportunity to drown him when he comes out fishing with me. I think that makes me a hypocrite.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Epiplexis

Posted on March 3, 2026 | Leave a comment

Epiplexis (e-pi-plex’-is): Asking questions in order to chide, to express grief, or to inveigh. A kind of rhetorical question [–the speaker does not expect an answer].

Why do things have to change? Why does everything slip away? Why must there always be an end?

I had run over my Boss after work as I was leaving the parking lot. He was on his way to his car. He smiled and gave me a thumbs up before I swerved my SUV and ran him down, backed up, and ran over him again. I kept doing that until I was sure he was dead. Nobody saw me and I drove home without incident.

I told my wife what I had done and she said “Good job honey” and made me a gin and tonic. She made one for herself too. She told me not to worry my “handsome little head” about it.

I worked at a doorbell factory. I installed the musical ringers. We had twenty different tunes that customers could choose from. They were stylized versions of classical rock ‘n roll songs. My favorite was “Purple People Eater.” It was energetic and got you off the couch to answer the door. “Saturday Night Fever” was my second favorite. It put a dance in your step on the way to the door. My least favorite was the theme song from “Davy Crockett” which had briefly made the Top Ten some time in the 50s—I didn’t like how it praised little Davy for killing a bear “when he was only three.” It was total bullshit.

Everybody hated the Boss at the doorbell factory. He had a bowel problem and wore a diaper. He would poop with a smile on his face when you were meeting with him in his office, making it stink and making it hard to concentrate. He‘d ask “What’s the matter with you son?” and laugh, sounding like a barking squirrel. In addition, he was a sexist. He had five lawsuits pending when I killed him. He also continuously put the moves on my wife. That’s what pushed me over the edge. He invited her to his condo by herself to watch TV. I went along with her anyway. He answered the door naked and told me to “go wait” in my car. I refused. He pulled my wife inside and said “Have it your way loser” and slammed the door in my face.

I waited in the car and my wife came out about five minutes later. Her dress was torn and she told me she didn’t want to talk about it, but he was an animal. I asked her what kind of animal, and she said “probably an ape or a wolf.” That did it.

After I killed him, I took my car to the car wash to get rid of the blood. The attendant said “It looks like blood on your left fender.” I told him I had run over a deer. I didn’t notice, but the Boss’s glasses were stuck behind the front bumper. I rode around like that for a couple of months until I had my car inspected. The inspection guy found the glasses and held them up, and asked me where they had come from. I told him I had been looking for them. He gave me the glasses and I put them on. They severely blurred my vision and I ran into a tree as I left the inspection station.

I called AAA and they towed my car to “Billy Bent” a Mafia run auto-body shop. They told me they found some human hair under the chrome strip on the fender. If I was willing to make a monthly payment of $500 they would make it go away “forever.” I agreed.

I have been promoted to Boss. Everything is going well. Who says “Crime doesn’t pay?” Sure, Billy Bent keeps upping my monthly payment and I don’t sleep very well, but that doesn’t matter. I’m the Boss! What’s to complain about? Nothing.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Epistrophe

Posted on March 2, 2026 | Leave a comment

Epistrophe (e-pis’-tro-fee): Ending a series of lines, phrases, clauses, or sentences with the same word or words.

My face looked silly. My clothes looked silly. My hair looked silly. No doubt, I was silly. I fit the dictionary definition: “lighthearted lack of seriousness.” Being silly was a serious problem. Ha ha!

It was my mother’s funeral. I decided to skip around her coffin singing “Knick Knack Paddy Wack” and jingling the little bells on my hot pants cuffs. My brother-in-law Duke didn’t think I was funny. He said, “Arnold, you are a total asshole” and punched me in the face a couple of times. As they were wheeling me to the ambulance I waved like the Queen Mother used to do and yelled “Rule Britannia!” Nobody laughed.

Nobody came to the hospital with me. My nose was broken in three places and Duke had knocked out one of my front teeth. Now that I was missing a front tooth, I talked like a hillbilly: “Can aah have uh shot a moonshaan?” I asked the nurse. I thought it was funny. She said, “Oh you poor silly man.” I pulled the sheet up from my feet, exposing my privates and saying “Peek-a-boo!” She threw my bedpan in my face and said “Peek-a-boo this you silly pervert!” My silliness was going nowhere. I had my surgery and when home.

The next day, I had to have my tooth fixed. I went to the dentist and said “I need to see the Tooth Fairy.” I was just kidding, but the receptionist asked me if I had an appointment. I told her “No” and she told me to take a seat. After a few minutes, she said “Ok silly, you can go in now. Go through that door over there.”

I thought it was a joke, but I went through the door anyway. It was a bar. I recognized the Tooth Fairy immediately. She was sitting on a stool next to Thumbelina. Then, I saw Puss ‘n Boots sipping a martini at a table with a Troll. Tinkerbell was arguing with The Boy With the Moon on His Forehead. I went up to the bar and did my missing tooth hillbilly routine for the Tooth Fairy. She looked at me like I was crazy and tapped my gum gap with her wand, said “silly” and “poof!” my tooth was restored. I thanked her, and started to leave, but I couldn’t move.

I woke up in a dentist chair. I felt my gums and my tooth was back in place! The dentist said “That anesthetic hit you pretty hard. Are you ok?” I had come back to my senses. I felt like doing something silly. I was at a loss so I just jingled my hot pants and slowly stood up. On my way to my Uber, I went up to the receptionist and gave her a quarter and told her I had found it under the dental chair’s headrest pillow. It was true. I jingled my hot pants bells and headed out the door. I was ready for another silly day doing silly things.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Epitasis

Posted on March 1, 2026 | Leave a comment

Epitasis (e-pit’-a-sis): The addition of a concluding sentence that merely emphasizes what has already been stated. A kind of amplification. [The opposite of anesis.]

My balls wouldn’t stop itching. I took showers. I sprayed on Lotrimin, I changed my underpants three times a day. I went to a dermatologist. He gave me some blue cream that smelled like rutabagas. It didn’t do anything but stink up my crotch. Nothing worked. My balls wouldn’t stop itching.

I did some research on a Chinese commercial website called “Send Money Credit Card.” I found a “device” that was supposed to “stop the balls itching.” It was guaranteed to “cure itchy balls in people and dogs.” It looked like some kind of clamp with wires sticking out of it and two electrodes. I figured there was one electrode for each ball. The catalogue copy read: “Having the balls that itch? No more now! Clamp balls. Plug in wall! Balls smoke a little. Itch gone! Put balls in ice pack. All done. $295.00.”

I bought one of the devices. I was truly desperate. It was called the “No Scratch Balls Clamper.” it arrived one week later. I took it out of the package. The instructions were difficult to follow. I took off my pants, sat on the edge of my bed and tried to clamp it on my balls. There was a little silver hook that plugged into one of three slots. I found the right slot and the clamp was on. I unplugged the clock radio by my bed and plugged in the Clamper.

My balls were being electrocuted!

I couldn’t turn off the Clamper and couldn’t get it unplugged. My balls felt like they were on fire. Suddenly, I got a text message. I picked my phone up off the night stand. The message said: “hello electric ball! I monitor you from China. I have you credit card number and will charge $1,000 to let go your balls by remote. Don’t complain or your balls stuck electric forever.”

I was being extorted for $1, 000 to set my balls free! I felt like I was dying, so I agreed. I texted back “take money.” Almost immediately, the clamp popped open and I was freed. When the clamp first came off, my balls were swollen to the size of croquet balls. They quickly returned to normal and started itching again. I wanted to cry. I checked my credit card balance. It had been charged $1,000 for “get free.” I sat there scratching my balls and wondering what to do next.

Anyway, my daughter recommended I go to an herbalist for my balls. It was embarrassing to talk to her about it, but my daughter always gave good advice. The herbalist’s name was Ms. Carrot. I thought that was weird, but who am I the judge? She gave me capsules. I take one per day. The itch is cured. My balls swing free. Now, I’m itchin’ to have some kind of relationship with Ms. Carrot!

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Epitheton

Posted on February 28, 2026 | Leave a comment

Epitheton (e-pith’-e-ton): Attributing to a person or thing a quality or description-sometimes by the simple addition of a descriptive adjective; sometimes through a descriptive or metaphorical apposition. (Note: If the description is given in place of the name, instead of in addition to it, it becomes antonomasia or periphrasis.)

Billy was the bane of my existence—a combination of pain in the ass and my sister’s boyfriend. He was five feet tall with size 14 boots, no neck, a Fu Man Chu mustache, perfectly round bald spot on his head and a tattoo of Sponge Bob on his neck. He was 19 years old and was destined to be a loser in life. He was taking my sister with him.

My sister was no beauty, but she deserved better than him. She was 6’8” and had a mole on her cheek the size of a peanut butter jar lid. She was born with one breast, three fingers on her right hand, and her ears were the size of pennies. She had a tattoo of Sponge Bob on her neck, just like her boyfriend. They had gotten them together when they were high on meth.

Billy was obsessed with sex. When he was visiting, he would ask my sister every ten minutes when they were going to “do it.” He said this in front of me and my mother too during dinner. My mother would say “Now, now, eat your peas first Billy.” He would gobble up his peas and my sister would yell “Clear the dining room table” as Billy stood up and started unfastening his pants. Their behavior was hard to deal with.

I decided to lay down some rules. I told Billy he had to quit coming to my house just to have sex with my sister, no matter how compliant she was. I told him he needed to take a shower before he visited. I told him he smelled like King Kong’s asshole.

His response was disconcerting. He said “Fu*k you Führer. I’ll bang your mother too if want to. Also, I smell just fine—you got a problem with rotting meat? If anything, I smell like Godzilla’s asshole, not King Kong’s.” He pulled some rat poison out of a box and dumped it into the raspberry kool-aid we were drinking on the porch.p. He drank it down and threw his empty glass out into the yard. He leaned toward me and said in a menacing voice “I’m immortal. Don’t fu*k with me.”

I was stunned. I was stuck with this guy. So I tried to make peace. When he came to our door, I’d welcome him in and ask if he wanted fu*ck my sister. He’d say “Yes my friend. Where is she?” I’d tell him where she was and he’d go off to fu*k her.

We got to be quite good friends. He told me he had awakened in a Salvation Army Family store stark naked 10 years ago. He crawled around on the floor pulling clothing off the racks and getting dressed, and finding a pair of size 14 boots. He couldn’t pay for anything so he ran out the entrance doors. He went back 10 minutes later and got a job as a sorter and stole a lot of “things” that he sold at the flea market on Sundays.

Although he looked 19, he was actually 65. He discovered he was immortal during a low point in his life. He looked at himself in the mirror for the first time in years. He tried to kill himself in a number of ways—from shooting himself, to a plastic bag over his head, to drowning, to standing in front of a train. He failed.

He said, after all he’d been through, in his “own way” he loved my sister. Eventually, they got married.

Billy robbed a few banks in New York and they stole enough money to start their own business. They sell sea shells in their store “We Shell” near the beach in South Miami Beach, Florida. They have a little daughter, my niece Conchy, named after their best-selling shell. She is off the charts ugly, but she has a kind and loving demeanor. However, her beautiful character doesn’t make up for her world-class ugliness. Nevertheless, her life trajectory is like a saint’s tale. She is currently seeing a “boy” who has all his body parts and aspires to be a foot-dragging monster in horror movies.

POSTSCRIPT

I’ve been told this story is heart-warming and moving. When I hear this, I flinch. This story makes my blood run cold and the only “moving” I get is out my ass. It has been hell dealing with these people all these years. Conchy is pregnant. God help us.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Epitrope

Posted on February 27, 2026 | Leave a comment

Epitrope (e-pi’-tro-pe): A figure in which one turns things over to one’s hearers, either pathetically, ironically, or in such a way as to suggest a proof of something without having to state it. Epitrope often takes the form of granting permission (hence its Latin name, permissio), submitting something for consideration, or simply referring to the abilities of the audience to supply the meaning that the speaker passes over (hence Puttenham’s term, figure of reference). Epitrope can be either biting in its irony, or flattering in its deference.

“I know you know what I’m talking about. You don’t need to hear it from me. It is in the air—it’s everywhere. It’s in the garage. It’s under the bed. It’s everywhere. It’s palpable. You can cut it with a knife.”

When I said “You can cut it with a knife,” she pulled the butcher knife out of its wooden holder on the kitchen counter and came at me with it slashing the air. She tripped on Woofer’s pinkie ball and fell on the knife. She had stabbed herself in the stomach and she was bleeding pretty badly and making moaning sounds. I thought she was dying.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. I knew it was my girlfriend Stephanie. We had planned to stand side-by-side and tell my wife we were in love and I was leaving her. I had gotten started early with the revelation when my wife had pulled out the knife on me. Stephanie was late like she always was, otherwise she would’ve been there when my wife came at me and fell on the knife.

The pool of blood had grown on the floor. My wife had stopped moaning, so I figured she really needed help. Stephanie’s a dental assistant so I asked what she thought. She told my wife to “open wide,” and my wife didn’t respond. We determined she was dead.

We called an ambulance. While we waited for the ambulance, we bought plane tickets to Costa Rica on Orbtz and booked a hotel too. I had enough frequent flier miles to book us first class tickets. We were good to go.

Clearly, my wife’s death was an accident, except for letting her bleed to death on the kitchen floor. But what am I, a doctor? We headed for the airport—no reason to hang around. Costa Rica has no extradition treaty with the U.S., so, if worse came to worse, we could stay in Costa Rica as fugitives.

Worse cam to worse. The coroner determined that I was criminally negligent, waiting as long as I did to call an ambulance.

Then, my wife’s brother Bobby showed up at our hotel in Costa Rica. He told me he wanted me to come back to New York and face Justice. Stephanie developed an instant crush on him. That didn’t bode well. She had committed no crime. She hated Costa Rica. She wanted to leave and, by the way she was acting, she was trying to make my wife’s brother into her ticket home. He didn’t fall for it.

He was staying in the same hotel as us and would stop by every morning to ask if I was ready to face Justice in New York. Then, one morning he showed up with a gun and told me “Pack your shit, you’re going to New York.” I complied. He put me in zip ties. Stephanie was still asleep when we left.

Every chance I got on the way to the airport and at the airport, I yelled “I’m being kidnapped!” People just looked at me like I was some of zoo exhibit. When we got on the airplane, I yelled that I was being kidnapped and held up my zip-tied wrists. The stewardess slapped me in the face and told me to shut up or I would be ejected in the sky over Mexico.

The police were waiting at JFK. I was arrested and tried and found not guilty. Now, I have an Etsy shop on the internet selling German cutlery. I named the shop “Slice of Life.” Stephanie has become a successful pole dancer in Quito. She has sent me a couple of video clips. They’re pretty good, but I can see Bobby in the background.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Epizeugma

Posted on February 26, 2026 | Leave a comment

Epizeugma (ep-i-zoog’-ma): Placing the verb that holds together the entire sentence (made up of multiple parts that depend upon that verb) either at the very beginning or the very ending of that sentence.

I was going fishing, running amok, and shopping.

I headed to Lake Whammy where I kept my boat “Jackweed.” 50 people had signed a petition to make me change the name of my boat. What a bunch of assholes. Somebody had actually scraped “weed” off my boat’s stern, leaving “Jack,” what they considered a more “sanitary” name.

Anyway, I was going to catch some Walleyes. I would pan fry them and wash them down with five or six beers. I caught 4 Walleyes. When I got home, I pulled out my frying pan, floured up the fish and dropped them in the bubbling oil. I lined up 5 beers on the kitchen island and quickly chugged 2. I yelled “Life is good” at my dog Bozo. He wagged his tail and went back to sleep. I finished off the beers. Feeling no pain, I jumped in my car and headed to the Town and County, City, Village, State, and Planet Mall.

If I got pulled over and took a breathalyzer test, I would go to jail. On the way to the mall, I hit a parked car, backed up and kept going. I ran over a cat and knocked down an empty bus stop shelter. I had trouble parking in the mall parking lot. I parked too close to the car next to me and smashed it with my door when I squeezed out of my car.

I stumbled to the mall entrance, falling down once along the way, and peeing in my pants. After all the beer, I was beyond caring. I was headed for “Steeler’s Jewelers.” They had sold me a counterfeit Rolex. I had pad $55,000 for what I thought was a solid gold Oyster. I had found out it was a fake when I wore it in the shower and it stopped. As a fake, it was worth $25.00 at most. I was packing a .45 that I had had since I was a Boy Scout in New Jersey. I had never killed anything with it, but there’s a first time for everything.

I had Mr. Steeler and his employees up against a wall. They were squirming and begging. At first, I was only going to shoot Mr. Steeler, but now that I was standing there with a loaded gun, it seemed like a good idea to shoot them all.

Then, the police showed up. Frank, the head of the SWAT Team, asked me what was going on. He was my brother-in-law. I told him about the watch. He said, “That’s terrible. I don’t blame you one bit for what you’re doing here. You can handle the fraud in court. Now give me the gun and go do something else with your life.”

I heeded what he said, and although I was still a little drunk, I decided to go shopping like I had planned . After all, I was at the Mall. I decided to go to DSW (Discount Shoe Warehouse). I had wanted a pair of hob-nailed lumberjack boots ever since my daughter had gotten a pair. It is really weird, but she was wearing them when she stomped a mouse to death in her apartment. She left it on the floor for a couple weeks until it dried out and then she got a picture frame for it. She hung stomped mouse in the kitchen to “scare off” other mice. So far, it has worked.

I wear a size 12. They didn’t have the boots in my size. But, they had boots with built-in leg braces for disabled people. They were so cool—shiny surgical steel latticed braces and black elk-skin wing tip boots. I had to have them. They were $600. I didn’t have that kind of money, so I stole them. As I ran out of DSW, threatening alarms went off: a screaming ear-splitting siren and a voice repeating “Put them back or you may be shot.” I kept running, made it to my car, squeezed in, backed up, and peeled out. I got home and hid in my basement for 2 days.

Somehow, I got away with the theft. That is, until my sister and her SWAT Team husband came over for dinner. I was wearing my brace boots. Her husband Frank noticed right away. He said, “Nice boots you got there.”

Now, I’m serving 3 months in the county jail for felony shoplifting. Frank was just doing his job.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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