Mesodiplosis (mes-o-dip-lo’-sis): Repetition of the same word or words in the middle of successive sentences.
I had 17 credit cards, some from the same bank. They made a neat shiny pile on my dining room table. I had 74 catalogues, they made a neat shiny pile too. I had clothing catalogues, ski equipment catalogues, weather predicting equipment catalogues, and the best one of all: a catalogue for “friendly women” from around the world. The friendly women business was called “Video Picnic.”
Every catalogue had a website, so all I needed to do was to peruse a catalogue, circle what I wanted, log on, and place my orders. I put my credit cards in a stack, about two inches high. I put my catalogues in a stack about one foot high. I had used my Costa Rican mailing address when I signed up for the cards. So, everything would go there, and I’d be safe. Basically, my plan was to buy a bunch of stuff and never pay for it, making fraud my new vocation.
I tested the waters with a solar-powered fingernail sander. it cost $189.00, and came with a five-year warrantee from a company located in Mexico called “Nails-so-Smooth: You can eat off them.” I thought that was a little weird, but I was on a mission. I would resell it on E-bay for $150 and make a tidy little profit. The transaction went trough without a hitch!
I couldn’t wait. I had to try out “Video Picnic,” the friendly women site. I logged onto the site where it guaranteed “life-long-love” for a non-refundable shipping fee of $2,000, including airfare. My love life was a total catastrophe. After four wives, I was almost ready to give up. I say “almost” because I was so lonely—it was as if everything I looked at or thought about, was a wall blocking my happiness. Maybe I shouldn’t have divorced wife #4–maybe it was a mistake. She had built a shooting range in the basement and used a picture of me as a target. I would hear “Bang!” and then, diabolical laughter. I thought it was only a matter of time before she climbed the stairs to the kitchen and let me have it. I asked her why she did it and she told me it was to improve her self-esteem. That fell in line with everything she did—it was to improve her self-esteem. She told me we couldn’t make love any more because it wouldn’t improve her self-esteem. There were a couple of other things we couldn’t do for the same reason, like spend time together or text each other on our cell phones. It finally ended when she told me that being married to me did not improve her self-esteem. I was devastated, but I let her go. In the end it was good for my self-esteem to lose her.
Before I tried “Video Picnic” I wanted to make sure my card was good to go. So, I randomly pulled a card from the stack and went to “Naked Bird” a business selling goose down products. They had a three-bedroom, 2 bathroom, 1400 square foot goose down home for sale for $225,000. This would test the limits of the credit card I was holding, which is supposed to be $500,000. My bogus financial records had landed me that limit. The goose down house had bamboo floors and the roof was shingled with faux fur that looked like coyote fur. The interior walls were cat-rip-proof Kevlar with built in book shelves made of recycled plastic soda bottles. So, I filled in the required info, and boom, the goose down home was mine.
Ok, video picnic time. It is set up like a slot machine. Instead of cherries and lemons, there are women streaming live in the slot machine’s 3” X 3” boxes. You get four spins to pick a woman. If you hit the jackpot, you get the “jackpot” woman for free. The slot machine illuminates the woman you’ve won on each spin, and blanks out the others. . You press a “yes” or “no” button to signify your choice. Each sequence of four spins costs $1,000. You may buy as many sequences as you want.
It looked interesting, and knowing my pick would be delivered directly to Costa Rica, I bought 4 spins and prayed I would live happily ever after. Number 1 was very plain looking and didn’t speak English. Number 2 was naked and covered in ugly tattoos. Number 3 was too tall. Number 4 held up her PhD diploma from Harvard University in Environmental Biology. She sang “Puff the Magic Dragon,” and she said “I guarantee a baby.” That was it! She would be mine. I was going to work the credit card scam for about two weeks, and then, planned to meet Lola in Costa Rica. We met, we married, we have a little girl. Lola’s background is very complicated, but we are as happy as can be—I call her “my slot machine bride” and we laugh, happy to be together.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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