Apocarteresis

Apocarteresis (a-po-car-ter’-e-sis): Casting of all hope away from one thing and placing it on another source altogether.

I couldn’t stand it any more. The more I invested myself in it, the worse it got. I wanted one thing, and one thing only: somebody to love and be loved by.

I met Felicia at the local bar. She was half drunk, sipping what looked like a whiskey sour. Well, actually, she was slurping it. Three guys were hovering around her like some kind of predatory flies. They kept asking her “Now?” like they were waiting for something. She left and the three guys left one by one at 5-minute intervals and didn’t come back. Eventually, she came back looking a little worse for wear. I asked her what she was doing out there. She said, “Looking at the stars.” I thought that was pretty cool. We talked about a lot of things until the bar closed. I got the feeling that a romance had budded. I asked her to come home with me and spend the night.

We had a wild time, most of it in bed. I felt like I was with a naughty angel—everything was good and bad at the same time. She was gone when I got up, but she had made coffee—so strong when I drank it, it felt like my ears were flapping. I went back to the bar that night to find her. She wasn’t there, but one of the guys from last night was. He asked me: “Did you nail Felicia? She’s always ready for fun.” My heart sunk. I had thought she might’ve been the one, not a time share condo. The guy asked me: “Have you been checked?” “Checked for what?” I asked. He grabbed his crotch and quietly said: “Clap.” Now, I wanted to cry. I had heard rumors about clap, and how it could kill you if it went untreated, and along way to death, every time you peed it was like a bonfire in your urinary tract.

I went to the doctor. I was examined. I was prescribed pills to take three times a day for two weeks. At that moment, I decided I did not want to have sex with potential disease spreaders any more. Condoms we’re out of the question for me: I couldn’t wear a balloon on my hooter, no matter what. So, I bought an inflatable sex doll. I named her Roxanne, bought her the optional blonde wig and a foot pump to bring her to life. I started pumping. Her legs rolled out and plumped up, then her shapely torso, and finally her head. I lit some candles, put on Barry White and took off me clothes. Roxanne blew out when I got on top of her. A whoosh of perfumed air came out of a leak in her head as she deflated with a squeaky-farty sound, and her optional wig fell off. I was mad and deeply disappointed. I decided celibacy was the only way out for me.

I joined the “Brothers of the Flaccid Way.” We are a group of men devoted to achieving impotency through reading Lao Tzu and eating salad. Each day, we watch an adult movie to gauge our progress. It is ok if your desire remains, as long as you can’t do anything about it. Judging by the grunting and how the monks’ robes bounce up and down during the daily movie, “Brothers of the Flaccid Way” is failing in its mission. Maybe the monks need to eat more salad. I became flaccid two years ago, achieving the status of “Limp Pilgrim.” Lately, I’ve been thinking about leaving the Brothers and overcoming my “condom phobia” at a camp in the Catskills called “Coksock Mountain.” It offers a series of “on & off” condom exercises that are fun and easy, poetry writing workshops about personal struggles with venereal diseases, and condom-mandatory orgies with local women.

I decided to give “Coksock Mountain” a try. I got off the bus and registered. After two weeks of “on&off” and poetry writing, I qualified for my first orgy. I grabbed a fist full of condoms and headed out. I could hear Barry White’s “It’s Ecstasy When You Lay Down With Me” drifting through the warm night air. It reminded me of Roxanne.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)

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