Daily Archives: August 18, 2023

Eutrepismus

Eutrepismus (eu-tre-pis’-mus): Numbering and ordering the parts under consideration. A figure of division, and of ordering.


A one, and a two, and a three. I have become convinced that dividing things by threes follows some kind of divine mandate. What can you add to father, son, and Holy Ghost? Do the Macarena? Ha ha ha. What about pot roast? Or, buttered toast. Or, fence post? Ha ha ha! All we have here is raw blasphemy, like the kind you get in pool halls, saloons and automobile repair shops—all home to cursing devil-doers making their places in hell with their filthy mouths.

But that’s beside the point. I have come to see the triune nature of my activities, and their triplification’s consistency with the divine plan—the cosmic urge for three. If I can’t do it in three steps, I won’t do it. Paying careful attention to the rule of three, I have flourished in accord with the universal trifecta—betting my life on it triplicated ways.

So, when I walk I take three steps, stop, and then start again. When I eat: 1. I pick up my fork, 2. I stab my food, 3. I shove it in mouth. I wait 3 seconds. Then, 1. I chew it, 2. I swallow it, and 3. I digest it. I can feel myself tuning to the great beyond after dinner as 1. I sit in my chair, 2. I hit the remote, and 3. I watch TV. I could list hundreds of examples of my spiritually cleansing threesomes. I feel like a Holy Lawrence Welk.

But now, I have a three-problem. My wife and I have three children. It, of course, is an intergalactic part of us living three—three children, just right. After number three, I got a vasectomy. I always wanted two more wives to round things out, but my wife Jezebel totally refuses unless she has three husbands. Anyway, by some magic trick Jezebel has become pregnant. I’d like to kill her but I’m having trouble breaking a murder down into three steps. So, that leaves the question: What do we do with a fourth child? 1. Go through with the pregnancy, 2. Have the baby, 3. Leave it somewhere? Then it dawned me!

The baby will not be mine! It is the result of Jezebel’s infidelity! The third step will be giving the baby to its father! I asked Jezebel to tell me who the baby’s father is. Finally, she told me she wasn’t sure. She said it could be one of 10-12 men she’d been seeing. “That’s fu*king amazing!” I said. I told her I wouldn’t kill her if we could have two more kids, so we’d have the right number, and I would treat the little bastard as my own. We scheduled my vasectomy reversal and then, after the little bastard was born, we went to work on number five.

The little bastard looks a lot like my errant brother Mick. He’s 1. rich, 2. famous, and 3. an asshole. He has finally agreed to a DNA test. As soon as I prove the little bastard is his, I will blackmail him so his wife and everybody else do not find out the little bastard belongs to him. I’m currently working on a three-step blackmail process.

A one, and a two, and a three, Mick will belong to me!


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

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