Epizeugma

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.

Going the way of the wooly mammoth, lost in my bellbottoms, I said “haaay maaan” to the dude sitting next to me on the bus. He looked at me and said “has been.” I said “What is it man? My perm? My skinny ass? My bellbottoms? My Fu-man-chu?” He said: “All of the above and more.” The bus skidded off the highway, crashed, and I was all alone. I flipped on my boom box and slid in “Disco Inferno” and blasted it. People in white suits boogied out of the woods and circled around me. They turned into bill collectors and took away my boom box. A gust of wind blew up my bellbottoms and I took off. I landed outside a motel dance club/cocktail lounge named “Stayin’ Alive, Stayin’ Alive.” I looked at the marquee outside and saw my name flashing off and on: Prancer Pettibone. I was billed as “The dreamin’ danger: second cousin to the long ranger.” I couldn’t think of a better way to put it. I hiked my bellbottoms up and got ready to bust some moves.

I burst through door. I was ready! I looked around. There were around twenty people inide and they were all dead. No wonder! The disco ball was shut off. I turned it on. It started spinning throwing speckles of light on the dead patrons. They started twitching, and then moving. I found the sound board and slipped “Disco Inferno” into the CD player. I turned it up full bast. Everybody got up and started dance. I took the center of the floor solo. I did nine backflips, spun around and did my knee-break helicopter spin for 2 minutes and then a one-handed floor pump. I finished with a New York Crotch Cracker. I had brought the house to life. I was a hero.

Then I woke up on the bus to Scranton. I was 74 and could hardly get out of a car any more. For some bizarre reason I had been invited to give the high school commencement speech. Why me? I was a famous disco dancer back in the 70s and worked as a choreographer on “Saturday Night Fever.” Maybe that was it. Maybe it wasn’t. They should’ve told me in the email they sent me, but they didn’t. Maybe it was some kind of joke. I was late getting there, so I had to walk directly into the auditorium and start my speech. I walked up the aisle and everybody was yelling and screaming “Prancer!”

Then I woke up and my daughter gave me some hot cocoa. “Here Dad, this will help with the nightmares” she said, patting me on the head. They weren’t nightmares.

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

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