Enantiosis

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

Despite its problems, my truck was my most beloved possession. I named it Buck the Truck. The cab was filled with memories. The seats smelled like sweat. When I took a drive, I had many memories riding alongside of me, no matter where I drove.

I had so much fun with my daughter riding the country roads with windows rolled down on warm summer days, singing “The Wheels on the Bus.” We still laugh about the time I picked her up at day care in a really bad snowstorm. We jumped in and threw Buck into four wheel drive and headed home. But pulling out of the parking lot, due to the snow, I drove off the driveway across the adjacent field. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw that all the other parents’ cars were following me through the snow, across the field! Somehow, we all made it to the road and drove home safely. It was funny in retrospect, but when it happened it was sort of scary.

Buck had a dark side too. The worst was when his brakes failed coming down a hill. The downhill road intersected with a busy highway. Once again, I was driving my daughter home from day care. I thought for sure we were going to die. I looked at my little girl who was oblivious to what I thought was her impending death, and cursed Buck. The intersection was empty, and we sailed through unscathed and actually came to reset in a rut in our driveway, with a front wheel well smoking from leaking brake fluid.

There were other problems. I was pulled over for speeding on the MassPike. I was going 10 mph faster than my speedometer registered. My daughter thought it was a great adventure, being pulled over. I found out when I got home that the tires were the wrong size for the speedometer. About fifteen minutes after I was pulled over for speeding, the muffler started to fall off. We found a dry cleaner in a strip mall, and got a coat hanger that I used to hold the tailpipe up. In another episode Buck’s driveshaft fell off. Then, another time, the wire came loose from his starter motor when my daughter and I were up in the Adirondacks—in the parking lot of the place where are ate dinner. With the wire detached, Buck wouldn’t start. A crowd gathered to try to help us out. A woman climbed under Buck and held the wire to the starter motor while I turned the key, and I was able to get Buck started, but I couldn’t shut it off or we’d have to do the climb under thing again. So, we took off on our way home. The road was closed due to a terrible fatal accident. We had to wait there with the motor idling until the mess was cleared. All of a sudden, a woman appeared at the rolled-down window on my daughter’s side of the truck. She said: “You look really worried.” I said “Yes” and explained what had happened. She said, “I know a way around all this—I’ll pull around and you follow me—I’m in a red Datsun pickup.”

We followed her onto a dirt road and stopped at her house. It was a cabin. She had to check on her baby who her brother was taking care of. I tried to call my wife, but there was no answer. I asked if they’d try to call her if I left her number. They said they would, but they had nothing to write with. I wrote the phone number in the driveway’s dirt with a stick, and off we went.

The end of Buck came when I was driving home from getting a haircut at the mall. As I turned onto my street, there was a horrendous crunching, and then, what sounded like an explosion from under the hood. The engine died. There was something like steam coming out from under Buck’s hood.

The tray holding the battery had rusted out, and it came loose, dumping the battery into the engine. The battery had hit the fan and exploded, spewing battery acid all over the place. The next day, I donated Buck for a $200.00 tax deduction, and that was that. I replaced Buck with a Subaru Outback. I didn’t name it.

Buck was like “A Tale of Two Cities.” He was the best of trucks. He was the worst of trucks.” On the balance, Buck was the best of trucks given the platform it provided for father-daughter adventures. I know that nothing is capable of bearing opposite qualities at the same time, under the same circumstances. This is Aristotle’s primary axiom and the foundational principle of logic. But then, there are the “mixed feelings” that constitute a sort of epistemic marble cake—where the flowing oppositions constitute something whole in its own right called “marble cake.”

I don’t know exactly what I’m trying say, and I’m sure it has already been said, or even refuted, by some credentialed philosopher, or even ignored altogether as the kind of question that talking apes could make quick work of.

But, I’m not a talking ape. I’m a father.

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. There is also a Kindle edition available for $5.99.

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