Accismus

Accismus (ak-iz’-mus): A feigned refusal of that which is earnestly desired.

I had worked my ass off for 20 years. I could barely stand up and my vision was failing. I had started accruing minor injuries on my robo-scraper. My job was to scrape coir off coconuts. The coir was made into fiber, that, in turn, was made into fish nets and hair brushes. I was proud of my work. I started before the advent of mechanical strippers, harvesting the coir entirely by hand. I would work 12 hours per day in a sweltering warehouse. The warehouse was infested with Coconut Crabs that would drop on your head every once-in-a while from the warehouse’s rafters. At 4kg. They could give you quite a whack on the head, and even knock you out. Sometimes at the end of the day there would be 3 or 4 co-workers laid out on the floor, unconscious. The crabs would circle around an unconscious worker and tug at their clothing with their massive claws. Nobody knew why they did this. We could only guess. My guess was they liked the flavor of clothing—they never tore it, they just nipped at it. However, if somebody had been lying on the floor for two or three days, they got more aggressive, and actually started eating them. We didn’t mind. It saved us the trouble of dragging them outside and loading them in a van.

But now I was retiring. It was time for my retirement dinner. Boss had set up empty salt barrels around the warehouse with music he liked streaming from his iPad. He had given each one of us a beer and a cube of cheese on a toothpick and the festivities were in full swing. Then, he turned off the music and said “Attention please.” Everybody paid attention—Boss was known to punch people who did not pay attention. “Tonight we celebrate Rollo’s retirement after working here for a lot of years. He never took a sick day or talked back to me except the time me and his wife crossed paths with him by accident outside “Red’s Motel.” I told him if he didn’t shut up, I’d fire him and he and his skanky wife could go their own way. Rollo understood his place in the food chain and shut right up. But aside from that, he was a perfect employee and worked his way up to large coconuts, quite an accomplishment for a high school dropout. Ha ha! Why not say a few words, Rollo?”

Rollo stood up. He was going to let Boss know how he felt: “I don’t deserve your paise.” Everybody looked at each other, trying to figure out where the praise was in what Boss had said. Rollo continued, “For all these years I’ve . . . “ BAM! Rollo was hit on the head by a giant coconut crab. He was knocked out cold. The retirement party was over. Boss laid the 4X2 retirement plaque on Rollo’s chest. The crabs started picking at his suit.

Everybody quietly filed out of the warehouse. They were all thinking that Rollo got what he deserved. Boss wrenched Rollo’s beer out of his hand, chugged it down, and threw it in the trash.

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

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