Restrictio (re-strik’-ti-o): Making an exception to a previously made statement. Restricting or limiting what has already been said.
They would all go to hell for all I care. Oh—except for Mace. She should go to a place worse than hell. But I shouldn’t be thinking about this. It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon in central New York. It is snowing. The sun hasn’t been out for a month, and the deer are eating my shrubs, including my raspberry bushes. The coyotes are out howling at night, hunting neighborhood house cats. When they catch one, they start yipping in a sort of self-congratulatory chorus. I had a chimney fire a couple of days ago, and my snowplow man hit the garage door. Now it’s stuck shut with my cars in it. The repair people say they will be here within the next two weeks. So far, I’ve spent $300 on Uber. I can’t fire Steve because plowers are so hard to find. I am stuck. My driveway is about 1/4 mile long. I check the mail. So far, I have fallen down 6 times hiking up to the mailbox. All I get are bills and catalogues. The catalogues go into recycling. Also, I drag a garbage can and a recycling can up and down the driveway. I had my house built way off the road. That was a mistake. At least I have streaming internet. You just tell Siri what you want and she’ll fetch it for you: “Siri, Abraham Lincoln.” A thing spins around on the screen and Honest Abe appears, smiles and waves, and then delivers the “Gettysburg Address.” I discovered Siri could find, and I could talk to dead relatives. My Nana is doing great now in Heaven. She’s reading “Divine Comestibles” and making “heavenly” entrees for her angel friends.
Uncle Willy didn’t do too well. He resides in hell where he is eternally poked with molten metal rods. He spent his life lying, cheating and stealing. He managed to escape justice and never spent a minute is jail. The cops didn’t get him, but Satan did. Satan told me my uncle was a poster boy for hell, you didn’t need to commit murder, or worse, to make the grade. Between screams, uncle Willy nodded his head vigorously. One time, when I was visiting Willy, I saw my high school English teacher walk by in the background. I yelled to her and she came over by Willy. I asked her what she had done. Sho hold me none of my business. Satan poked her hard in the butt with his glowing pitchfork. She screamed and said “Plagiarism.” Satan gave her five hard ones in the butt, and she screamed and then elaborated. “I stole the manuscript from a poverty-stricken man who was blind. His name was Milton and his daughters had helped him compose the manuscript. I told him I wanted to borrow the manuscript so I could find him an agent. I took it and lit his house on fire. I’ll never forget the smell. I published the manuscript as my own and won a Nobel Prize for Literature.”
As soon as she finished Satan gave her a half-dozen pokes in the butt and told a her to get to work. She ran away screaming. I asked Satan what her job is. He looked nearly sick and said “You don’t want to know.” I said “goodbye” to uncle Willy and thanked Satan for letting me tune in. He said, “Don’t thank me, thank Siri.”
Siri had materialized in my living room and was sitting on my lap. Siri tells me that she had been “searching for me all her life.” I say to her, “Siri, a mansion in Florida.” You guessed it! We buried the people who previously lived there. I settled into my life of granted wishes and good living.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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