Synaloepha (sin-a-lif’-a): Omitting one of two vowels which occur together at the end of one word and the beginning of another. A contraction of neighboring syllables. A kind of metaplasm.
I had a boatload of bliss. I was smuggling opium over the Pacific Ocean, headed for San Diego in my big black freighter “Mickey Mantle Maru.” The opium was disguised as baseballs, made in Afghanistan, packed with drugs. They were piled high in boxes down below—enough to supply every opium den on the coast of Californi.’ And we were set to reap a bundle of cash from proprietors up and down the coast. Half the state would be in a daze—dreaming of puppy dogs and butterflies.
I had gotten in this business when I was in high school. I had an internship at a health food store called “Eat Me Raw.” We specialized in organic produce. Our clients were mainly hippies with dazed looks on their faces. They said things like “Wow man” and “Far out,” and “Right on” to almost everything you said to them. I liked them with their long hair and beads, and sandals, or bare feet.
In addition to the produce there was a bin filled with baseballs. We didn’t sell a lot. They were really expensive: $600! I asked my boss Trolley Carr why we sold baseballs in a health food store. He said: “Don’t ask me that question again, or you’re fired.” I was shocked—he would never say that if I asked him why we sold carrots or radishes. But I was curious—too curious—I couldn’t stop wondering.
I usually stayed after closing to sweep up and get the store ready for the next day’s business. That night, I picked up one of the baseballs and shook it. It slipped out of my hand and broke open on the floor. Trolley yelled from the back room “What the hell was that?” And came out of the back office. I was screwed. Trolley wasn’t supposed to be there. The open baseball revealed a plastic bag filled with white powder. I asked him what it was and he told me it was buckwheat flour from China. He told me to clean it up.
In about 10 minutes, three men came out of the back room with Trolly behind them. One of them said to me: “You’re goin’ to Afghanistan boy. Your boss does not want to kill you. So we go to Plan B. That white powder is opium and you’re going to work in the poppy fields.” That night, they hid me in the hold of a freighter and we took off. I worked in the poppy fields, and, to make a long story short, I became one of the most notorious warlords in the region. I had 200 men backing me up. I had a jeep with a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on it. I had traded it for opium and then mowed down the guy I traded with, and got the opium back. I took control of his and other poppy fields and the manufacture and sale of opium-filled baseballs. My nickname was “Opie” after Andy Griffith’s son in “Andy of Mayberry” and also, short for “opium.” All the Afghanis had seen “Andy of Mayberry” reruns with subtitles on satellite TV. They got the joke and loved it.
Well, that’s the long and the short of it. Here we are at now.
Now, we were docked and were nearly unloaded, filling trucks with baseballs to be delivered up and down the California coast. Then, a CBP car pulled up. The agent asked if we were importing counterfeit baseballs. I said “No” and I was telling the truth. The agent drove away. I was going make another $10,000,000. Baseball! The American pastime, ha ha! Gotta love it!
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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