Cataplexis (kat-a-pleex’-is): Threatening or prophesying payback for ill doing.
Husband: You have done me wrong. I am on fire with anger. You ignited my matchbook collection. They traced my travels through the 70s. The 100s of bars I hit, slowly building my collection of East Coast matchbooks, sometimes going to a bar just to get a matchbook.
My collection won first prize in ‘78 in the National Assemblers Sweepstakes. All you cared about was the giant wine glass I kept them in and how “ugly” it looked as a centerpiece on the dining room table. It was an icon—a token of excellence from a time gone by, along with my disco suit folded in the chest up in the attic waiting to be resurrected as time reaches back to the past and time returns us to the good times when bell bottoms flapped and the top three buttons of our shirts were unbuttoned revealing our manly chests. It is people like you who want to obliterate my past, to make me a living anomaly—a doorway to nowhere, a highway to hell. A living landfill.
Well baby, we know we all collect something. We gather together objects that are the same in some way—like matchbook! My beloved matchbooks! Damn you! Well, have you seen your thimble collection lately? I know, your answer is “No.” That’s because I have—that damn tray with your carefully arranged thimbles—metal, wood, ceramic, rubber, plastic—antique to contemporary. I’m especially going to enjoy crushing the Mary Todd Lincoln thimble she used to repair the seat of Abraham’s pants because he insisted on wearing cheap suits for at least four-score and seven years. Then I’m going to grind up the Winston Churchill thimble—made of rubber and used by his doctor to examine Churchill’s prostate. It saved Churchill’s life when it was discovered he had an enlarged prostate and stopped eating fish and chips. Then, there’s the John Glenn thimble he carried to moon in case his spacesuit got a leak, he could sew it shut. Part of his training involved sewing classes. He was supposed to embroider a lunar landscape, but was unable to do so because of “issues” with the lunar lander. I can’t wait to turn the John Glenn thimble into dust, along with commie dictator Kennedy’s portrait on the tip.
Wife: Where are my thimbles you loon?
Husband: At the divorce lawyer’s. I’m holding them hostage until you beg for my forgiveness for destroying the greatest matchbook cover collection ever.
Wife: If you must know, I staged their demise—I burned random matchbooks to account for the collection’s absence from the dining room table, I had a crystal chalice made for it for your birthday. It was a bad decision, but all’s well that ends well. Right?
Husband: Well umm . . .
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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