Acervatio (ak-er-va’-ti-o): Latin term Quintilian employs for both asyndeton (acervatio dissoluta: a loose heap) and polysyndeton (acervatio iuncta:a conjoined heap).
I was mad and glad, and wild, and riding my battery-powered bicycle to the mall. It made a humming sound and the bumps were like they were clear puddles of water with worms floating in them—casualties of rain, when the puddle dries they’ll look like brown shoelaces. Jeez. There I went again. Staying focused had become nearly impossible for me since getting hit in the head by a croquet ball at my brother’s birthday party. Here I go again! Things just keep occurring to me while other things fall by the wayside. I was mad—I was mad because of the big sale at the mall which made me happy and wild: ready to load down my bike with cheap crap. What, mad? I was headed for the edge. But, it was on the way to the mall!
Suddenly. I couldn’t remember where the mall was. I sat and started crying, sitting on the curb. A man pulled up on a yellow and black electric bike. He was wearing a red suit with a flashing light on each shoulder, clearly “for safety.” I told him I got lost on the way to the mall. He told me to look behind me . It was the mall! We rode together. His name was Roger and sold canoes at Dick’s Sporting Goods. That day, they were 75% off. We parked our bikes and went our separate ways, but not before he asked me out for a drink. I told him “No.” I had to go to work at “Zippy Lube” where I worked the night shift. He made some kind of noise and stalked off. I took off for “Tippy Toys” to buy the giant stuffed bear I had had my eye on for nearly a year waiting for the sale. I picked it up and pretended to dance with it. I was dancing in my head to a song from “The King and I.” Then the salesgirl yelled “Put the bear down, slut!” I flipped out and threw a Chucky doll at her head and ran out of the store carrying the bear and running. When I got to my bike I realized I couldn’t fit it on my bike. I put him on my rear fender. He put his arms around me and said “Go baby!” I went! I peddled, peddled, peddled like a maniac. I swear, my tires were smoking all the way. When we got to my house, we ran inside and he became a normal stuffed bear—he just sat there with his arms outstretched.
Then, the front doorbell rang. It was the canoe salesmen with the police! He was disgruntled because I would not have a drink with him. What a creep. I turned to say goodbye to the and he had vanished. The cops searched the house and found nothing, and they admonished the canoe salesman as they went out the door. I closed the door and turned around and there was the panda sitting on the chair. I wished he could talk and almost instantly he said “You wish for too much” and that was it.
About six months later the canoe salesman called and asked me out again. He said we’d go down by Lake Hopta Beach and bring a blanket and a bottle of wine. I thought his plan was to get me drunk and confess to stealing the bear. I didn’t. I had not had sex for over a month! The last time I had done “it” was with my little brother’s friend. He was barely 18, but it did the job. Now, I was on the beach by the lakeshore with a total idiot. I knew where we were headed. We had taken off our clothes when the bear came running out of the woods. He said to me in his deep bear-voice “You don’t need this. Lt’s talk when we get home.”
He was there when I got there. He told me he can take on a human form. He stretched out his paws and clapped. There was a red spark and he turned into Rod Stewart c. 1966.
Life with Rod is a dream come and true. Unfortunately, when he ran away naked from the lakeshore, the canoe salesman jumped in front of a dump truck and was killed on the spot. He looked like a human pizza and, due his death, was never able to get anybody to believe his stolen bear story.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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