Thaumasmus (thau-mas’-mus): To marvel at something rather than to state it in a matter of fact way.
I was sitting there surrounded by stars, and sky, and shooting stars, and constellations—the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, Orion and the North Star, showing the way somewhere, And, as of tonight there was “John Boy.” The new star is named after me and I own it. For four dollars, it went from being G211247 to John Boy.
The problem is, I found out yesterday that star naming and selling is a scam. There is no John Boy.
I often go to the beach to star gaze. It was a moonless night when I met him. He was walking down the beach wearing shorts and a t-shirt emblazoned with glow in the dark stars and saying “Stars for sale. Stars for sale.” He was impressive. He told me his name was Joe Astro and he could “make me a star.” Who doesn’t want to be a star? All I needed to do was fill out a note card with demographic information and pay him $4.00, and I’d have a star named after me and transferred to my ownership. He used Venmo.
I went with John Boy, my nickname since “The Waltons” debuted fifty years ago. He pointed to the sky and said, “There you are right straight overhead. I’ll take care of the paperwork tomorrow and mail you your “Stellar Deed” tomorrow afternoon, along with your rights and privileges as a star owner. Basically, I could sell or rent the star, and look at it all I wanted. To that end, I bought a telescope and set it up in my living room. That’s when I realized I didn’t know where the star was. I called Joe Astro and his phone was disconnected. I was really angry. I went to the liquor store to get me something to calm me down. I bought I pint of “Rasputin Vodka.” It was famous for its ability to put you in a trance for 4-6 hours. I was ready to sit in my big chair and get wasted—my anger was turning to remorse and “Rasputin” went perfectly with that mood. Then I saw him! Joe Astro was walking across the liquor store parking lot, headed for his bicycle chained to the light post. I yelled “Hey Joe!” He took off running into the woods by the parking lot. I took off after him. But weighing in 310 lbs I couldn’t follow running, so I cut it down to a walk. I saw a little shack up ahead. I looked in a window and saw that the inside walls were lined with bookshelves filled with books on astronomy. On the one blank place on one of the walls the was a PhD Diploma in Astronomy from “Sky King School of Astronomy.” Joe Astro was sitting in a chair crying. I knocked, and he invited me in. We cracked open the “Rasputin” and sobbing, Joe told me hi story.
Basically: He was working in an observatory n Switzerland. He was in charge of finding lost stars. He would work all night, every night. One night he fell asleep in his telescope chair he hd failed to hook his seatbelt and grabbed ahold of the telescope to keep from falling 10 to the floor. The telescope came apart and came crashing down. An $8,000,000 piece of equipment was destroyed. Joe was forced to flee Switzerland by the country’s astronomers, and banned for life from practicing astronomy, He had ended up in Santa Barbara where he was able to buy the little patch of woods by the liquor store and build his shack.
While I felt sorry for him, he had swindled me out of four dollars and filled me with false beliefs that I’d been frequently called out for. So, I turned him in to the police. When the squad car pulled up with siren blaring, Joe ran away through the woods and disappeared. I saw him on “America’s Most Wanted” last week. He is selling “genuine” moon rocks to elderly people door-to-door.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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