Heterogenium (he’-ter-o-gen-i-um): Avoiding an issue by changing the subject to something different. Sometimes considered a vice.
Her: I could kill you, you feckless excuse for a man! Why don’t you do something aside from playing your stupid electric trains?
He: “Feckless?” Wo, that’s a good one. You never called me that before! It’s one of those hoity-toity words that projects a degree of sophistication reserved for the tastes of the over-educated. I applaud you on your choice of words. If I had a glass of champagne, I’d toast you thusly; A picture is worth a thousand words, but sometimes, a word is worth a thousand pictures.” Voila! Feckless!
Yes, it’s all about my electric trains. They endlessly shuttle my nightmares in circles, in boxcars bulging with the remnants of my hope packed in crates of misunderstanding. And then, carrying nothing nowhere—always looking new, wheels polished, lights shining in the dining car, a headlight cutting through darkness searching for the Plastic Ville Station, where they never stop, unless I turn off the power.
ONE WEEK LATER
Her: You’re still feckless, but now, you’re a source of pity rather than anger and frustration. I’ve found an organization that was founded to help people like you. It is called “Model Trains Anonymous” (MTA). It is an organization like AA for people with a model train problem. It was founded by the family of Casey Tomes, a 19 th-century railroad engineer who was “hooked” on his model trains. He was killed in a train wreck due to being distracted reading “Model Train Aficionado” when he should’ve been paying attention to the tracks ahead. He rear-ended a disabled train on the track ahead. He was killed. He was buried in his engineer hat, with a small model train set circling his body in his coffin.
As an MTA member You will be required to abstain from model trains. You will be able to talk about your abstinence and your struggles with it. If you don’t start attending MTA, I am leaving you. “Salami” Manelli has made me an offer that I’m struggling to refuse.
He: This is shocking. Especially the Salami thing! He’s a big fat mobster. It is rumored that he clubbed a punter to death with his penis. That’s totally disgusting, not to mention the logistics of doing so. God! What have you done to yourself? Let’s go to Vegas for a couple of weeks and shake this shit off. We owe it to ourselves to be happy honey. I love you.
Her: Ok. Viva Las Vegas! I’ll go on Orbit and buy our plane tickets, and Hotels. Com for a room with a jacuzzi.
He: Yeah! I have to clean my tracks before we go. Thank you for your patience. I love you.
POSTSCRIPT
She went down to the garage and got the chain saw. She would clean the goddamn tracks!
She went back inside, she started up the chainsaw, and sawed up his model trains, the tracks and the terrain—including Plastic Ville. As her husband fled, she called Salami asked him to have her husband hit by a train. Salami laughed and said “That’s ironical. Can do,”
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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