Epizeugma (ep-i-zoog’-ma): Placing the verb that holds together the entire sentence (made up of multiple parts that depend upon that verb) either at the very beginning or the very ending of that sentence.
Going to school was a saga, a trail of barbed wire, a minefield. I walked. It was four miles. Part of it was through the worst neighborhood on the East Coast: “Trauma Town.” It was populated primarily by psychopaths dumped there by the State because they were indigent. The hope was that they would die somehow and be taken off the books. They were afforded every way possible of killing each other—hand grenades, handguns, knives, poison gas, ligatures, shotguns, rifles, etc.
All well and good for the State, but what about me walking to school? My school, “The Local High School,” issued me a Kevlar vest and an Army helmet. In addition, I was allowed a baseball bat. By the end of my Junior year, I had beaten 9 unarmed attackers with it. I ran like hell from everybody else. My Army helmet had been nicked twice by small arms fire.
I started a campaign for the State to provide the residents of Tauma Town with medication. It would be much much cheaper than guns and explosives. The State agreed. They enlisted 25 psychiatrists to diagnose and prescribe the appropriate medication. Almost everybody was prescribed lithium—one in the morning, one at night.
It was a miracle! “Trauma Town” became “Trigonometry Town.” It was a model neighborhood. The adult residents got educated at on-line high schools and universities. The children went to the local schools. A few residents refused to take the lithium. They were held in the thrall of conspiracy theories. They were totally crazy like the old days. They would chase people down the street and throw rocks at baby carriages. There were four hardcore crazies—“Buffalo Bill” Bird, “Big Mama” Melon, “Gin” Wilton, and John Jones. They were such a nuisance that they were killed by the police; picked off one by one as they engaged in their villainy. Their children were left to fend for themselves—taking their lithium, they grew up to have jobs—dishwasher, shoe salesman, and the one who went to college, the manager of doorbell sales at Lowe’s.
I met a Trigonometry Town girl when I was walking to school. We dated through college and got married. Everything was fine until she started skipping her lithium on weekends for “recreational purposes.” She would tie me naked splayed out on the dining room table. She would pluck my beard hairs with tweezers. She would only pluck five, then she’d splash my chin with Polo cologne and rub her face in it and yell “Chin up mother f*ker!” Next, she’d untie me and make me stay naked for the weekend. Inevitably we’d go out to dinner—for sushi. She made me wear a Donald Duck bathrobe that was way too small. She made me quack-speak like Donald Duck and made eat a raw duck (duck sushi) for dinner. The proprietors of the sushi place “Tuna Toyota” loved us.
We drew a crowd. We were good for business. We ate for free. Eventually my wife started taking her medication again, but I kept dressing and acting like a crazy person when we went out for sushi.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.
The Daily Trope 