Dilemma

Dilemma (di-lem’-ma): Offering to an opponent a choice between two (equally unfavorable) alternatives.

Making choices is overrated. I was stuck on the horns of a dilemma. You know, animals have two horns, and either one will hurt if it pokes you. But, the cow decides whether to stick you with one or both of its horns. You can try to escape both horns and escape injury. Otherwise you’ll be gored and make a mess on the barn stall floor and, with luck, maybe survive.

But what I’m talking about is making a choice between equally bad alternatives that are impinging on your life, and it can be as minor as between spinach and broccoli—if you have to make choice at all. Abstention from both is an option, unless your mother’s standing there with a spatula ready to beat you on back of your legs if you don’t choose one or the other, of both, “for your own good.”

So, you run away from home and live on the streets and discover you can’t live a dilemma-free life. If you had to do it over again, you would’ve eaten the broccoli. It’s flowers. There’s no grit. It may smell bad, but it tastes good. You needed to learn that smell is less important than flavor when it comes to eating. If I had only known then, what I know now, I wouldn’tve had to fend for myself on the streets of Camden, New Jersey.

Since nobody ever went out for a walk in Camden for fear of being mugged or shot, panhandling on the street was out of the question. So, my plan was to seek alms door to door. That was a a mistake—begging for money door-to-door angered my prospects. The first time I was hit on the collar bone by a length of lead pipe should’ve been a wake-up call. But, I persisted, absorbing the obscenities, thrown objects, and the doors slammed in my face.

Then I came to a house with peeling paint and an overall look of disrepair. When I climbed the front steps one of my feet broke through the step and a cat meowed from under the porch. I rang the bell and nothing happened. I banged on the door. A girl my age answered. Her hair was dirty. Her nightgown was dirty. There was dirt under her fingernails and she smelled strongly of butt. But I could see—under it all she was beautiful. I said I was there to beg for money. She said, “Ok. My parents are in the kitchen.”

She motioned me into the house. Her mummified parents were sitting at the kitchen table with bullet holes in their foreheads, posed as if they were playing poker, with a huge pile of hundred dollar bills between them, and falling off the table 2-feet deep on the floor. She flashed a cute smile and I almost fainted. Then, I thought: “Its a friggin’ gold mine!”

She told me she had shot her parents “Just to see them die.” She said she was ashamed to admit it, but she was inspired by the Johnny Cash song and asked if I wanted to hear her perform it on her karaoke machine. I said “Yes” to appease her. Her voice was enchanting—she made murder sound like “Onward Christian Soldiers.” I was hooked.

We dismembered her parents and burned them in the fireplace piece by piece. We scattered their ashes in the Delaware River. We had 10 million dollars cash. I asked her where all the money came from. She told me her father was an exiled politician. She didn’t know from where.

By the way, she started practicing admirable hygiene, washing and brushing everything. She was beautiful. We fell in love. We got married. We decided to stay in Camden and raise a family. We rehabbed the old house, installing a walk-in vault in the basement.

Then one day, she aimed a pistol at my head and said, “I want to see you die.” I was ready. I drew my .44 and pretty much blew her head off. It was self defense. Now, everything would be mine.

I was tempted to sit her body at the kitchen table holding an Ace of Spades.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

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