Cataplexis

Cataplexis (kat-a-pleex’-is): Threatening or prophesying payback for ill doing.

I had gone to one of those gypsy fortunetellers. Her “studio” is next to the Ace Hardware Store on one side and Doozy Duds Laundromat on the other. It had drapes printed with gold-colored stars and crescent moons hanging in the window. On the glass it said “Madame Asphalt: Your Road to the Future.” I had walked past it 100s of times on my way to somewhere else, usually the Subway Sandwich place down the street or the bar where I hung out to get out of the house—to escape the eye of Millie my wife and her nearly endless diatribe about what a dickhead I am. It’s not like I don’t deserve it. I am a dickhead.

I had donated our daughter’s dolls to the Salvation Army. She is 19 and a first-year student at New Jersey State College at Hoboken. She is majoring in Logistics, which as far as I can see is about putting things where they belong. She suffers from OCD, so her major perfectly suits her. The problem is, she still plays with her childhood dolls.

When she was home for Christmas, she spent more time with her dolls than with us. She told us she needed to catch up. What about us? Didn’t she need to catch up with mom and dad too? After she went back to Hoboken, blinded by anger, I bagged up and dumped her dolls on the Salvation Army’s loading dock where a sign said “Leave Your Donations Here.”

I came to my senses the next day and went back to retrieve the dolls. They were nowhere to be found. The lady behind the counter said they were probably being sorted in Warehouse Bay 11, which was restricted. I was refused entry no matter how much I begged. I offered a bribe to the guard posted at he entrance and I was “escorted” by the arm to the parking lot.

I had recently heard of the concept of Karma after obtaining my credit rating, which was excellent. But my concern was what is captured in Karma’s cause and effect principle: what you do now will affect your future. If what you do now is bad, it will come back to bite you in the ass in the future. I was concerned that what I had done to my daughter would come back and get me with bad Karma. That’s why I went to Madame Asphalt to see what was coming at me in the future.

I told her my story as she laid out the cards. When she finished she started sobbing and told me I was about to lose my daughter’s love. I started crying too. She stopped for a second and called out “Chucky.” A giant rat appeared—it was Chucky Cheese! She said “No! No! I want Chucky the haunted doll.” Poof! There he was. He told us not to get frightened, he had been “neutered” in Italy by the puppet surgeon Geppetto. Now, he no longer murdered people or burned their houses down. He was here to help dolls of all kinds. However, he was permitted burglarize dwellings and business sites and shoplift.

He told me to meet him in front of Salvation Army at 11:00 p.m. that night. I was there for about five minutes, and he showed up. He waved his hand at the entrance doors. They opened. We went inside and found Warehouse Bay 11. He waved his hand again and in we went. He handed me a plastic garbage bag and instructed me to get down on one knee and hold it open. Once I did that, he yelled “Dolls! Get in the bag!” My daughter’s dolls came running from out of the pile of donated goods and jumped in the bag.

I was saved! Chucky’s supernatural powers had helped me get there. I thanked Chucky and started to leave . He said, “Wait a minute. There’s a catch. You have to let me marry your daughter.” He told me he was a lot older than he looked and he could wait until she graduated from college.

What could I do?

Well, two things happened when she came home for spring break, 1. She decided she was too old to play with dolls any more and donated them all to the Salvation Army, 2. She went out on a date with Chucky.

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

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