Anamnesis (an’-am-nee’-sis): Calling to memory past matters. More specifically, citing a past author [apparently] from memory. Anamnesis helps to establish ethos [credibility], since it conveys the idea that the speaker is knowledgeable of the received wisdom from the past.
As Rumpelstiltskin asked, “What’s my name Baby?” I was looking in the mirror preparing for my big move. I had been stalking this woman for about 3 months. I didn’t have anything better to do. I’m an unemployed stockbroker. My 401k is keeping me alive. I had earned the nickname “Tank” because everything I invested in for my clients “tanked.” I thought it was funny at first. That is, until it kept happening and happening. I lost the firm 2mil, then, they told me goodbye. I didn’t go quietly. I did a month in jail (with early release) for beating up my boss and trying to throw him out a second-story window, starting a trash fire on my desk, and throwing my stapler through one of the plasma monitors displaying the Dow.
As a condition of my early release, I had to attend anger management classes at “Featherdown,” a night “school” that makes a lot of money from the state, and deals exclusively in short-fused, belligerent, violent offenders.
On my first night, I brushed past a woman as I was going through the door. She pulled a knife, kicked me in the crotch an yelled “Don’t move you perverted asshole. What do I look like, your fu*king mother?” She was quickly frog-marched to her seat by two of the class monitors.
My favorite exercise was “Dipshit.” Facing your partner from two inches away, you yell “dipshit” in their face over and over until one you hits the other or pushes them away. Eventually, you look forward to being called dipshit, and you enjoy it. Then, you move on to the next exercise. Eventually, if everything goes well, you like being abused and you don’t get angry anymore.
The final exam consists of an atomic wedgy. You are given a loaded .45 and hung up by your underpants and taunted by your fellow classmates. If you don’t shoot anybody, you are designated “in control” and a “Certified Anger Manager.”
I found out after the exam that the .45 was loaded with blanks. That made me really angry. But, I was a “Certified Anger Manager” so I calmed down pretty fast.
The woman I was stalking ducked into a bar. I went in and sat down on the stool next to her at the bar. When I got close to her I could see that she was the woman I’d brushed up against my first night of anger management classes. I said “What’s my name Baby?” I expected to be knifed, but she laughed and said “Tank. I know you from Featherdown. You probably don’t remember me, but my name’s Rusty for my red hair.”
Success! We talked and drank. Drank and talked. I ended up at Rusty’s apartment. After awhile Rusty said we had talked enough and it was time to do something else. She wanted to make some scrambled eggs for an early breakfast.
I was looking for the eggs in the refrigerator when she came up behind me and yelled “Who do you think you are?” and hit me on the head with a frying pan. I said, “Quick! Let’s do the Dipshit!” We positioned ourselves and started yelling “dipshit” in each other’s faces. Rusty quickly regained her composure.
I got out of there as quickly as possible and went to urgent care for an x-ray. The next day, Rusty called me and apologized. We made a date to meet at “Slasher’s Steak House.”
POSTSCRIPT
Rusty had an anger attack at Slasher’s. Tank had taken the precaution of making sure her place was set with plastic tableware.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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