Aganactesis

Aganactesis (ag’-an-ak-tee’-sis): An exclamation proceeding from deep indignation

“Who died and made you King?” I’m sick and tired of you telling me what do, and suspecting me of anything you can imagine. I did not murder our daughter. She’s watching TV in the living room!” Last week my crazy husband had accused me of cutting off his foot. The week before that he had accused me of being a divisive chimpanzee.

I was fed up. I was told he wasn’t crazy enough to be admitted to the state mental health facility, Medication Station. I couldn’t afford a nursing home for him. I tried leaving him in the Walmart parking lot, but he found his way home. He accused me of trying to kill him, but it wasn’t true. I was just trying to get rid of him, like a piece trash, not kill him.

I had to do something really drastic. So, I decided would go to France. I would leave him somewhere in Paris with no money or passport. It was horrendously cruel, but I felt I had no alternative. I was hoping he would die of starvation or something.

I got home. Peace of mind at last! No accusations. I prayed every night that he’d never return. I didn’t feel the least bit guilty. Then, one afternoon I was reading “Star” magazine. And there he was! He was the star of a fabulously popular French TV show: “Une Accusation.” He made outlandish accusations and the contestants made outlandish defenses. He was famous for dressing in thrift store clothing and seeming to be drunk all the time. He was compared to Jerry Lewis and venerated as “L’icône Américaine“ (“The American Icon”).

I threw the Star on the floor and stomped on it with my high heels. My crazy, loony, abusive husband—and my God—he had even managed to learn to speak French. My husband had become a French superstar.

I decided to go back to Paris and go to his show. I was going to sit in the audience and heckle him mercilessly, until he cracked and was booed off stage. I hated him.

It was a matinee and the studio was packed with adoring fans. He came on stage to a standing ovation. As soon as the applause died down, I stood up and yelled “You are a crazy bastard who broke my heart!” The people sitting on either side of me grabbed my arms and dragged me outside and handed me over to two gendarmes who arrested me and took me to jail. I learned it is illegal in France to heckle performers. I paid the 50 Euro fine and went back to my hotel. There was a knock on my door. I expected that it would be my husband, but instead it was the guy who had given me the eye in the lobby. “Did you know you are on the front page of the evening edition of La Monde?” He sad calmly, and left. No wonder he was looking at me. I got a copy of the paper. I was characterized as a rude, brutal stalker who had deeply hurt the great star, the Accuser, and offended the French people beyond repair.

That was it. I bought a plane ticket back to the US. I went directly to the airport and was going though airport security when HE showed up. He yelled, “Stop that woman. She has my foot in her purse!” The airport security guards applauded gleefully and looked in my purse, laughing.

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

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