Protherapeia

Protherapeia (pro-ther-a-pei’-a): Preparing one’s audience for what one is about to say through conciliating words. If what is to come will be shocking, the figure is called prodiorthosis.

A lots of things happen. So many. Too many. They sneak up on us. Then, it’s too late. Pastor Anglow has disappeared. For most of us this will be our saddest day. Chief Powers called me early this morning to give me the news. The Pastor has been missing for a month. If we went to church, we would’ve known something was wrong sooner. Chief Powers had some choice words to say about that. But I told him: “Chief, just because I’m a Christian doesn’t mean I have to go to church, goddamnit. I love my neighbors and all that crap, so why do I have to go to church? Back off copper!”

I had seen a lot of detective shows on Amazon Prime, so I knew what I was doing—establishing my innocence with Chief Powers by acting like a tough guy. In the shows I watch, tough guys turn out to be kind and caring nice guys. Anyway, what could I possibly have to do with the Pastor’s disappearance? I hardly knew him.

My cellphone rang.

It was Jasmine—I mean Mrs. Anglow, the Pastor’s wife. She probably lost her cat again. She’d come looking for her cat every week. I’d let her into my house and we’d look around. She’d crawl around on her hands and knees looking for her cat. She would get dirty and sweaty and I’d let her use my shower to wash off. She had a chronic tennis injury and couldn’t wash her back. So, I got into the shower and helped her. I’d put my arms around her waist and use two washcloths to slowly and gently wash her back.

She had called me to tell me her husband was missing and she had lost her cat. I told her she was welcome to come over and look for it. She sighed and thanked me.

While we were looking for her cat, Jasmine told me her husband had won the $10,000,000 Sonic Boom Lotto and had taken off with Chief Powers’s daughter, a Junior at Pot Crank High School. Jasmine was too embarrassed to tell anybody, but her husband had given her $2,000,000 to keep her mouth shut while she was undergoing a divorce from him.

Pastor Anglow was going to marry the Chief’s daughter!

When the Chief found out about the whole thing, he vowed to pull the Pastor over for a traffic stop and shoot him in the face. That never happened. In an epic car chase after the Pastor, the Chief drove over Dead Man’s cliff. The car went up in flames, and the Chief was killed when the car exploded.

Jasmine and I got married. We have four children—three girls and a boy. We still enjoy looking for her cat.

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

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