Pathopoeia

Pathopoeia ( path-o-poy’-a): A general term for speech that moves hearers emotionally, especially as the speaker attempts to elicit an emotional response by way of demonstrating his/her own feelings (exuscitatio). Melanchthon explains that this effect is achieved by making reference to any of a variety of pathetic circumstances: the time, one’s gender, age, location, etc.

My dog was dead. My wife was dead. They were run over by a train while they were walking on the tracks. My sadness was gigantic like a monument to my grief. They were my two best friends, in addition to my spaced-out friend Mack who was still alive.

No more decent meals. No more making the bed squeak. No more roll over and fetch. No more swimming in the pond. No more watching TV. No more wearing her bathrobe on Sundays and playing corn hole in the driveway.

It was over. It was all over, like the end of a game of checkers, or the end of a rope. I was crying. I was blowing my nose. I was punching the wall. I was heartbroken, bereft, lonely, and lost.

What would I do now? I had to have a woman in my life. I couldn’t live without female companionship. I was 35 and I still had a long way to go. There was a widow, Mrs. Angle, who lived down the street. She was 72, but she was convenient. Three houses down! She had beautiful blue hair that matched her eyes. She had a small hump on her back that was hardly noticeable. She had all of her teeth and had a beautiful smile. I was going to give it a shot.

I put on my black muscle man t-shirt showing off the tattoo of a coiled snake on my left arm that said “Don’t Thread on Me.” It was supposed to say “Don’t Tread on Me,” but the tattoo guy had screwed up. I put on my khaki cargo shorts. Finally, I put on my Birkenstocks. I trimmed my beard and sprayed on two squirts of my “Time Passages Cologne” that my dead wife had given to me for Christmas.

I headed down the street to Mrs. Angle’s. It took me five minutes to get there. I rang the doorbell. The door opened and there was a beautiful young woman standing there! Mrs. Angle introduced me to her granddaughter. She was 25 and had come to live with her. Her parents had recently died in a car crash—going over a cliff and burning to death. She still hadn’t recovered from the tragedy. In a way we were in the same boat.

Mrs. Angle asked me what I wanted. I asked if I could borrow a mixing spoon. I told her I was making pancakes and freezing them. She looked at me funny, but she loaned me the spoon. I asked her granddaughter if she wanted to help me. Her name was Tammy, and she said she’d help me.

When we got to my house, I told her I changed my mind about the pancakes. We watched an old film noir classic “Double Indemnity” about murdering a person for an insurance payout. Tammy snuggled up by me and put her head on my shoulder. My grief melted away. The movie gave us a great idea.

Mrs. Angle had a $100,000 accidental death insurance policy. Tammy was the sole beneficiary. We decided to push Mrs. Angle out of the upstairs bathroom window. Mrs. Angle was bending over looking at her bird feeder out the open bathroom window. Tammy walked up behind and lifted up her legs and shoved her out window. She went straight down and landed on her head, breaking her neck and dying.

We were rich!

Tammy moved in and we got married. Tammy’s pregnant. We never made the pancakes.

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

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