Exergasia (ex-er-ga’-si-a): Repetition of the same idea, changing either its words, its delivery, or the general treatment it is given. A method for amplification, variation, and explanation. As such, exergasia compares to the progymnasmata exercises (rudimentary exercises intended to prepare students of rhetoric for the creation and performance of complete practice orations).
I’m happy. I’m elated. I’m joyful. I’m on cloud nine! I found my sock that I lost two years ago. By weird circumstances, it ended up on the roof of my house, stuck in the gutter’s downspout. I found it when I was cleaning the downspout. Over the years, the sock had started to clog it.
I was baffled. How could I not remember how this had happened—how my sock ended up on the roof? It’s so crazy that it ought to stick out in my mind, but it doesn’t.
I did remember hanging the pair of socks on the clothesline. I even remember using my new wooden clothespins—they still had their spring and attached my laundry tightly to the clothesline—nothing could have blown off or fallen off.
The sock mystery needed to be solved. My life was stalled in the murk of the mystery. It was a bad feeling arresting my life’s progress.
There was a doctor who recently moved into town. He specialized in memory retrieval. “Unconscious memories need to retrieved,” he said “because they act as concealed motives making us do things for reasons we’re not aware of. When we retrieve the memories, we retrieve our free will and act in accord with conscious wishes.” In my case, I had purchased hundreds of pairs of socks, not knowing why. My basement was filled with unopened boxes of white athletic socks.
I made an appointment at “Memory Lane.” Dr. Cache gave me a complimentary cup of tea and blindfolded me with a white athletic sock. He kept tightening it around my head while he yelled “Remember, remember, remember.” Suddenly something snapped in my head and I was back in my yard hanging my laundry two years ago. I turned to hang my underpants, but in my revery I could see behind me—I could see my socks dangling there, fluttering in the soft springtime breeze. Suddenly, a Canada goose swept down and grabbed one of my socks. As it flew over my house it collided with a large crow and dropped the sock on the roof of my house and it slid out of sight into the gutter. I saw it! It was birds that did it when my back was turned! Clearly, it was nesting season and the Canada goose grabbed the sock to weave into its nest.
I thanked Dr. Cache. Driving home, a Canada goose flew alongside my SUV. He had a sock hanging from his bill. At that point I realized the tea Dr. Cache gave me may have been drugged. When I pulled into my driveway, the goose dropped the sock on the roof of my house. I climbed up on the roof and retrieved the sock. I looked inside and there was a note. It was from Dr. Cache! It said “Try to forget this!”
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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