Monthly Archives: October 2025

Apoplanesis

Posted on October 7, 2025 | Leave a comment

Apoplanesis (a-po-plan’-e-sis): Promising to address the issue but effectively dodging it through a digression.

“How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?” This is an important line relating to the Cvil Rights movement, what I want to talk about.

I was walking down a road yesterday. It cut through to the middle of town. It was filled with potholes so deep you could lose an Amazon delivery truck in them. As I walked along, I slipped and fell into one of the potholes. There were already ten or fifteen people down there. Some of them had been there for a week and were close to starving to death. They had no cellphone reception so they couldn’t call for help. I told them to get into a pile and I would climb up on them and go get help. One of them yelled “There’s no help for us. We were pushed down here by our boss when he decided to fire us and ‘reconstitute’ the accounting firm we all work for.”

They piled up anyway and I was able to climb out.

The first thing I did was go to the police. They told me to go fu*k myself—“It’s no crime to trap people in a giant pothole. This is a personnel decision beyond the scope of the law. You need to talk to Diane Ice at ‘Clik-Clak Accounting,’ She made the decision, she can undo it.” I was doubtful, but I didn’t want to see those people die. However, they were passive and did nothing to resist being pushed in the pothole. Why didn’t they pile up and climb out on each other themselves?

I met with Ms. Ice that afternoon. She had plastic replicas of human heads decorating her office walls. It was grotesque, but so was she. She wore stainless steel funnels on her spandex top. They were positioned over her breasts like a sort of external metal bra. I didn’t dare ask her any questions. She was fondling a bayonet and she wore a patch over one eye. I thanked her profusely and ran out the door. I heard her yell “Wise decision!” as I ran for the elevator.

I rented a tow truck to pull the people out of the pothole, but as fast as they were pulled out, they jumped back in. It was insane. I gave up after a couple of hours, hopped in the tow truck, and rode away. I went back to the pothole a couple of weeks later. It was empty, but it smelled funny.

The “Pothole Incident” was the craziest thing I’ve ever dealt with, with the exception of my mother’s “Mexican Makeover.” She came back from Juarez looking like an angry, but wrinkle-free, turtle. I had warned her, but she didn’t listen. She had read the brochure and met with Dr. Scallopini. For $500.00 it was a dream come true. But it wasn’t.

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

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Aporia

Posted on October 6, 2025 | Leave a comment

Aporia (a-po’-ri-a): Deliberating with oneself as though in doubt over some matter; asking oneself (or rhetorically asking one’s hearers) what is the best or appropriate way to approach something [=diaporesis].

I was in a quandary. There were competing points of view plaguing my head. I couldn’t ignore them. I had to make a choice. But this wasn’t the usual choice like a red tie vs. a blue-striped tie. Sure, there’s a difference that needs to be resolved with the ties, but it is trivial, innocuous, of minor consequence.

But now, I was saddled with a decision from hell—the kind you read about in novels or see on TV detective shows.

I am damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

If I rat out my boss I lose my job. If I don’t rat out my boss, I go to jail. It seems like losing my job is a small price to pay vs. going to jail. But it isn’t. Losing my job comes with the possibly, the strong likelihood, of being whacked by one of the boss’s pistol-packing thugs. So there: the possibility of being hit should push me way far away from taking the jail option. People get whacked in jail all the time. So what’s so safe about that anyway?

I had been working in the meth lab for the past 8 years. Why the hell should I want to see it busted and closed down? It was all about “Bombo” the boss’s son. I was jealous. I made $600,000 per year. Bombo made a million. He did nothing for the money. He took no risks and just sat on his ass surrounded by 100-dollar bills. I, on the other hand, was out on the street collecting from dealers and kicking their asses when they couldn’t pay, and making them disappear when stiffing me became a habit. I risked life in prison while Bombo played video games and went shopping for custom-tailored suits.

Bingo! Get rid of Bombo, get rid of my problem. I can’t believe I didn’t think about this before. I invited Bombo to my place in the Adirondacks for a couple days of fishing on Cranberry Lake. He got off his ass and packed his bags and was ready to go the next day. He was grateful. He loved fishing.

We got to the dock early the morning, untied the boat and headed out on the lake. When we got around the middle of the lake, I pulled a gun and shot him until I was sure he was dead.

Since I killed Bombo, life is much better. His absence is a source of happiness for me. I’ve been questioned several times by the police, but they’ve got nothing on me. Bombo’s body washed up near my place. I told everybody I knew nothing about it and they believed me—especially Bombo’s father who seemed relieved by Bombo’s disappearance.

So now, I’ve got another murder on my resume. It has worked out well for me. It broke my double bind. It was the right decision.

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

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Aposiopesis

Posted on October 5, 2025 | Leave a comment

Aposiopesis (a-pos-i-o-pee’-sis): Breaking off suddenly in the middle of speaking, usually to portray being overcome with emotion.

“This is, is . . .” I couldn’t finish my sentence. My crazy brother-in-law had duct taped me to a kitchen chair and was holding a corkscrew over my eyeball, twisting it menacingly and saying over and over “Your sister is going to have a baby.” I didn’t know if this was some kind of post-modern celebratory announcement, or if he was angry at me about my sister’s pregnancy—a really perverted view of things. I was squeaky clean and so was my sister—we could never imagine having sex together, the thought of it made my stomach queasy.

He had the corkscrew in one hand and a piece of paper in the other. He held up the piece of paper. It was a DNA test. It had his name on it as the father of the child. I pointed that out to him. He said “Oh. I must’ve read it wrong.” “Wrong?!” I yelled. “”You are the biggest . . . Oh, forget it. I just can’t believe how stupid you are! Get this duct tape off me!”

Just then my sister walked into the kitchen. “What the hell is going on Nolo?” “I was going to gouge your brother’s eyeball out because I thought he got you pregnant.” Nolo said. My sister hit him across the face with a Teflon frying pan—it clearly hurt him, but it wasn’t fatal. Nolo started crying and cutting me loose from the chair. My sister was standing by the refrigerator apologizing to me and cursing out Nolo.

I was beginning to think this could be the end of their marriage. My sister was a genius with a PhD in astrophysics. Nolo was a dull-witted freak. He had trouble tying his shoes and mowing the lawn. He worked loading UPS trucks and frequently misrouted packages, leading to floods of complaints and frequent near-firings. My sister, on the other hand, was an award-winning tenured professor at MIT.

It didn’t add up. There had to be something going on there that I needed to find out about. So, I looked in their window one night. They were playing “Patty-Cake” on the living room couch. I almost screamed with terror. I watched for a half-hour and went home. I drank a half-bottle of vodka and stumbled to bed and passed out. I got up the next morning feeling pretty shitty. I had four cups of coffee and pulled my college textbook on interpersonal relationships down from the bookshelf. I knew it would help me understand my sister and Nolo better. I opened the book and there was highlighted text: “People are unique choice-making beings who are capable of change.” That was it! “Unique!” I had to understand their relationship in its own right instead of comparing it to stereotypical concepts of what a “good” relationship is. Ignoring, abusive relationships, including spousal murder, I had found the answer to dealing with Nolo and my sister. They are unique individuals, even though their baby turned out looking just like Nolo—big hands and a budding unibrow. They’ve named it “Subaru” after their car and have it wear sunglasses (even inside) to conceal its identity from the “Iron Men” who pose a danger to themselves and others. Normally, I would call this crazy, but with my new-found interpersonal sensitivity, I know it is just an expression of their “unique choice-making beings.”

Nevertheless, it is hard to keep an open mind about my sister’s and Nolo’s construction of reality and their sanity. But they are moving right along down life’s highway, although Nolo lost his job at UPS for routing a package to North Korea. He starts his new job at “The Dollar Store” next week. He told me he was impressed with all the different brands of toilet paper they sell and can-openers too. He told me he’s “specializing” in two-year old canned minestrone soup. I don’t know what that means, but I accept it, respecting his uniqueness.

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

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Apostrophe

Posted on October 4, 2025 | Leave a comment

Apostrophe (a-pos’-tro-phe): Turning one’s speech from one audience to another. Most often, apostrophe occurs when one addresses oneself to an abstraction, to an inanimate object, or to the absent.

“You’re not here. You’re never here. You are there. You are hither and yon. You are at the grocery store. You are working in the garden. You are selling Girl Scout cookies at the Mall. Where are you? You’re not here. You’re never here. you’re always somewhere else, doing something else. Maybe even being somebody else.

I speak to your absence—to the void you’ve created in my life.’

There, that’s what I would tell her if she was here. But she’s not here and I must look up and address the emptiness that encompasses me like a circus ring or a dead end in a middle-class housing tract with five-bedroom homes and giant lawns with built-in sprinklers.

What am I to think? When she comes home I am angry. I ruin the moment of reunion by asking her a series of paranoia-laced questions that culminate in “Who were you with?” She tells me she was with a variety of men. She tells me she was at a motel all day taking care of a line of men—probably 50. I can tell she’s being sarcastic. She tells me to calm down and we both laugh. But I’m faking it.

The next day, I follow her. She has the most boring day I can imagine. I wish I could clear my head of my paranoia. I’ve started drinking and that’s done some good. But, I’ve started having fantasies about killing her. I would never kill her, but I’m pretty sure I could beat her up. I have concluded that I’m mentally ill. I would turn myself in for treatment, but she would run wild while I’m put away.

God, what should I do?

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Apothegm

Posted on October 3, 2025 | Leave a comment

Apothegm (a’-po-th-e-gem): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, gnome, maxim, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.

“When the going gets tough, fools rush in.” I learned this saying from my Uncle Ned. He learned it from Howard the Coward. Howard thought he was wise, that being a coward was a smart move that kept him out of harm’s way—for example, he wouldn’t climb a ladder because he didn’t want to fall and break his neck. When his father’s tool shed went up in flames with his father in it, he stood and watched, certain he was doing the right thing, for himself. His father was severely burned and spent a year the hospital getting skin grafts.

For some reason, Ned became a volunteer fireman. He made sure he was first to the hose and was never expected to run into a burning building. In all the years he’s been a volunteer fireman he’s never saved a single life—it’s just been him and the hose.

He works at the zoo feeding red meat to the carnivorous animals. It sounds dangerous, but he’s made it so it isn’t. He has a huge sling shot mounted on the golf cart he uses to get around the zoo. He can lob a hindquarter of hog one-hundred feet. He does not have to get close to the lions and tigers to feed them—no rushing in for Ned. He has a sideline where he lobs meat over the animal enclosures to customers waiting for the meat on the other side. They leave him cash at a secret place in the zoo’s aquarium. Ned makes a tidy profit from his meat hurling business. Too bad the lions and tigers are so skinny.

My favorite saying is “Life is a bowl of red, red roses.” There is the roses’ fragrance to set our desires on fire. I took a bath in rose petals once and consequently had an unquenchable desire for coconut-covered donuts. I sent my mother to Cliff’s to buy me a box. I ate half the box then it slipped out of my hands and landed in the tub. The remaining donuts sunk to the bottom of the tub, but they left coconut residue floating on the water. It was very frustrating. I had my mother get me a strainer from the kitchen. Using it, I was able to skim a fair amount of coconut back into the donut box, pinch it between my fingers and eat it while my mother showered me with rose petals.

But the rose has thorns too! Be careful when you pick it up by the stem. I take care of the thorn problem by wearing tight-fitting black leather gloves. They make me look masculine and guard me from injury. I often forget, though, when I hand a red, red rose to somebody that they’re not wearing protective gloves. I did that on Mother’s Day last year. My mother’s hand bled all over the kitchen floor and she had a hard time cleaning it up. I gave her a dish towel to sop up the blood and she appreciated it: Happy Mother’s Day!

One last saying: “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” This saying comes from Jamaica where there’s a lot of sugar. It originated with using sugar to sweeten bitter medicine. Over time, it has taken on a figurative meaning. The “spoonful of sugar” has become a metaphor for bribery. This is not to be unexpected given how rampant bribery is throughout the world. For example, just yesterday I bribed my mother so I wouldn’t tell dad about her boyfriend Lance. I got $500 out of her and am headed to the Heaven’s Hooves racetrack to bet on Thunder Pump at 25-1.

So, sayings to live by will guide you into the future and help you explain the past. Get yourself some sayings and live the good life! In the meantime, don’t cry over spilt milk.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Appositio

Posted on October 2, 2025 | Leave a comment

Appositio (ap-po-sit’-i-o): Addition of an adjacent, coordinate, explanatory or descriptive element.

I was going crazy—hearing sounds, seeing things, descending into paranoia. My hamster was talking to me, complaining about living alone in a cage and his squeaky hamster wheel and shitty brown food pellets. He wanted the expensive green organic kind that they sell in the health food section of the pet store. I was tempted to run him through the garbage disposal in the kitchen sink. He knew what I was up to and started yelling “hamstercide, hamstercide!” So, I put him in the toaster oven. Just as I was going to turn the knob to broil and send him to a gruesome death, he banged on the glass and said “I can pick stocks. You put the stock market page and the financial news in the bottom of my cage. I’ve become good at piking stocks.”

I gave him a second chance and freed him from the toaster oven. I said “Ok Mr. Stock Picker, have at it.” He crawled into his cage, looked at the newspaper and said “I’d put everything into ‘Rose Garden,’ a small company specializing in the manufacture of wooden Dixie Cup spoons. They’re located in Maine where there’s lots of wood.”

He sounded so authoritative. I invested my life savings in Rose Garden. Two days later they went out of business and my hamster had disappeared. I looked all over my house and finally found him under the living room couch snuggled up in a sock I had lost two years go. I asked him why he ruined my life. He just sat there and wiggled his nose and made his happy hamster grunting sound. I picked him up and started to strangle him when I realized he couldn’t talk—that he could never talk, that his speech had been a hallucination—a symptom of my loony hood. I couldn’t believe that I almost murdered my little hamster. Then he said to me, “That was a close call Bozo!” I resisted my desire to wring his neck, but I realized it was a hallucination. I just had to ignore him—it wasn’t real.

But he wouldn’t shut up. All day and into the night, blah, blah, blah. He talked about the weather, the New Testament, his favorite TV show—endless yapping. At first, I was interested, even though I knew I was imagining it. But I got to the point where I couldn’t stand it any more. I threw my hamster out of my third floor window. I saw him hit the sidewalk and die. Poor little thing, but it was for the best. It would help me regain some of my sanity.

It didn’t.

The talking hamster moved inside my head, even though he was dead. I started vocalizing the hamster’s inside-my-head talk. His voice became my voice. I would complain about my squeaky exercise wheel, my smelly cedar shavings, and my constipation from cheap food pellets.

After I burglarized a pet store and tried to get away with a 25 lb bag of high-end food pellets, I was arrested. It was determined that I was suffering from “mental issues.” Now, I am comfortably ensconced in “Pearly Pillow” mental institution in Topeka, Kansas. My hamster voice hasn’t gone away, but I’ve learned to live with it, “Would you care for a handful of organic handmade food pellets?”

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Ara

Posted on October 1, 2025 | Leave a comment

Ara (a’-ra): Cursing or expressing detest towards a person or thing for the evils they bring, or for inherent evil.

I started hating him right after I first met him. He said bad things about other people that weren’t true. He said my little brother was a “mental case.” He said my little brother enjoyed stepping in dog poop and smearing it on the sidewalk. This couldn’t be true. I followed my little brother to find out. It wasn’t true. Actually, my little brother kicked pieces of dried dog poop and yelled “Five points!” There was certainly nothing insane about that. It is hard to resist kicking a piece of dried dog poop. Great Americans have kicked dried dog poop. For example, it was one of Teddy Roosevelt’s favorite pastimes. Thomas Jefferson kicked a pice of dried dog poop around the entire perimeter of his plantation.

After he impugned my little brother, he went after my older sister. She was 20 and was going to divinity school. She wanted to be a preacher—preaching the Gospel and bringing “lost lambs” back to the flock. I wasn’t that happy with the reference to the congregation as sheep—a docile collective of bleating, hairy animals. But that was ok compared to the rumors he started spreading.

He said she didn’t believe in Jesus!

What was his evidence? He said she was a nude dancer at “Ruckus,” a men only strip club overflowing with sensuality, worship of the flesh, and laced with numerous highways leading to adultery. But this was wrong. My sister was working her way through divinity school—stripping was a means to an end. It did good by enabling my sister to get a divinity degree. Not only that, by being among sinners and miscreants she had ample opportunities to minister to them, even if she was naked and gyrating on a pole: she found them as they were and started there, and brought them to Jesus.

I hated this guy. I didn’t understand why he wanted to make other people look bad. I started the rumor that he wore adult diapers, was a chronic liar, and a narcissist. The rumor is slowly gaining traction. I have a new rumor in the works. I will be releasing it on his birthday.

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

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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