Sententia (sen-ten’-ti-a): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegem, gnome, maxim, paroemia, and proverb.
“Let the wind blow.” My father used to say this to me when I was upset and wanted to kill somebody—anybody—including him. If I “let the wind blow” he’d be on the fooor with a bullet hole in his forehead. I couldn’t “let the wind blow” because I was afraid to go to prison. My father was a beloved hardware store owner in our town. He catered to the DYI crowd. They would relentlessly search for his killer and I’m sure that when they found him it would be nail guns at dawn on the Little League field’s pitcher’s mound. That’s where they found the mangled remains of Red Rider. He had a hot dog stand he would wheel around town, selling hot dogs. He was observed picking his nose and wiping it inside a hot dog bun. He was doomed. The Society for the Preservation of Sanitary Conditions met that afternoon and voted to nail gun him to the pitcher’s mound that night. He was lured by what they said were his “favorite buns.” He took that to mean Barbara Shine AKA “Boulder Buns Barb.” When he arrived, he was tackled, held down, nailed to the pitcher’s mound, and sprayed with hand sanitizer—it was sprayed down his throat. He choked on it and it killed him. Bye, bye Red Rider. Go sell your hot dogs in hell!
“Let the wind blow” has become totally meaningless to me. Now I abide by “Suck it Up!” It sounds like a vampire credo, but it isn’t. Actually, I got it from my housecleaner. She talks to her vacuum cleaner, telling it to “Suck it up!” referring o the dirt on the floor. It “sucks it up” into a bag inside that gets thrown in the trash when it gets full. I say “Suck it up” to myself when something bad comes my way. I put it in my brain-bag which I dump when it gets full. I dump it in a bottle of vodka.
I am becoming a drunk, but I’ve still got to suck it up into my brain bag. I’ve tried to come up with different way to empty my brain bag. I stuck my head in the low-hanging ceiling tan in my living room. I now have a large bald spot on top of my head. It did not work. My inane plumber Mario is going to install a faucet on the side of my head to drain my brain bag. If that does not work I’m going to find a new saying. Maybe “Christ on a crutch!” or “Holy shit!” I think the religious sayings are edifying.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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