Repotia (re-po’-ti-a): 1. The repetition of a phrase with slight differences in style, diction, tone, etc. 2. A discourse celebrating a wedding feast.
I had been “married” 75 times. I was in the visa business. It’s a complicated process. It takes time, but in the end all you need is a marriage license. You get married. You get divorced. I live in Nevada where divorcing is a piece of cake.
I had “gone around the world” with my visa brides. The one I liked the least was German. She bossed me around, making me do too much for her—laundry, clean house, cook, water the houseplants, and go to Cliff’s all times of the day and night to buy her chocolate with almonds in it. We had to live together for 2 months for her visa to “stick.” It was hell for me. At one point I considered pushing her down the basement stairs. Then, the worst possible thing happened that can happen to somebody like me: she told me she loved me more than apfelkuchen (Apple Cake) and she wanted to stay married. Luckily, I had a way out. I reported her to my friend at ICE. ICE were there in ten minutes, tasered her, handcuffed her and took her into custody. She yelled “You are like Gestapo!” At that, one of the agents hit her on the head with his truncheon. She was deported to Belize and, given her status as a “criminal,” the divorce was quickly executed.
My best visa catch is Seezy Bellacola. She’s from Trabib (not East Trabib). I didn’t think East Trabib actually existed, let alone, Trabib. Growing up in New Jersey, it was known as a metaphor for a a far-away place in somebody’s head where they might be hopelessly lost. For example, if somebody was really lost in their head, we would say he was in East Trabib. Seezy told me there were many lost people in Trabib. Even the Pime Minister did not know where he came from, but he thought it might be England. Anyway, we decided to get married for real & stay together. Our “visa” wedding been bland, but the second one was going to be an extravaganza—Seezy was an heiress.
So, we got married. My best man, Jumper Johnson, gave a pretty good wedding speech:
“When two people get married, they are actually married. My friend Lyle and Seezy are married because they got married—both of them together, married together, married, right here. Married. They will walk down life’s sidewalks and streets together, and drive them too, in their new black Audi. Some day one of them will die, unless they both die together in a plane crash, a car wreck, or a terrorist attack, or maybe an armed robbery or house fire when home alone. One will be alone. One will be depressed. One will find a new partner and start all over again, in a new and happy marriage. The other will be dead, maybe wearing a new suit, buried in a coffin somewhere, or maybe, posing as ashes in a jar on a shelf in the garage.
This is how it goes. Enjoy your Audi.”
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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