Pysma (pys’-ma): The asking of multiple questions successively (which would together require a complex reply). A rhetorical use of the question.
Why is the sky blue? Why does it get cold in winter? Why am I a man? What time does the train leave? Where am I going.L Am in coming? What are these little bugs crawling around my crotch? I can answer that! They’re crotch crickets, my old friends. I’m going to observe them with my OED magnifying glass before I kill them with “Spinosad.” It costs over $300 and instantly whacks them.
I focused in and observed the crotch crickets. It looked like they were square dancing. There was no music coming from my pants, so I concluded they were marching, not dancing. Every once in a while two or three would give me a nip. it itched like a mosquito bite. I couldn’t slap them to death, their bodies were like shells. Then, they started doing acrobatics. They were tumbling and they had built a tower out of my pubic hair. They were diving off the tower into a little puddle of blood they had made from biting me.
It was disgusting and fascinating at the same time. For a couple of minutes I considered training a troupe of crotch cricket acrobats. I even thought of a name for them: “The Nice Lice Acrobats.” I would afford them a place in my crotch where they would live while we travelled the country putting on shows.
I would give audience members cheap complimentary magnifying glasses, pull down my pants and lay on a table exhibiting my crotch crickets and MC-ing the show: “Ladies and gentlemen! Turn your attention to the tower of hair as Little Carl will leap into the pool of blood from the very top of the tower!”
Then I realized something had gone wrong. It was my PTSD. It was the residue of my numerous encounters with crotch crickets when I was in the Army. The prostitutes around Ft. Bragg were al infected, but I couldn’t help myself. Every Monday I’d hit the dispensary for a can of crotch cricket killer powder—DDT—after a weekend of cavorting with bug-infested whores.
I pulled out my Spinosad, twisted the cap, pulled down my pants, and sprinkled a dose on my crotch. It worked. The crotch crickets died immediately and fell like little snowflakes to the floor. Already, I missed them—the little itchy nips and the daring acrobatics. I felt a sort of withdrawal from having an itchy crotch. I didn’t know what to do.
I went into counseling.
My psychologist kept scratching her crotch while we were talking. She called my crotch crickets “crabs” with a little smile on her face and admitted she had a case. In one of our sessions, I asked her to infect me. she sad it was unethical, but she had become fond of me and would be glad to do it. She gave me some of her crabs in her office with the door locked.
Now, she gives me crabs on Fridays, I whack them on Mondays and then go back on Friday for another dose. It is complicated, but it is therapeutic.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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