Pareuresis

Pareuresis (par-yur-ee’-sis): To put forward a convincing excuse. [Shifting the blame.]

My name is Ed. Whenever I screwed up, I told people I had worms—that they were squirming around inside me disrupting my digestion and thought processes. Whenever they squirmed more than usual they made me go really, really haywire—all tangled together and making a squeaking sound only I could hear. So, when I lost my wallet I blamed it on my squeaking worms. I said they made me throw my wallet away—I was like a robot under their control. I even talked like a robot, making whirring sounds between every third or fourth word.

I went to the police station to report my missing wallet. I told them the worm story and they handcuffed me to a chair. I told them I was lying—no worms were involved in my wallet’s disappearance. I had left it on my table at MacDonald’s when I went to pick up my order at the counter. It was gone when I got back. “The truth is a pretty good excuse, but it makes me look stupid. So, I told you the worms story—rather brilliant but not very credible unless you’re the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Ha. Ha.”

The police frisked me and found my wallet in my back pocket. Nothing was missing except for the photo of my girlfriend Aggie. She wasn’t particularly good looking. The picture was blurry. She was sitting on the beach holding her pet white rat Bulltaco. She was holding a piece of paper with her phone number on it—I’d never paid much attention to it before.

The police unlocked my handcuffs and told me to get the hell out of their police station. When I got home, I called Aggie. Her line was busy. It was busy all afternoon. I drove over to her house. The front door was open. There was Aggie. She was sprawled naked, sleeping on the couch, snoring loudly. Then some guy came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel with wet hair. He had probably been the one who had stolen the picture of Aggie with the phone number. He had been the one she had been talking to.

I ran out the front door. The guy yelled “Come back we can have a drink!” I did not go back. I went back home and sat on my couch trying to think of an excuse for what had happened. Then, it dawned on me: Aggie is bad! Her badness put her at a moral disadvantage that had nothing to do with me. I did not treat her like shit. I did not lie to her all the time. I wasn’t unreliable. I didn’t make fun of her. Well, maybe once in a while.

This incident had nothing to do with me and the way I treated her. She was just plain bad, waiting for an opportunity to cheat.

POSTSCRIPT

Aggie had been fed Roofies by the home invader Ed had met coming out of the bathroom—who had asked him to have a drink. It was terrible. If Ed had trusted Aggie more, he would’ve figured out what was going on and called the police. As it stood, Aggie went through hell. His need to make excuses inflicted pain on the woman he allegedly loved.

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

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