Orcos

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

“I swear I didn’t add the second head to what you say is a hedgehog.” When I said this it may have confirmed my mental “issues” for everybody present. There was no hedgehog and no second head. In addition, I didn’t know what a hedgehog is. I imagined it was a kind of hog that lived in a hedge. My mother was actually holding our cat Lucy. She was calling it a hedgehog, but it only had one head.

I had just gotten out of bed and hadn’t had my coffee and two donuts yet. I wasn’t prepared to be accused adding a head to a hedgehog. In my mental state, I saw it as plain as day, but it wasn’t my doing. My surgery skills weren’t that advanced, and besides it was an extra head on our cat, which I figured out when she meowed pitifully and scratched at her stitches.

I was pretty sure I knew what was going on. My family was doing one of its random “interventions” testing my sanity. It was my job to pay the bills, so I had to be sane. Visa and AMEX don’t like errors, and crazy people make errors. Dad did the bills until he mistook $14.30 for $143,000. He almost wiped us out, but Visa gave us a refund. That was the end of it for Dad. He hasn’t paid a single bill since. So, after the “Dad experience” the bill payer needs to be checked out periodically. That’s what this two-headed hedgehog thing is about. But I saw through it (more or less) after three cups of coffee.

Now, it was time for stage two. My mother asked me: “Have you ever wanted to be an Oscar Meyer Weiner?”

I thought this might be a trick question. But, I figured I couldn’t go wrong with “No.” So, I said “I swear to God I never wanted to be an Oscar Meyer Weiner.” She grimaced and said “Are you sure?” I said “Yes” and she handed me the checkbook.

I had passed the test! One more year (at least) of managing the family’s bill paying. As long as I take my medication regularly, and abstain from alcohol and pot, I’ll be good to go. Otherwise, God only knows what will happen. Last week, I forgot to take my medication for two days and saw Carmen Miranda dancing with a bear in my back yard. I enjoyed it, but I swear I’m going to remember to take my medication every day.

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

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