Metastasis (me-tas’-ta-sis): Denying and turning back on your adversaries arguments used against you.
I yelled: “You tell me I stepped on your model airplane! What a load of shit. YOU stepped on it last night when you were sleepwalking.” It was time to put an end to Manny’s wandering around the apartment like a zombie at night. Stepping on his model airplane was a real tragedy. I might’ve knocked it off the mantle when I was dancing with my pillow in front of the fireplace entranced by the crackling rhythm of the flames. But, I was fully awake. I just hadn’t noticed what I had done. A simple accident, but not for Manny. The model airplane had gotten him elected President of Model Airplane Club in high school and inspired him to become and aeronautical engineer, designing things that fly—from the new Hypersonic-Frisbee to the Flying Cellphone: say “Here phone” and it flies to you from where you misplaced it. Many’s goal in life is to make everything fly. Currently, he’s working on drone to backlight nighttime barbecues with different colored lights, lasers, play music, and also project what’s cooking on the grill onto a hovering screen.
I had to get Manny cured before he did any more damage—not only to things, but to himself. I had heard about a doctor who specialized in curing sleepwalking. His name was Dr. Zzzz. He had come to the US from Panama where he had almost single-handedly cured the entire country of sleep walking. Only a handful of Panamanians still sleepwalked, and that was because they enjoyed it and wanted to.
Dr. Zzzz met with Manny and told him the sleepwalking cure went in three phases.: 1. Duct taped to the bed, 2. Remove duct tape and wear roller skates to bed, 3. Remove roller skates and take two blue pills before going to bed. Manny was uncomfortable with the regime: two blue pills were not a cure—they were barbiturates! After he had injured himself sleep-rollerskating, Manny vowed to see the cure through—but the pills were too much. I talked him into taking them, just to finish things off and send Dr. Zzzz on his way. So, Manny took the pills and slept like a baby.
The next day Dr. Zzzz told us the pills were made of Sommulous Beetle wings. An ancient Panamanian remedy, they alter the sleepwalking center of the brain, making it permanently lay down. So, the blue pills cure sleepwalking. Manny was “cured.” But, sleepwalking incidences continued to occur—things knocked off the mantle, orange juice left on the kitchen counter, clothes pulled off the hangers in the front hall closet, laundry from the dryer scattered on the floor, etc.
We got a couple of security video cameras and set them up in the apartment. We discovered it was me who was sleepwalking. I was so ashamed. We hired Dr. Zzzz to cure me. It worked and now the apartment is sleepwalker-free.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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