Metallage

Metallage (me-tal’-la-gee): When a word or phrase is treated as an object within another expression.

“Ferryboats from hell.” It was splashed across a billboard. If I saw another “ferry boats from hell” I knew I’d go crazy. Ferryboats from hell was a secret curse used by demented sea captains to confuse average everyday people, making them more susceptible to being shanghaied and enslaved on ferryboats in harbors throughout the world. Just the other day I saw 5 people on the deck of the Staten Island Ferry wearing life preservers and waving their arms. I couldn’t hear what they were yelling, but two of them pulled down their pants and mooned me—a sure sign of distress.

After I told the police about my experience with “Ferryboats from hell,” I ended up strapped to a bed in a mental hospital. I kept crying out for a cigar until a kind nurse brought me rubber one. It has embers and ashes painted on the tip and squeaks when I bite into it. As a joke, I stuck it in my ass and made it squeak with my sphincter muscle. When they heard about what I’d done, doctors and nurses crowded around my bed, talking on their cellphones, taking pictures, writing notes and asking me questions: “Do you know where you are?” “What did you have for lunch?” “Why are you here?” “Do you hate your mother?” “Do you know anything about woodchucks chucking wood?” “How did you get that cigar up your ass with your arms tied down.” I told them it was the nurse. She blushed when they all turned and looked at her. Then it happened: “It looks like you have an erection.” That was not a question. It infuriated me and I struggled with my restraints, rocking the bed back and forth. Unfortunately, the cigar started coming loose, but foolish me, I kept struggling. The doctors and nurses stood there with their mouths hanging open, like they were looking at a zoo animal gone rogue.

I got loose and ran out of the hospital with the rubber cigar sticking out of my ass, from my open-backed hospital gown. The cigar fell out of my ass as I exited the hospital and ran down the front steps. It rolled down the stairs after me. I stopped to pick it up to stick back in later. That’s when I was grabbed by two burly orderlies and hauled back to my room.

POSTSCRIPT

I’ve been lying here watching “Love Boat” and “Carol Burnett” reruns for two weeks. I think Gopher is really cool. I am trying to act like him so I can get out of this place.

They say I’m getting better and will be discharged as soon as my insurance runs out.

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

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