Exergasia

Exergasia (ex-er-ga’-si-a): Repetition of the same idea, changing either its words, its delivery, or the general treatment it is given. A method for amplification, variation, and explanation. As such, exergasia compares to the progymnasmata exercises (rudimentary exercises intended to prepare students of rhetoric for the creation and performance of complete practice orations).

I was stuck in the passing lane. I was going to die. How come nobody would let me back in the travel lane. I had put on my blinker and everything. I even blew my horn, although I considered it impolite. The people in the travel lane paid no attention me—staring straight ahead and bobbing their heads, and lip synching to the music on their car radios. It was deeply troubling, vexing, anger inducing, worrying.

I was getting worried. “Freaking out” is a popular catchphrase for getting worried, but is a bit more intense. “Panic” puts the proverbial icing on the cake—it is a kind of insanity where your decision making skills go flying out the window—you close your eyes, scream, and wet your pants: the end is literally in sight: a bomb on your front porch. A fire. A heart attack. Dinner with your in laws—ha ha.

Why Am I making jokes? I’m going to die. But, I’m starting to wonder if I’m wrong about that. I’ve been stuck in the passing lane for 800 miles. I’m still alive. I have a quarter-tank of gas and a box of 15 bags of “Funions” I picked up at Cliff’s when I filled up. I also bought 10 “Boogie Woogie Jungle Bang” energy drinks.

When I first got worried in the passing lane, I drank the energy drinks so I would be alert when the end came. I wanted to see that tractor-trailer truck coming at me. I wanted to experience the full effect of my death so I would have something interesting to talk about in heaven.

Suddenly my car jerked violently forward. A guy wearing a Yankees hat was wiping my window. I was in a car wash. The man with the towel motioned me to put my window down. Then he told me I had been stuck in the “Sparkle Wash Car Wash” for 12 hours. “We had a Rust preventer malfunction that shut the whole car wash down. I couldn’t to your car to free you and when I waved my towel at you, you just sat there staring straight ahead, like some kind of zombie.

I couldn’t account for it. I saw some empty “Boogie Woogie Jungle Bang” open on the seat beside me along with a bunch of empty bags of “Funions.”

The car wash gave me a lifetime pass for what they had put me through. It can with unlimited use of the vacuum.

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

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