Erotema

Erotema (e-ro-tem’-a): The rhetorical question. To affirm or deny a point strongly by asking it as a question. Generally, as Melanchthon has noted, the rhetorical question includes an emotional dimension, expressing wonder, indignation, sarcasm, etc.

“Why would I want to walk backwards around the block? Why? Why? Why? To prove my love for you? To show my mother I can do it? She’s not here! She’s never here! I think she’s dead, but I’m not sure. I’m sure my sister’s dead. I poisoned her jello and threw her out the window. Why? Because she was always there. Pestering me. Teasing me. Pushing me over the edge.”

I heard at least one version of this speech every week. I’m a cop and I call these speeches “Curbside Confessions.” Usually they’re given by a person in pajamas or a bathrobe standing on the sidewalk outside their house or apartment.. I usually just tell them to put their hands up and I cuff them and call an ambulance to come and pick them up and take them to the state mental hospital where they’re medicated, interrogated but never exonerated. Ha ha!

I have compiled an anthology of “Curbside Confessions” that I intend to publish as an E-book on Amazon. In the case of armed speakers, the speech is the last thing they said if they wouldn’t heed my admonition to “drop it.” If they held onto their gun, I let them finish their speech and then I shot them, always fatally, because I thought it would give their speech a more pronounced element of pathos. In the book, I would note their passing with an asterisk and “Fatally shot at the scene.”

One of my favorite curbside confessions was by a woman wearing a pointed party hat and holding a piece of birthday cake in one hand and a revolver in the other. She started by singing.

“Happy birthday to me I have chronic pain in my knee and I’m loaded on opioids. Happy birthday to me. The pills are light beige, and I take ten a day. Get out of my way or I’ll blow you away.”

She continued:

“Bang bang you’re dead, shot in the head Uncle William. Two in the chest, mom you’re the best! Have a great trip to hell—Dad’s waiting for you! You bled on my cake, damn you! Vince was doin’ mom so I shot him in the crotch and sent him off to Eunuch Heaven. And finally, my stinkin’ husband Dicky! Dicky-dog, you humped my best friend and she liked it too much. I sent you with Vince to Eunuch Heaven. I am disappointed that the guy who wouldn’t give me a refund at TJ Max wasn’t at my birthday party. I would’ve loved blowing his brains out. Today, I’m 30.”

This was a really interesting curbside confession because in some places she addressed people who weren’t there and who were dead. She tried to shoot herself in the head when she finished her speech, but she had used up all her ammo. She, like the other nut cases, got a free ride to the state looney bin. I felt bad about having to take her piece of cake away from her. I confess, I ate it. It was Bavarian Chocolate. It was delicious.

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

Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.