Enthymeme (en’-thy-meem): 1. The informal method [or figure] of reasoning typical of rhetorical discourse. The enthymeme is sometimes defined as a “truncated syllogism” since either the major or minor premise found in that more formal method of reasoning is left implied. The enthymeme typically occurs as a conclusion coupled with a reason. When several enthymemes are linked together, this becomes sorites. 2. A figure of speech which bases a conclusion on the truth of its contrary. [Depending on its grammatical structure and specific word choice, it may be chiasmus].
“How many times do I have to tell you? If you go around like that, people will be offended. You’ll never get a job. You’ll die cold and lonely on a sheet of cardboard in a back alley clutching a styrofoam cup with a few pennie’s in it. It’s like not taking an umbrella when it is raining, just because you don’t want to. You get wet. You catch a cold. You die. Now, get back in the bathroom and wipe your ass like I taught you when you were four years old.”
My mother wouldn’t leave alone. She bossed me around like I worked for her in a third-world sweatshop making sneakers. I was 31 years old and she treated me like I was 10 years old—like I still needed motherly advice—her little boy. The ass wiping thing is a case in point.
While I may be careless in cleaning it off, I don’t think I’m much worse than the average person. Sure, I have some pretty thick skid marks on my underpants, but its not like anybody can see them, except my mother when she washes my underpants and scrubs hard to get out the marks. I’m appreciative of that, but it provides her grist for her complaining mill. Everything she does for me results in a litany of complaints.
Every morning she tidies up my room and makes my bed. She stuffs my sex doll under my bed and complains about it. She asks every day “Why don’t you get a real girl?” I tell to ask my therapist. I knew, due patient confidentiality, that she would not tell my mother. I
have a rubber lover because I’m too shy to meet real women. My mother did that to me—stoking insecurities. But, when she talked about my rubber lover, she sounded jealous. It was so creepy that I almost got rid of Hilary. But, I decided I needed her as a shield against my mother’s totally inappropriate interest. I realized that she wanted me stay “her little boy” forever and not develop relationships with “other women” whether flesh or rubber. Eventually, out of some kind of perverted respect for my mother, I stabbed Hilary several times and let her air slowly bleed. It was sad and exhilarating at the same time.
That’s when I decided to kill my mother—it was the only way to shut her up. I wanted to silence her oppressive scolding and soul-wrenching criticism of nearly everything I said or did. So, I pushed he down the basement stairs. She was carrying a basket full of laundry so it looked like she had slipped. The coroner’s investigation determined her death was accidental.
The day after the finding, I ordered a new rubber lover from the internet and I started wearing adult diapers. I can “wear” my shit all day and then wash it off in the shower before I go to bed with Melania.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.
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