Dicaeologia

Dicaeologia (di-kay-o-lo’-gi-a): Admitting what’s charged against one, but excusing it by necessity.

“Ok ok! I lit the garage on fire! I had to do it. Planet Earth was in jeopardy. The Smudgettes threatened to vaporize New York, and then, the entire planet, if I failed to burn down the garage.” This was my story.

I had been in contact with the Smudgettes since I was 11 years old and one of them kept tickling my hiney when I sat on the toilet. His name was Mel. He kept yelling “you can’t wipe me away Arlo!” With a Smudgettian accent—which sounded like a cross between French and Chinese. At first, it scared me. But after five years it became a nuisance. My mother told me that she had heard me yelling in the bathroom “You can’t wipe me away Arlo!” I asked if it sounded like a French-Chinese accent. Sho looked at me with a combination of pity and fear in her eyes and said “No Arlo. You need help.”

“Help” consisted of my Aunt Hattie giving me a hot bath once a day. She chewed gum and wore smelly perfume and said “ain’t” all the time. she wore a pink spa towel and a black bikini bathing suit top. She locked the bathroom door and got down on her knees by the tub. My heart was beating so fast I thought it would explode. Then, she sang “Puff the Magic Dragon” and made her fingers squeak on the side of the tub. She said: “Arlo, you’re off your rocker, around the bend, over the rainbow, you’ve lost your marbles, you’re not playing with a full deck.” This went on once a day for a year—always the same. The only thing that changed was my heart beat—it didn’t pump and thump any more. I was bored. Mom called the “therapy” off after I lied about what Aunt Hattie was doing. They haven’t spoken since.

I started dressing up in a spa towel and black bra and singing “Puff the Magic Dragon”on street corners. I added high-heel shoes. The local newspaper did a story about me that was picked up by the national press. I was nicknamed “Puff Man” and, in addition to “Puff the Magic Dragon” was invited to perform my new love song “You Can’t Wipe Me Away.” I sang it with a French-Chinese accent at Simon Tredwell Theatre in New York. It was about a man with anal hygiene issues who is taught to properly wipe by a disabled librarian who has no hands.

When I finished singing the song, the audience looked at me in horror and I was escorted from the theatre.

I took a bus back home to Night Shift, Wisconsin. That’s when the man in the toilet told me what to do, and why I had to do it. There was a BIC lighter on my dresser. I picked it up and headed for the garage to save the world. I had no choice. I lit the lighter and held it up to the windowsill. It wouldn’t light. I could see the gas can for the lawnmower through the window. I went into the garage and grabbed it and splashed gasoline all over the place. I flicked the BIC and touched its flame to the puddle of gasoline on the floor. POOF! Flame on! But my pants caught on fire.

I ran outside and couldn’t remember whether I should drop, stop, and roll or roll, stop, and drop. I was severely burned, but I had saved planet Earth. There was no parade or Medal of Honor. There were just months of skin grafts at the state mental hospital.

The voice in the toilet continues to taunt me about wiping. I have been wondering if I puncture my eardrums with a plastic fork or a plastic knife, if he’ll shut up.

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

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