Cataplexis

Cataplexis (kat-a-pleex’-is): Threatening or prophesying payback for ill doing.

I was so poor growing up that I had to improvise toys from “found” things. I had a pull toy made from an empty can of spray paint. My playhouse was a porta-potty that I had dragged home from the freeway rest area behind our house. It was hell. It took me three days to pull it home by rolling it on small logs that I had stolen from our neighbor’s woodpile. I also played “Army” with dust bunnies from under my bed. I had 59 soldier bunnies deployed in my bedroom. It could get wild!

My sister was a bitch. She threatened to burn my dust bunny army if I didn’t find her a boyfriend. I said to her “Woe unto you. May your poodle hair go straight, your knees knock, and may you get TB like grandpa.” I thought that would shut her up—after all, she was showing the initial symptoms of TB. I said to her, “If you make me do this, the rift between us shall grow and we may become estranged from each other even unto Heaven.” I tried to sound biblical—like a prophet of the Lord. It didn’t work.

“Stop the holy-rolly bullshit and get your skinny sss out there and find me a boyfriend. I can’t sit here playin’ with myself all day and night until I sag all over, my ankles swell up, and my hair turns grey!” She hit me in the face with a clump of dirt and my search began.

I had a guy in mind who was a perfect match for her. His name was Niles “Piles” Kahootan. He had a really bad case of .hemorrhoids. Whenever he sat in a chair, after about a minute, he’d start rubbing his butt back and forth. He’d find a table to stand by, and rub his butt up and down on its corner. I’ve run into him in the men’s room flat out scratching his butt, undisguised by the urinals. Given my sister’s weirdness and Piles’s desperation, I thought they’d make a perfect pair. She could learn to scratch his hemorrhoids, wash them, and even apply cortisone cream or Preparation H. No matter how creepy, she would have a boyfriend.

I fronted my idea to Piles. At first, he wouldn’t admit he had world record hemorrhoids. Then he started scratching the back of his pants. At that point he capitulated, and excused himself for a couple of minutes to “refresh an application” in the men’s room. When he came back, he agreed to try my idea.

When I told my sister about it, I found out what a really kind person she is. She started wearing a nurse’s cap and follows Piles around. No matter where they were, she took care of him. If he needed to have his pants down in public, she would obscure him from view with a giant umbrella, and then, go to work on him.

Piles and my sister fell in love and got married. Their favorite wedding gift was the subscription to Preparation H that I gave them. I am currently working on a battery-powered hemorrhoid scratcher. I am tentatively calling it “The Hemorrhoid Helper.” I am looking for volunteers to test it. If you’re itchin’ to try it out, be patient.

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

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