Dehortatio (de-hor-ta’-ti-o): Dissuasion.
“Put down down the gun Carlisle. I’m wearing a Kevlar vest and underpants. I’m hopping up and down. I can see by your revolver’s cylinder that your gun isn’t even loaded! Anyway, I didn’t steal your car, I borrowed it.” “Oh” he said and lowered the gun.
Sure, I took it without his permission, so technically, I stole it. But, I returned it, ipso facto, I borrowed it. Sure, I had it for six months, but that’s irrelevant to the “stealing” question.
Now that I returned his car, we could go on a road trip. Carlisle wanted to go to New Yotk City. I said, “Too crowed and filled with nutcases.” Carlisle nodded his head.”You’re right,” he said with a blank look on his face—the look he had when he was thinking. “What about Seaside Heights?” He asked. “Too crowded and filled with nut cases.” I said. He nodded his head and said “You’re right.”
He did the “Q&A” thing for about ten minutes. I shot him down with “too crowded/nutcases” argument every time. Finally, it was my turn. I said, “Let’s go to Florida and eat alligator meat.” He said “It’s really crowed and there’s a lot of nutcases there.”I said, “Show me the proof.” He couldn’t. So, I said, “It must be a good idea,” He nodded in agreement,. We headed for Florida—to the Everglades—to eat alligator meat.
We drove all night. When the sun came up, we were on alligator Alley driving 80 mph. We saw a sign: “Alligator Meat Sandwiches 1 Mile,” we slowed down, and there it was. A small shack with a picnic table outside. We went inside to order our alligator meat sandwiches. There were dried alligator parts on a shelf. They all had price tags hanging on them. My eye caught the “Magical Alligator’s Head”for $5.00. I picked it out along with ordering an alligator sandwhich to go. Carlisle got a sandwhich too. The proprietor said “That’ll be twenty dollars.” We paid and left.
The proprietor had given me written instructions on how to use the alligator head. They said to “rub it like a magic lamp and a genie will appear. You will have one wish.” I rubbed it and an old man covered in algae appeared on the hood of the car. He had red eyes and looked angry. We pulled over and got out of the car. He looked at me and yelled “”You have one wish. What the fu*k do you want?” I said, “I want ten more wishes,” He yelled “Illegal!,” and turned Carlisle into a muskrat. Then, he disappeared in a cloud of brown swamp gas.
POSTSCRIPT
I flooded my back yard and made it into a swamp where Carlisle presently lives. He has built himself a nice little muskrat lodge and answers to his name. I’ve stocked the swamp with goldfish and aquatic plants.
I’m glad none of this my fault, we both agreed to go to Florida, and how was I to know that asking for more wishes was illegal?
There is no way I could’ve known. The instructions said nothing about illegal wishes.
