Abecedarian (a-be-ce-da’-ri-an): An acrostic whose letters do not spell a word but follow the order (more or less) of the alphabet.
“A bubble colored dusk etched flowers growing hellish incidents.” I tried my best to to come up with a witty and profound abecedarian—an acrostic whose letters follow the order of the alphabet, assigned for my creative writing course. Instead, I came up with something vapid and shitty.
This creative writing class sucked. Professor “Muse” Mometer was a self-absorbed lout who thought he was God’s gift to the creative writing world. Ever since he told me I should write my poetry on toilet paper where it belonged, I wanted to do something, short of murder, to hurt him like he hurt me. The course was required in my degree program or I would’ve dropped it and gone back to living a normal life—without the hurt and humiliation.
I decided to insult him like he insulted me. I enlisted my girlfriend Barbara to stand by me and say “Yeah!” to each of my insults. For starters, he was reading one his poems to the class: “Carbon Nostril.” I yelled “That stinks!” and Barbara yelled “Yeah!” He couldn’t see who it was because his head was bowed while he was reading. He ignored me and Barbara, acting like he didn’t care. I made an appointment to see him. Barbara came with me. I sat down and yelled “That stinks! You stink! You can’t write worth a shit!” and Barbara yelled “Yeah!”
He said “Your mother’s a whore! You fu*king asshole.” I already knew that. I’d been grappling with it for years. Dad was addicted to “Smith Brothers Cough Drops,” so he was good for nothing—he laid on the couch with his breath smelling like cherrie’s and cough drop boxes littering the floor. Mom was all we had. She took wonderful care of us—fed us, clothed us, made sure we got to school. As a tribute to Mom’s loving care, my brother Eddy opened his own donut shop and was quite successful. My favorite donut was the “Sistine” modeled after the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican—God’s hand was holding a jelly donut—painted in icing on the donut’s underside.
After what he said, I wanted to really hurt him. Although it was true about my mother, he was way out of bounds saying it.
He had a cat named “Tick-Tock” that he talked about all the time. Clearly he was attached to the cat. It would hurt him to lose it. He let Tick-Tock out every day at 5:00. I kidnapped him and took him home. I renamed him Botox. Prof. Mometer was heartbroken to lose his cat. He cried in class when he talked about the cat—begging us for information. Every light pole for miles around had a “lost cat” poster on it. That was two years ago.
Mom’s still a whore and Botox is a wonderful cat. Prof. Mometer is an unpleasant memory. Barbara and I are still together—a boring couple—ha ha.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
The 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.
The Daily Trope 