Category Archives: accismus

Accismus (ak-iz’-mus): A feigned refusal of that which is earnestly desired.

A billion dollars. It will make me sick—all that wealth will make me into a hippo with heart disease and pimples. I will die on a concrete floor—cold, wet, writhing with pain until “boom” my diseased heart explodes like a hand grenade in my chest. All the result of unremitting luxury borne on dollar bills—as many as I want, when I want them.

Consumption is my job, my life’s work—to spend, to buy, to possess for the sake of owning—not because I want it or need it, but because I can have it. I have three warehouses filled with crap. I own 600 hula hoops. I own 200 refrigerators. I own 1100 Roy Rogers cap pistols. I own 103,000 Rubic’s Cubes. 850 Pet Rocks. 8,000 pairs of leg warmers. 500,000 Mood Rings. 1,000,000 Pokémon Cards. 92,000 Beanie Babies. 200 Furby Toys. This is just the start.

My collecting spans the spectrum of the material world. I have ride mowers. I have jars of pickles. I have batteries. I have mayonnaise. I have extension chords. I have band aids. I have church bells. I have cologne. I have fingernails. This is where things go dark. I pay women to extract their index finger fingernails.

I have found that paying people the “right amount” of money will get you what you want. The fingernails usually cost around $5,000. The whole finger is a bit more expensive, clocking in at $8,000. After that, body parts get real expensive (not for me, but for the average person). For example, I can usually pick up a penis for $500,000. You’d think it would be even more expensive!

What’s the most expensive body part, you ask. Not the eyes or tongue or ears! Not the limbs! It’s the ass! Yes, the ass! Very few people are willing to donate their ass for any amount of money. Think about all the time you spend on your ass—at least 2/3 of your life. Without an ass you need to sit on a slab of silicone. It is hard to attract a mate—you’ll never hear “nice ass” again. The catcalls will dry up leaving you bereft of self confidence—you may purchase a prosthetic ass and go through life as an ass-imposter, being ridiculed when you bare your rubber butt. That’s why an ass costs a minimum of $1,000.000.

I only have one ass in my collection—it includes both cheeks. It was harvested for me by an addict surgeon in Atlantic City, New Jersey. I had trouble scoring him enough cocaine to do the job. Luckily, I knew some Venezuelan gangsters who could do the job. They had just docked in their six-engined speed boats, ready to deal. I filled my car’s trunk with coke and took off with my “patient” to Dr. Slitski’s. I dropped off my patient and 200 pounds of cocaine. Everything went well. I freeze dried the man’s ass and it is displayed in Warehouse Number Two in a glass showcase.

My collecting obsession is a disease—some kind of mental illness. I really don’t want to be doing it, but I can’t help it.

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.

Accismus (ak-iz’-mus): A feigned refusal of that which is earnestly desired.

“”I lifted fifteen tons, and what did I get? Another day older and deeper in debt.” That’s Tennessee Earnie Ford telling it like it was for him. He was pissed off, but he was a whiner. You’re going to get a year older no matter what you do—lift fifteen tons or jog 10 miles every day. And, if you’re going to send your kid to college, live in a decent home, or have nice new car, you’re bound to be in debt. We’re all getting a year older. We’re all in debt. We’re all human. We’re Americans. We have so much to be grateful for. In Tennessee Earnie’s case, he had the Union to help him through Black Lung disease and cross over to the other side choking on his comfy cot.

He should’ve been given this award. I’m at a loss to name it if he got it, but it wouldn’t be the award I’ve received here tonight for 25 years of unbroken service to Tramhill’s Train Wheels. I have been awarded the “Big Wheels Trophy” named after our beloved Boss, “Big Wheel” Bobby, the great-great grandson of our founder “Locomotive” Langoul who emigrated to America from France, where he had been a simple wheelwright, working on a Barouche cart assembly line in Marseilles. He arrived at Ellis Island covered with rat bites from stowing away among sacks of grain. He came down with “Rat Fever” which he recovered from by snorting the new wonder drug cocaine, and taking long hot baths in a Brooklyn whorehouse while drinking shots of anisette.

He was a great man. Unlike me.

So, let me just say: I don’t deserve this trophy. All I did was show up for work every day. As a wheel polisher, my job is not very challenging. The biggest challenge is finding a clean rag when mine has become too dirty to use any more. Sometimes I have to go so far as to return home and grab a clean T-shirt from my underwear drawer to use to polish wheels. None of this is very remarkable or worthy of this trophy. Clearly, showing up for work every day is hardly worth a Trophy! If I didn’t show up I wouldn’t get paid and I would be fired, like my friend Fred who missed three days with pneumonia and was fired, and died under a tarp on Broadway after losing his meager health benefits. But I understand: You can’t make a decent profit with a tardy or absent workforce!

I don’t deserve this trophy, but I’ll find a place for it on my mantel between my handgun—my first-class ticket out of here—and my high school graduation picture—my reminder of when I had hope.

Thank-you.

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

The Daily Trope is available 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.

Accismus (ak-iz’-mus): A feigned refusal of that which is earnestly desired.

I don’t want this. I don’t need this. I’d tell you to keep it, but I know you don’t want it either. But, for you and all the people gathered here tonight, I’ll take the piece crap so I can give my speech and get the hell home—to my empty home—my home with no wife, no children. Empty. Quiet. No smell of cooking or ceramic tile cleaner, or dish detergent. All the things that make you know you’re a person at home— not just an address on a street, but home.

I’ve worked here at “Dorian’s Tarnish” for 20 years, making new things look old in the back corner of a warehouse. Mostly, as you know, we put a patina on things that make them look and smell like antiques. Our patina-maker is a liquid I’ve been putting on a rag, and rubbing on things and breathing fumes for the past twenty years.

My hands have a rash. My eyes drip tears down my face. I walk with a cane. I have hemorrhoids the size of golf balls that swing around in my pants. But I don’t blame “Dorian’s Tarnish.” I blame myself for being afraid to leave this chicken shit job. You know: “this is America, you’ve got to have a job.” I took that admonition seriously. I could have easily been a homeless man, but I listened to my wife and stayed. Even though she encouraged me to stay, she changed her mind. She left me after 10 years, with our two kids. She ran off with a cruise liner’s events coordinator. He specializes in shuffle board, and my daughter is a world champion. My other daughter deals blackjack in the ship’s casino. I don’t want to know what my wife does. Her husband is a jerk. He takes Adderall to stay “peppy” and “jovial” for the ship’s guests. But me—here I am sucking fumes in what may be the worst job anywhere in the world. I have a persistent cough. If I cough near a flame my mucus catches on fire. I keep a Dixie cup on the sink in my work station to put out the fire with cup of water fresh from the tap.

So, the plaque says “In recognition of 20 years service.” It is hard to believe. All those years I soaked in, and breathed toxic fumes. According to my doctor, I’ve got six months to enjoy my retirement. I’m going to spend that time in a hospital bed looking out the window and looking forward to dying.

Thank-you.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)

The Daily Trope is available 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.