Category Archives: acrostic

Acrostic: When the first letters of successive lines are arranged either in alphabetical order (= abecedarian) or in such a way as to spell a word.

Broken promises

Anteater sandwiches

Dabbling in dump trucks

Elves in my ears

This is my acrostic. It is a word: BADE. For example: “I did as she bade me.” I always did as she bade me until I had a wake-up call. I always did her bidding without a second thought: make my bed, empty the kitty litter box, weed the garden, bathe in her unmentionables, brush her hair, paint her nails, and take her for rides in my red Radio Flyer wagon—often for miles.

I had my wake-up call in the bathtub when she put a pair of underpants on my head and told me to make mooing sounds. I complied, but later I realized making mooing sounds was pretty humiliating. I sounded like a cow! At that point I vowed to never make animal sounds because she ordered me to. From now on, she needed to give me a reason. She told me she had seen the “mooing” incident at the movies, at “Adult Wonderland” with her older brother’s friend Joey. She wanted to try it out with me. That was her reason. I asked her why she was at a porno theatre with Joey’s friend “Pan.” She said she wanted to improve her mooing skills and Pancake was helping her—they would moo in harmony. She said it was “all” for me. I didn’t believe her, but I had tried for years to get a girlfriend and she was the best I could do. So, I let it slide.

But now, I missed her bossing me around. I felt adrift on a sea of bad choices: I spray-painted my shoes instead of polishing them, I didn’t wear my mittens and lost my pointer finger due to frostbite, I shot myself in the foot, I was up to my neck in unpaid bills. I started longing for the good old days when she fed me all my decisions. I needed her back, but she had hooked up with Pan. I hadn’t even told her to get lost and she got lost. She disappeared for two days and then I saw them behind the mall with a metal detector looking for coins. I asked her if we were broken up and she said “Yes.”

Now I had to win her back. I didn’t want to cry any more. I wasn’t good at making decisions, but I dove in anyway, for love. I decided to pay her. I had just inherited $140,000 from my high school bus driver. She liked me a lot. After she dropped everybody else off, she’d take us for a ride to the state forest. Once there, I would sing “I Want to Be a Lumberjack.” That’s as far as it went. I swear!

I decided to pay my former girlfriend $10,000 to come back and live with me. It was probably a bad decision, but I was dying from her absence and an acute longing for love. She talked me up to $20,000. We’re back together! I am a happy piece of soft clay again. “Yes!” is my favorite word. I have no values or beliefs that aren’t inculcated by her. The paramount belief is “Do what your girlfriend tells you to do.”

POSTSCRIPT

He made the mistake of making his bank account a joint account with her. She cleaned it out and disappeared.

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.

Acrostic: When the first letters of successive lines are arranged either in alphabetical order (= abecedarian) or in such a way as to spell a word.

Baloney sandwiches.

Elvis records turned up loud.

Cool water on hot days.

Knocking on stranger’s doors.

Obedient soup from the microwave.

Nudge me toward delight!

I’m Jeffery and this is it! An acrostic of things that beckon me—that nudge me toward delight. Some people would include gold and caviar. Not me. I’ve devoted myself to mundane inexpensive pleasures. “Cheap thrills” is what they’re called, with the emphasis on “cheap.”

I’ve never had a glass of champagne or a Porterhouse steak. Instead, I drink “Last Tango” fortified wine. The alcohol content is close to vodka and it’s only $1.89 for a pint bottle! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve woken up in a strange place clutching an empty pint bottle of “Last Tango.” It also comes with a lanyard so you can hang the bottle around your neck. It’s the best.

As far as meat goes, I limit myself to baloney. The cheapest is “Nag’s Head.” It’s imported to the US from Argentina. You can get one pound for $2.25. It tastes like garlic-flavored fat. A bonus is the crunchy bone fragments lacing the baloney from the meat’s processing. Also, the baloney is bright pink. It gives the meat a happy aura, like pink tends to do—like one of Barbie’s dresses or a Mary Kay Cadillac.

Then, there’s cheap soup: “Brezhnev Chicken Fragments Soup.” It is delicious and it only costs .75 per fifty-ounce can! Why buy Campbell’s when Breznev’s is available on the internet? You just get on your computer and order it. It shows up a month later from Belarus, with free shipping. Mmmm. Every once in a while you get something weird in your soup, like a feather or a chicken embryo. You just fish out the feather with a sieve and leave the embryo alone—its tender little chickie body adds zest to the soup. If you want, you can pick it up with a pair of tongs and swallow it whole. Now, that’s a gourmet treat! For .75 you’d be crazy to pass it up.

What about beverages? You’ve heard of “spring” water. It is costly, and it comes out of the ground. Nobody knows where it’s been before it just “springs” out of the filthy earth or scum-covered rocks. Scammers put it in plastic bottles and sell it as healthful, when in fact, you can get measles from it and die. But yet, people take the risk and drink it. Very sad. Very sad.

I drink “roof” water. It is pure sky-borne rainwater collected fresh from downspouts across America. It tastes like a “roof”—a distinct flavor—bitter with a subtle hint of tar. Plus, it’s gluten free. It is delicious. At .35 per gallon, it is my beverage of choice. A tank truck delivers it to your own bucket at your door! Convenient.

One of the key benefits of my lifestyle is chronic diarrhea. I have a toilet paper dispenser on a strap that goes over my shoulder. I’m ready for a blow-out any time. I carry a beach umbrella that I open and hide behind when I’m “streaming” in public.

I’m five-foot eleven and I weigh 145 lbs. I’m as sleek as a salmon. I tire easily, but that’s a benefit—I go directly to bed after climbing the two flights of stairs to my apartment—you know—“Early to bed, early to rise. . .” I don’t go out much anyway—it ‘s so embarrassing to have to drag myself along the sidewalk moaning for help. Even if I’m not fit, at least I’m thin, unlike my former friends—a pack of fatsos.

Today, I discovered a cheap substitute for toothpaste! This will cap off my “skinny boy” lifestyle. There’s a guy selling it on the street. He refills empty toothpaste tubes with his brand “Barbarian Breath” which he writes on a strip of masking tape and tapes to the outside of the tube. It’s only .25! I bought five tubes!

POSTSCRIPT

Jeffery died instantly as he brushed his teeth. The man selling “Barbarian Breath” was a psychotic former dentist. The toothpaste contained super glue and cyanide.

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.