Category Archives: ampliatio

Ampliatio (am’-pli-a’-ti-o): Using the name of something or someone before it has obtained that name or after the reason for that name has ceased. A form of epitheton.

They still called me Speedo, although I hadn’t worn a Speedo in 10 years. I used to love my little banana hammock. I loved to see how it affected the people who came to see me swim 1500 meters, making smoke on the water. My arms are freakishly long. They nearly reach my knees. I used to pull through the water like a porpoise. But now, I’m like a drugged manatee, swimming like I’m swimming through pudding. I can’t even reach 1500 meters without sinking and being hauled out by the life guard who each time said that is was the last time. He was getting a hernia from hauling me out. Since the end of my competitive swimming days, I had gained 145 pounds— I weighed 345. I was heavy. The manatee comparison was apt. I wore size 50 baggy swim trunks imprinted with pastel colored surfboards.

Yet, I couldn’t stay away from the community pool, no matter the fool I made of myself. One day I did a belly flop and landed next to a little kid. She almost drowned and I was nearly banned from the pool for life. You can imagine how I felt. I began to realize when people called my “Speedo” they were making fun of me. And why not? All that was left of my former glory was the key to my locker with my old Speedo hanging inside. I cried quietly as I sat on the bench, memories roiling my mind. I often thought of Jessica, my former girlfriend who was now happily married with two children. One of her children, the boy, is named Speedo after me, but her husband doesn’t get it. He’s a high school dropout who clips coupons for a living,

Jessica had recently bought me a space heater and given me a copy of the story about Jim Morrison’s electrocution in a bathtub in Paris. It was interesting, but I had no idea why she gave those things to me. I read the story several times and finally realized that Morrison had probably died when a plugged-in space heater fell in his bathtub when he was in it.

Now I got it.

Jessica wanted me to copy Jim Morrison’s death. But I didn’t have a bathtub—all I had was a shower, and besides I wasn’t sure I was ready kill myself. Although I was close—very close. Then it dawned on me that I could electrocute myself in the community swimming pool. I could hold the space heater over my head and walk to the deep end, submerging the space heater when I got there. But then, I realized that the pool was always packed with other people. I wasn’t looking for collateral damage. I would hide in the locker room until everybody left. It was awkward carrying the space heater around. I told everybody who asked that it was an Easter gift for my mother. The extension chord was a little awkward too. If anybody asked me about it I told them “Think about it!” And that was the end of that.

Everybody had left the pool. I was there all alone. I plugged in the space heater. It started glowing. This was it. I held it over my head and walked toward the deep end. Soon I would be dead, unburdened of my useless life. Damn, the extension chord was too short to reach the deep end. I climbed out of the pool and threw the space heater in. There was a rat swimming across the pool and the space heater made a direct hit. There was a flash and the smell of burning hair and the dead rat floated belly up.

Seeing the rat’s electrocution was a real inspiration. I went to Home Depot the next day and got a longer extension chord—one that would surely reach the deep end.

POST SCRIPT

He succeeded with his plan. They found him floating belly up with his eyeballs popped out. His funeral’s eulogies given by his friends were replete with swimming metaphors and the word “Speedo.” Jessica gave the most moving speech—centering untruthfully on his desire to die like his rock’ roll idol Jim Morrison.

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.

Ampliatio (am’-pli-a’-ti-o): Using the name of something or someone before it has obtained that name or after the reason for that name has ceased. A form of epitheton.

“Champ.” It pissed me off when people called me “Champ.” These were people I went to high school with 20 years ago. I never left town and I never will. I’ve been folding pizza boxes at Palermo Pizza since 2005. It was my part time job during high school and Sal kept me on full time after I graduated. I sat at a little table folding boxes. When the pile got 2 feet high, I carried them to the back and stacked them up.

When I was in high school I was the state champion wrestler all four years, and one year, I won the nationals. The trophy still sits in a showcase outside the gym. I was so good at wrestling because I have severe Dermaslide. My Dermaslide is an extremely oily skin condition. It enabled me to wiggle out of any hold my opponents could put me in. Numerous complaints were registered against me because of my skin condition. The complaints were dismissed because Dermanslide is a natural condition, like the size of your feet or the color of your eyes and can’t be used as grounds for discrimination. It was a landmark case. I went on Tv a couple of times and illustrated my “Slippery Wiggle.” More people watched the episode of the “The Tonight Show” when I wrestled Jay Leno than in the history of the show. I was famous for about a week. That’s when everybody started calling me Champ. But now, in 2025, it doesn’t fit any more.

When somebody calls me “Champ,” I get a heavy feeling in my stomach and I almost start crying. It reminds me that I’m a has-been, doomed to fold pizza boxes until I die in my little corner of Palermo Pizza. I go home at night smelling like tomato paste and mozzarella, have my free pizza for dinner with cheap Chianti, and go to bed. But that was about to change.

When I showed up for work a little while ago, Sal excitedly told me he had been contacted about placing an employee in the “The World Championship Pizza Box Folding Competition” in Naples, Italy. Sal’s brother Anthony who was “connected,” got us the slot after one of his “clients” on the Championship Board became “so inclined” to invite us. He had called us from his hospital bed.

I started training immediately. My skin condition would be an advantage—I could slide my thumb and index finger down a box’s crease lightening fast, lubricate a tab, and slide it into its slot almost invisibly!

I arrived in Naples the day of the competition, still a little jet lagged. Each competitor had to fold five boxes and carry them to a table across the stage. I was proudly wearing my Palermo Pizza t-shirt and was feeling great. It was like my old wrestling days again. Maybe I could earn the title of “Champ” once more.

Finally, I was called out of the green room and took my position on stage, sitting at the table with five flat pizza boxes. The whistle blew, and I started folding—folding like a God of tabs and slots and creases. My hands were a blur. I finished folding. The crowd went silent. I ran with my five boxes to the table at the other side of the stage, set them down and raised my arms, clasping my hands. The crowd went wild, cheering for ten minutes before I left the stage. It didn’t take the judges long to unanimously declare me “World Champion Pizza Box Folder.” I was a Champ again!

When I got back to Palermo Pizza Sal had installed a throne for me to sit on while I folded pizza boxes. He had a crown made out of a pizza box that I wore, and the trophy was parked in the pizzeria’s front window. Although the boxes had nothing to do with the quality of Sal’s pizza, nobody thought about that. Sal’s business grew. I started a sideline having patrons’ pictures taken with “Champ,” the pizza box king, on his throne. I charged $25 per picture without my autograph, and $50 with my autograph. I had a website too.

I bought a Cadillac and went to the track with Sal every Saturday. We were riding high. Between the track and selling pictures, I was becoming wealthy. I was a real champ again. I thought maybe I could meet a woman and get married. I heard there were a lot of beautiful women in Slovenia who didn’t care what kind of person you were as long as you’re American and have a lot of money. So, I took off for Slovenia.

When I got to Ljubljana Airport, after going through customs and passport control, when I emerged I saw the concourse was jammed with beautiful women holding signs reading things like “I love you now,” “Let’s have a date,” “I went to art school,” “I know Melania.”

I pushed through the crowd and boarded a cab. When I got to my hotel, it was just like the airport. When I got to my room there was a catalogue by my bed. It had hundreds of pictures of beautiful women with contact information. I opened the catalogue randomly and put my finger down. Her name was “Ema.” We got married in my hotel room two days later.

We’ve been back in the US for a year now. Ema is pregnant with twins, and I am exceedingly grateful.

Just call me “Champ!”

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.

Ampliatio (am’-pli-a’-ti-o): Using the name of something or someone before it has obtained that name or after the reason for that name has ceased. A form of epitheton.

They called him “Pot Head Pete” in the 60s. Pot was illegal everywhere, but he didn’t care. He bought his pot from a guy named Carlos who was Colombian and had connections that went all the way to the top. Pot Head would buy his dope by the pond and share it with his friends. Pot Head was from a very wealthy family. His weekly allowance was what the rest of us got in a year. In summer, we would go to his beach house at the shore and run wild on pot on the boardwalk at Seaside Heights. The “Wild Mouse” was the best ride. It ran on a course like a roller coaster. It was set up so it came to curves in the track really fast like you were going to fly off the track, but at the last second it would whip through the curve, due to clamps holding the “Mouse” on the tracks. It was scary as hell—on pot, it was even scarier. We loved it, and we loved Pot Head for his generosity. Once, he took us all to Miami Beach. We flew down and spent Christmas vacation eating like pigs, hanging out on the beach, and chasing girls, which we often caught. We illegally chartered a boat to Cuba. It was all-black and had machine guns scattered around. The Captain even let us fire one. I shot into the water and killed a porpoise by mistake. Everybody laughed. Havana was was even crazier than Miami. We were walking down the street smoking Cohibas when a guy wearing a beret came up to me and asked for a light. He said he was headed for Bolivian, and I would hear about it soon. Later, I learned he was Che. My affection for Mohitos developed on that trip. Rum and pot—a religious experience.

Now, it is 2024. Pot Head Pete is still a “head,” but not a pot head. He is head of one of the largest AI development companies in the world. The “Pot” is gone, but the “Head” remains. The first time I went to see him at work, I asked for “Pot Head Pete.” I thought he was far enough down the straight road to claim the name. He has a beautiful wife and seven children. He gives generously to charity and goes the church every Sunday. Also, pot is legal in New York. But he got edgy, and told me never to do that again.

Pot Head’s not so much fun any more. I can understand why. With all his responsibilities he has to tone it down. I, on the other hand, at the age of 78, was still running wild. I still go to Seaside Heights every year and ride the Wild Mouse, and I go to Miami too, where I have an oceanfront condo in South Beach. I am an artist. I’ve made millions and million painting portraits of rich and famous people. My last commission was Elon Musk. I was tempted to paint him with a wire up his ass, plugged into a wall socket. But instead, I painted his goofy smile.

My current commission is Pot Head!

I painted him in a dirty Greatful Dead T-shirt, with beard, ponytail, and earring. I showed to him and he pulled out a switchblade and slashed it to bits and had it burned. He handed me a picture of him in a custom tailored suit and said “Paint this shithead!” I was hurt. I squirted a tube of cyan in his face—it was acrylic so it wan’t dangerous. He punched me in the stomach and face. I stabbed him with a palette knife and that was it.

All those years. All those memorable experiences erased by my out-of-control temper. I went straight to the airport and took off for Costa Rica—no extradition. I have a beach house, a girlfriend and a machine gun. I think about Pot Head every once-in-awhile. I can’t believe he turned out to be such an asshole,

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.

Ampliatio (am’-pli-a’-ti-o): Using the name of something or someone before it has obtained that name or after the reason for that name has ceased. A form of epitheton.

Look! It’s Don Felon! If all goes well, that’s who he’ll be. Can he delay his trip to prison by playing every technicality in the book? You know like, “They didn’t give me time to shave before they arrested me.” Or, “I wasn’t even out of bed yet.” Or, “How can I understand my Miranda Rights before I’ve had a cup of coffee?” These questions don’t address the crimes alleged to have been committed. But, that’s what good lawyers are for. Trump’s lawyers almost got Jeffery Dahmer off the hook by claiming his victims wanted to be eaten—that he was being a Good Samaritan; that he never would’ve eaten them if they hadn’t asked. This line of argument worked until the judge had the jury hosed down with ice water, snapping them out of their rhetorically induced trance.

We hope Trump’s judge is prepared to hose down the jury as they’re led astray by procedural arguments ignoring questions of guilt and innocence.

Once there was a murderer who came to court with blood still on his hands—a sure sign he was guilty. At least that’s what the prosecution argued. The blood was a sign—plainly there for the jury to see. But, in the pre-DNA world of murder, there was no way of attributing blood to the victim. The defense attorneys took advantage of this. They claimed the blood on the defendant’s hands was from a chicken who had crossed the road in front of the defendant’s delivery truck. He had pulled over and picked up the squished chicken, removing it from the street, where a hungry homeless person picked it up off the sidewalk to feed his hungry family waiting in their cardboard shelter down by the river. The defense attorneys argued the blood on the defendant’s hands was left there out of respect for the chicken as a way of mourning its death and paying tribute to its memory.

As the defendant held up his bloddied hands, half the jurors wept out of pity for the chicken, and the man who had grabbed it off the sidewalk. As the prosecutor made his case, most of the jurors fell asleep. When he was done, he shook them awake and they deliberated for 3 minutes, finding the defendant not guilty and awarding him damages for unwarranted arrest and incarceration.

The prosecutor was censured for his “plodding, logical, boring sleeping potion of a case totally unsuited to the sensibilities of the jury.” He was furloughed for two months and cautioned not to spend time with academics, especially philosophy professors and social workers. He was encouraged to spend time with professional wrestlers and street gangs to develop a “fighting spirit” consistent with his position as a prosecutor. In addition, he was required to attend a Punch and Judy performance once a week. Last, he was required to practice speaking with pebbles in his mouth every day for one hour. After his furlough and training, he became a celebrated prosecutor, most famous for sending an elderly woman to the gallows who was clearly innocent, but who was found guilty due to the prosecutor’s ridicule of her limp and blue hair.

But anyway: all I know is that Trump’s attorneys’ emphasis on procedure deflects interest away from Trump’s guilt or innocence. At some point the appeals will be exhausted and TRUMP will actually be tried. Hello Don Felon!

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.