Category Archives: apocope

Apocope (a-pok’-o-pe): Omitting a letter or syllable at the end of a word. A kind of metaplasm.

I’m goin’ crazy. My world is comin’ apart. Yesterday, I had a conversation with my dog Buffer. He wanted to tell me how shitty his dog food is. I told him I get it from Dollar General and it’s only a year past the sell by date. There’s a nice picture of a smiling golden retriever on the bag. It’s red though. It makes his poops red and even though I scoop them right up, they embarrass him. God. What a pain in the ass.

After I got done with Buffer, I took a look in the mirror before I went grocery shopping. What I saw scared the hell outta’ me. My face had turned into 6-inch wide lid from an olive jar. All the writing was backward, but I was pretty sure they were Mezzetta brand Italian olives. I used them in my tuna and egg salad sandwiches, but I never imagined their lid would replace my head. But now, as a certified psycho, I was used to having these kinds of experiences. The shock quickly wore off and I just walked away to take the bus to the grocery store,

I got on the bus. An elderly woman looked at me and screamed and passed out. I looked at my reflection in the bus window, and holy hell, my head was the lid of an olive jar. The passengers were all cowering and begging me not to kill them. I tried to assure them I would not kill them, but I spoke in Italian and they couldn’t understand me. Next, there was a voice outside the bus. It was a policeman with a bullhorn: “Everybody off the bus with the exception of Lidhead. Lidhead, put your hands up and don’t move.” I had an itch on my butt. I scratched it and he shot me in the lid. Scratching my butt was considered moving. I found out the hard way.

But, I woke up. It was all a dream! I ran into the bathroom to look in the mirror. Now, my head was a yellow golf ball with a permanent smiley face and crossed eyes. I smashed the mirror with my shoe and ran downstairs to talk to Buffer about what to do. He said he liked my Scottish accent and recommended I get a job in the pro shop at Green Meadows Golf Course. I followed his advice. I am doing well. I had surgery on my crossed eyes and now I drive a golf cart and caddy for some of our celebrity clients like Donald Trump, who screamed like a little girl when we first met. He denies it, and I don’t care.

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.

Apocope (a-pok’-o-pe): Omitting a letter or syllable at the end of a word. A kind of metaplasm.

Don’t tell me what life is all about! You goddamn punk. I’ve seen it all. I’m writin’ my own bio: The Man Who Finished High School in Six Years. It’s about how I stayed back and ended up with 3-times as much knowledge as the average person, and also, I could climb ropes and play dodgeball. I was known as “Killer” because I killed one of my classmates in a tragic accident. It was shop class. I was working away on a wood carving of a pole dancer. I had fitted her with a brass pole. My classmate was bent over to see if I had put nipples on the dancer’s breasts. My shop teacher “Four Fingers” Rutlow, had forbidden me from doing that. I went ahead and did it anyway, for authenticity’s sake. I was sure my classmate would rat me out. I was coming up behind him to discuss what he was doing. I slipped on a wood shaving and fell on him from behind. I put out my hand to cushion my fall, and it ended up on the back of his head, pushing the pole dancer’s pole into his eye, and penetrating his brain. He died on his way to the hospital. In the commotion I was able to slip my wood carving into my back pack, and bring it home where it sits on my dresser in my bedroom. It was a scary event. I almost lost my woodcarving.

Five years later I was broke and needed to pay my rent. The only thing I owned was my pole-dancer carving. So, I pawned it for $25.00 which wasn’t even enough for groceries. I was getting ready to walk out into traffic when I got a text message from the pawn shop. Salvatore Namanara, the famous porn producer, had been shopping for porn-movie clothing when he saw my pole dancer carving. He wanted to meet. I texted Mr. Namanara and we agreed to meet at a seedy motel the next day. Things were turning around.

Each year the porn industry awards statuettes for different accomplishments, like having sex in a dumpster, or a Rhode Island-sized sex orgy. Mr. Namanara wanted me to carve the statuettes for the next year’s award ceremony. I stood to make $140,000! I went from being a loser to being a winner in a one-hour lunch meeting. Mr. Namanara had brought a contract for me to sign. I signed it.

I love carving the statuettes so much I even made one of Mr. Namanara. He cried when I give it to him. It depicted him sitting on top of a pile of gold bars masturbating. After I gave it to him, he kept it on his desk, which netted me additional commissions from his cronies who saw it and loved my work.

Eventually, people started collecting my works. I had an exhibition in New York called “Eros in Wood.” Many people have asked me why I don’t steer away from the “dirty” statuettes and carve pets, and families, and things like that. I tell them “Fu*k off. I love what I do.” I had become arrogant and it made me even more popular. I was invited to the White House. The President commissioned a statue of Andrew Jackson, nude, with what he called a “Populist Hard-on.” I started getting commissions from world leaders. It was crazy. Russia: Karl Marx in a threesome. UK: Oliver Cromwell being spanked. USA: Richard Nixon at a glory hole. The statuette has a digital recording embedded in the base. When you press the little red button it says “I’m not a crook” in Nixon’s voice.

I am a billionaire. I have commissions running to the probable end of my life. I have built my reputation and fortune on smut & luck, and my skill as a wood carver. I am grateful to my shop teacher who let me do woodcarving instead of making lamps, and coffee tables, and book cases. Out of gratitude I am carving a life sized statue of my home town’s namesake, James Madison, squeezing his wife Dolly’s boobs.

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.

Apocope (a-pok’-o-pe): Omitting a letter or syllable at the end of a word. A kind of metaplasm.

I’m in trouble. It’s my babe. It’s my hair. I can’t sleep. My brain goin’ jangle— like a radiator heating up in the morning. Maybe “clank” is a better approximation of my brain’s sound. It’s not my head, but I swear other people can hear it. They look at me and cock their heads, like dogs do when they think they hear something. Of course, my brain’s clanking is there to make a single irrevocable point: My girlfriend left me. I’m going bald. I think that’s why she left me.

Toward the end she’d pick up my fallen hairs from the floor. She would roll a hair between her fingers and say “Hair today, gone tomorrow.” Or, “Ridin’ that train, high on Rogaine.” “Hair is not the play for you.” Then there’s the jokes: “I first noticed I was going bald when it took longer and longer to wash my face.”

I should’ve see it coming. She was beyond cruel. I don’t know why I stuck around as long as I did. I think I was in this thing called denial. I’m not an expert on denial, but I think it means you deny things. I denied everything about her. For two lost years, I denied that she was too beautiful to have a relationship with a balding boring accountant. I denied she was too smart for me. She is an aeronautical engineer and designed ballistic missiles for the government. Her largest feat is a missile that can hit a person in the eye from 20,000 miles away. I couldn’t even make a wastepaper basket basket with a crumpled up piece of paper from 2 feet away.

I’ve thought about committing Harry Carry— I’m trying to put a cheerful face on leaving this incarnation by punning. But my puns stink.

My x-girlfriend just called! She wants to get together and brainstorm because things are getting “pretty hairy” at work. She showed up around nine.

I answered the door and there she was. She pulled a rag out of her jacket and started polishing my head. At that point I came to the conclusion that she was a sadist. She started crying, and she pulled a toupee out of her pocket. She very carefully positioned it on my head and gave me big romantic kiss and told me she loved me. She told me when we first met she was neither “hair nor there.” But, since we’ve been separated she has “trimmed” her ambivalence down to nothing. She is sure it’s love.

I’m not so sure. I don’t understand her, and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’ll see where it goes. In the meantime, we’ll “curl” up on the couch and watch another episode of “The Brady Bunch.”

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.