Category Archives: apoplanesis

Apoplanesis (a-po-plan’-e-sis): Promising to address the issue but effectively dodging it through a digression.

“How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?” This is an important line relating to the Cvil Rights movement, what I want to talk about.

I was walking down a road yesterday. It cut through to the middle of town. It was filled with potholes so deep you could lose an Amazon delivery truck in them. As I walked along, I slipped and fell into one of the potholes. There were already ten or fifteen people down there. Some of them had been there for a week and were close to starving to death. They had no cellphone reception so they couldn’t call for help. I told them to get into a pile and I would climb up on them and go get help. One of them yelled “There’s no help for us. We were pushed down here by our boss when he decided to fire us and ‘reconstitute’ the accounting firm we all work for.”

They piled up anyway and I was able to climb out.

The first thing I did was go to the police. They told me to go fu*k myself—“It’s no crime to trap people in a giant pothole. This is a personnel decision beyond the scope of the law. You need to talk to Diane Ice at ‘Clik-Clak Accounting,’ She made the decision, she can undo it.” I was doubtful, but I didn’t want to see those people die. However, they were passive and did nothing to resist being pushed in the pothole. Why didn’t they pile up and climb out on each other themselves?

I met with Ms. Ice that afternoon. She had plastic replicas of human heads decorating her office walls. It was grotesque, but so was she. She wore stainless steel funnels on her spandex top. They were positioned over her breasts like a sort of external metal bra. I didn’t dare ask her any questions. She was fondling a bayonet and she wore a patch over one eye. I thanked her profusely and ran out the door. I heard her yell “Wise decision!” as I ran for the elevator.

I rented a tow truck to pull the people out of the pothole, but as fast as they were pulled out, they jumped back in. It was insane. I gave up after a couple of hours, hopped in the tow truck, and rode away. I went back to the pothole a couple of weeks later. It was empty, but it smelled funny.

The “Pothole Incident” was the craziest thing I’ve ever dealt with, with the exception of my mother’s “Mexican Makeover.” She came back from Juarez looking like an angry, but wrinkle-free, turtle. I had warned her, but she didn’t listen. She had read the brochure and met with Dr. Scallopini. For $500.00 it was a dream come true. But it wasn’t.

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.

Apoplanesis (a-po-plan’-e-sis): Promising to address the issue but effectively dodging it through a digression.

I know how you feel, honey. You feel like you’ve been left out of my life when you’re supposed to be at the center. I can account for that and hopefully make that feeling go away.

But yesterday, when I was at the grocery store, I was overwhelmed—overwhelmed by the variety of things they sell—it surely is a literal super market. There is produce—here it is the middle of winter in Central New York, twenty degrees outside, and there are fresh vegetables: carrots, kale, lettuce, string beans, turnips, and more. And there’s fruit: oranges, apples, avocados, and more. And there’s fresh fish—salmon, cod, live lobsters, haddock, sushi, and more. There’s meat—ground beef, steaks, lamb, and more. There’s fowl—duck, turkey, chicken. Then, there’s breakfast cereal, canned and jarred everything—from baked beans to strawberry jam. There’s frozen dinners and desserts, and vegetables and meat and fish and fowl too! There’s milk, kefir, yogurt and juice too. And finally, there are aisles devoted to cleaning and paper products. I’m sure I skipped over a lot. Like I said it’s a Super Market—it’s super and it’s a market.

I thought for a little bit about the trip a fresh string bean takes from a field in Mexico to my dinner table. In Central New York. I was overcome with a feeling of gratitude to the Mexican farmers and laborers, and the truck driver who hauls the string beans for thousands of miles, sleeping in roadside rests all alone—away from home and family, potentially lonely, maybe sobbing when he pulls over to sleep in his cramped cab, maybe watching a little aTV before he drifts off to an uneasy sleep, maybe dreaming of strings beans, maybe being chased by a serial killer string bean who specializes in lonely truck drivers, tricking them into letting them into the truck’s cab saying “I fell off the truck and I’m freezing to death out here.” The naive truck driver lets the killer string bean in.

Wait—this is crazy, but it’s a dream and dreams are crazy. But, oh my God, it’s not a dream anymore. The truck driver was awake all along, but tricked into thinking he was dreaming by the string bean’s other-worldly powers. Now his eyes are wide with terror as the string bean flicks open his stilleto and slashes the truck driver’s throat. The truck driver makes a gurgling sound and dies.

The string bean pulls the truck driver’s wallet out of his pants pocket and gets his address off of his driver’s license. Now, he’s going to drive to Altoona, PA and “pay a little visit” to the truck driver’s wife. Then there’s a flash of light and the string bean turns into a living version of the murdered truck driver with all of his memories and experiences intact. He is a perfect replica of the murdered truck driver in every way.

He kicks the dead truck driver out the door, starts the truck, and heads for Altoona. He gets to Altoona and the truck driver’s wife gives him a very warm welcome, thinking he is her husband. He was deeply moved by her affection. He decided to maintain the ruse and permanently become the truck driver he had murdered.

POSTSCRIPT

These creatures are everywhere. They go unnoticed. If your husband or boyfriend comes home from a trip and seems to have changed almost imperceptibly, don’t be alarmed. Once these creatures decide to “stay on” they make a wonderful life partner—faithful, affectionate, good fathers and providers. Most of them just continue on in the murdered husband’s job.

POST-POSCRIPT

The narrator did an excellent job of evading his girlfriend’s concern by going on a digression that morphed into a far-fetched tale.

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.

Apoplanesis (a-po-plan’-e-sis): Promising to address the issue but effectively dodging it through a digression.

Is it true I had a five-year affair with my secretary along with two children, a condo and a place in the Bahamas? Whoah. Let’s back off a little bit. My wife tried to kill me last week with a handgun I gave her to protect herself with. Now, she’s in jail and there’s a bullet hole in the kitchen wall. Let me say again: my wife tried to shoot me. Thank God she’s such a bad shot, or I’d be laid out on a slab at the Coroner’s.

Given the lax safety standards, I never should’ve bought her the gun. She was becoming paranoid and wearing a holster around the house. It was disconcerting seeing her grilling chicken with a .45 strapped to her hip. She almost killed the Amazon delivery person. She was persistent in banging on our door when nobody answered. My wife pulled the .45 and was about take shot at the door when the delivery person identified herself and my wife holstered her gun with a smug look on her face. The package contained a fast-draw cowboy holster. Now, my wife began practicing her fast draw in front of a full length mirror with my picture taped on it. When I saw that, my worry really kicked in. My wife was going crazy. What could I do?

We went to see a psychologist, Dr. Fudgy. He came highly recommended. He had gotten his Doctorate on Zoom from Mt. Insight University, which is so technologically advanced that it is “Delocated.” It has no physical presence anywhere, which is good for the environment. We would meet with Dr. Fudgy one a month. The meetings were vexed. Dr. Fudgy would ask my wife how she was doing and she would spit at him and yell, “What the hell do you think Fudgy?” He would start to respond, and she would stand up and point at the ceiling and yell “See that. It’s not the floor Fudgy!” At that point, Dr. Fudgy would instruct her to put some pills in a paper bag he gave her. He called them “Whoah Nelly Pills.” He told her to take two every half-hour for the next half-hour and then take one per hour for the next hour. It was confusing, but we complied.

We got home, and my wife followed the pill-taking regime. It was getting late and she passed out on the living room floor. I checked her pulse to make sure she was alive. She was alive, but her breathing was shallow. I was thirsty, so I drove to Cliff’s and got an apple juice. I also got a slice of pepperoni pizza, and 3 Take Five scratch-off lotto tickets. When I got home my wife was sitting on the couch holding a fork up to her head. She said: “I have an itch.” Things were spinning out of control. I almost called 911, but decided not to because I couldn’t describe what was going on in a way that warranted the call.

My wife went to bed and so did I. I was hoping that the next day would be a better day. I was going to get up early and see the sunrise and listen to the birds singing. I was sure, that with time, my wife’s problems would disappear under the guidance of Dr. Fudgy. But instead, she’s in jail for attempting to murder me.

If I could think of her motive, that would help me deal with this unanticipated tragedy. I have wracked my brain. I can’t think of a reason for what she did. All I can do is send my thoughts and prayers to her jail cell.

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.