Category Archives: appositio

Appositio (ap-po-sit’-i-o): Addition of an adjacent, coordinate, explanatory or descriptive element.

I was going crazy—hearing sounds, seeing things, descending into paranoia. My hamster was talking to me, complaining about living alone in a cage and his squeaky hamster wheel and shitty brown food pellets. He wanted the expensive green organic kind that they sell in the health food section of the pet store. I was tempted to run him through the garbage disposal in the kitchen sink. He knew what I was up to and started yelling “hamstercide, hamstercide!” So, I put him in the toaster oven. Just as I was going to turn the knob to broil and send him to a gruesome death, he banged on the glass and said “I can pick stocks. You put the stock market page and the financial news in the bottom of my cage. I’ve become good at piking stocks.”

I gave him a second chance and freed him from the toaster oven. I said “Ok Mr. Stock Picker, have at it.” He crawled into his cage, looked at the newspaper and said “I’d put everything into ‘Rose Garden,’ a small company specializing in the manufacture of wooden Dixie Cup spoons. They’re located in Maine where there’s lots of wood.”

He sounded so authoritative. I invested my life savings in Rose Garden. Two days later they went out of business and my hamster had disappeared. I looked all over my house and finally found him under the living room couch snuggled up in a sock I had lost two years go. I asked him why he ruined my life. He just sat there and wiggled his nose and made his happy hamster grunting sound. I picked him up and started to strangle him when I realized he couldn’t talk—that he could never talk, that his speech had been a hallucination—a symptom of my loony hood. I couldn’t believe that I almost murdered my little hamster. Then he said to me, “That was a close call Bozo!” I resisted my desire to wring his neck, but I realized it was a hallucination. I just had to ignore him—it wasn’t real.

But he wouldn’t shut up. All day and into the night, blah, blah, blah. He talked about the weather, the New Testament, his favorite TV show—endless yapping. At first, I was interested, even though I knew I was imagining it. But I got to the point where I couldn’t stand it any more. I threw my hamster out of my third floor window. I saw him hit the sidewalk and die. Poor little thing, but it was for the best. It would help me regain some of my sanity.

It didn’t.

The talking hamster moved inside my head, even though he was dead. I started vocalizing the hamster’s inside-my-head talk. His voice became my voice. I would complain about my squeaky exercise wheel, my smelly cedar shavings, and my constipation from cheap food pellets.

After I burglarized a pet store and tried to get away with a 25 lb bag of high-end food pellets, I was arrested. It was determined that I was suffering from “mental issues.” Now, I am comfortably ensconced in “Pearly Pillow” mental institution in Topeka, Kansas. My hamster voice hasn’t gone away, but I’ve learned to live with it, “Would you care for a handful of organic handmade food pellets?”

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.

Appositio (ap-po-sit’-i-o): Addition of an adjacent, coordinate, explanatory or descriptive element.

How many ways are there to skin a cat? What kind of crazy-ass question is that? “Choo Choo waa waa” is not the answer, that is, it is the sound a train makes being pulled by a steam-powered locomotive.

These seemingly random juxtapositions shed light on the jumble of thoughts constituting consciousness. You know, and you know that you know, ad infinitum. You may say “I know. I know.” when you’re trying to console somebody. You may even say “I know, I know, I know.” When you’re commiserating. When you’re singing a song you may say “I know” ten or fifteen times. I know, I know this seems like it’s going nowhere.

Just think of the jumble of words slopping around in your head, and all the work you have to do to frame a thought—a paranoid thought, a joyous thought, a confused thought. In addition to words, there’s grammar and syntax.

By what power do we choose what to say, or what we say spontaneously without reflection. And what the hell is reflection, contemplation, consideration, meditation, that is, how the hell does it all work? I don’t know.

I used to think there is a hand in my head, dipping into the sea of words, pulling up the right one and dropping it into a sentence. But of course, this image is flawed in so many ways that I gave it up when I was 11 and pretty much stopped caring abut the whole thing. Instead, I started collecting baseball cards.

But then, I met this guy in a bar who told me that “words are beads of desire that we string on necklaces of hope.” That was two weeks ago and I still don’t get it, but I like it. I don’t know why I like it. I guess, despite any particular meaning we conjure, I guess the bead-thing aptly catches the underlying motive of all talk: hope and desire. Whether it is two scientists arguing over the composition of Mars’s surface, or a teen mother talking her baby’s father about what they’re going to do next. Hope and desire.

I went back to the bar to find the guy who had told the saying to me. I wanted more.

I asked the bartender if he knew where the guy was I was talking to a couple of weeks ago. The bartender said he was sitting right where I was sitting drinking a beer last night when he vanished. The bartender thought he had gone crazy, had his head examined that morning and assured me he was not crazy, that it had actually happened. I believed him. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. I went home.

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.

Appositio (ap-po-sit’-i-o): Addition of an adjacent, coordinate, explanatory or descriptive element.

Life was good—good as a slice of pumpkin pie. I was living the sensual life—no reins, no steering wheel, no rudder. If anything directed my trip through life it was cheesecake, chocolate candy and marshmallow fluff. I frequented soda fountains and candy stores. Sometimes I’d pop a Jolly Rancher out of nostalgia. Once in awhile I remembered my elementary school days when I started my turn toward sensuality. It was the chocolate pudding served with lunch that hooked me in sugary treats.

I inherited a fortune when I was 19. Self indulgence is not much of a feat. I have bins of candy in the basement of my mansion. The basement smells so delicious it brings tears to my eyes. Taking a page from Scrooge McDuck’s book, I swim in my candy daily—my favorite flavor to swim in is cherry—the fragrance is intoxicating.

Every morning I have a bowl of malted milk balls in heavy cream followed by two raspberry jelly donuts and a shot of Lumber Jack Joe maple syrup from my 200 acre sugar bush in northern New York. I’d set my Stairlift on full speed to get down to breakfast. It went so fast, I got butterflies, but maybe they were just in anticipation of starting another sweetened day. After breakfast my butler would help me put on my swimming trunks and help me get seated in the Jacuzzi. I would have a glass of Kool-Aid plus—my own invention with quadruple sugar and a handful of sour balls and one cup of grenadine syrup. This was the time of day when I composed poetry about my obsession and good fortune to be surrounded by sweets:

“On my tongue,

Not my lung

The red hot dollar lay

And chewed and swallowed

it would pay

My desire’s flicking flame.”

I wrote this just last week as I was wiggling my toes in the Jacuzzi. It is titled “Red Hot Dollar.” It queries he price of desire. It will be worked into the opera I am composing titled “Caked in Trouble.”

Next, my butler hauls me out of the Jacuzzi with our water-ski tow rope and ferries me off to lunch in our battery-powered “Little Roller.” I eat outside whenever I can, getting my Vitamin D and a healthy tan. A typical lunch consists of a craft made Peruvian dark chocolate bar on rye, sprinkled with chocolate flavored Jimmie’s, soaked with chocolate syrup and topped with Fluff and a dollop of peanut butter. The beverage is mango keifer blended with molasses and Red Bull. After lunch, I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven. I ride Little Roller back up to the mansion and my butler lifts me out with a tow truck crane bolted to the concrete driveway and sets me down on my feet.

Walking is difficult, but I make it to the media room. I watch “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” until it is time for dinner. With great effort I make it to the dining room. I sit on my throne at the head of the table and survey the meal set before me.

First, I notice the chocolate-covered yams. Hmmm. Then I see a small gumdrop mountain on my salad plate—bravo! Kudos to the chef. Next—a chocolate five foot replica of the White House filled with blackberry jam. I almost fainted—it combined so many edifying themes. There were other lesser dishes. One that stood out was sugar-covered wild boar jerky. We had a light desert—hills of whipped cream garnished with red M&M’s.

Time for bed with a bowl of “Carnal-Nut” ice cream and 3 packs of Little Debbie “Swiss Rolls.” They remind me of Heidi without the goats. Well, it’s been another stellar day consuming my nummie edibles! Good night!

POSTSCRIPT

Known worldwide as “The Sweetest Man,” Edward Ronka lived his life steeped in sweets. He died last week from every known malady associated with over indulgence in sweets. At 425 pounds, he was a formidable presence. Watching him consume sweets with two hands was awe inspiring, especially handfuls of candy kisses. We will miss him as a symbol of freedom from the constraints of good judgment and moderation.

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.