Appositio (ap-po-sit’-i-o): Addition of an adjacent, coordinate, explanatory or descriptive element.
The shower was leaking all over. Somehow the shower head had come loose and it was spraying on the ceiling and over the shower curtain onto the floor.* This “loosening” has happened every morning for a week. I keep a pair of vise-grips in the bathroom now, and retighten the shower head every morning. If I was smart, I’d tighten it before I turn it on. But I’m not smart, and my memory’s not good from playing tackle in junior varsity football. I dropped out of school in the eight grade because I couldn’t concentrate, write good, or pass tests.. I’ve been a policeman for the past five years. I was given a desk job after I shot a pigeon in the park for pooping on a bench.
But, it was the “Shower Head Mystery” that initially got me interested in police police work. I had the police investigate. They tore out my bathroom ceiling and tore up the floor boards. They found nothing. Then, they removed the toilet and sent a special waterproof camera into the hole in the floor. Nothing. They recommended that I install a surveillance camera and catch the villain on recorded video.
I went to Best Buy and bought a camera—it had color and sound, and would work in low light conditions. I set it up on the shower stall ceiling, aiming directly at the shower head. I was sure to get a good shot of the “Shower Head Vandal.” Bed time came, and I was all set. I had a baseball bat and bear spray on the floor by my bed. I was ready. I climbed into bed and conked out immediately. I got up the next morning and couldn’t wait, I checked the shower head, and sure enough, it was loose—looser than ever before. I grabbed the camera and took it downstairs to hook up to my laptop.
I got it all hooked up and hit play. My God! It was me! I was the “Shower Head Vandal.” I threw my laptop at the wall and stalked upstairs to retighten the shower head. I was at a loss about the whole thing until I went to see Madam Morning Star. She is a mystic-seer who lives down the street from me. She dealt the cards out on the table. She gazed at them for five minutes. She said: “The cards are telling me you should have your shower head welded on. Until then you will be compelled by the night spirits to loosen it. You are not crazy, you are possessed. Don’t worry, the night spirits will leave of their own accord once you’ve failed to loosen the shower head a sufficient number of times.”
I had the shower head welded onto the water pipe. Little did I know what lay ahead. I went to bed. When I awoke I walked whistling to the bathroom, certain all would be well. When I opened the bathroom door, I almost fainted: the bathroom was destroyed—the sink was shattered and lay in pieces on the floor. My towels and bath mats had been slashed and the shower stall was smashed, and the shower head was torn out of the wall and wound around the tub faucet.
I looked at the video and it was me who had destroyed my bathroom. What could I do to remedy my pathological nighttime vandalism? I went to see Madam Morning Star again. I was in tears standing on her front stoop when she opened the door. She welcomed me and invited me in. “The solution is simple,” she said. “Stop taking showers. Use hand sanitizer instead.“
I’ve been toweling down with hand sanitizer now for about a year. It is a blessing. I even have a few friends and a girlfriend too. My girlfriend wants to know why my bathroom is boarded shut, why I smell like hand sanitizer, and why she has to use the port-a-potty in my garage. I told her there is a rare toxic mold growing in my bathroom. I told her my hand sanitizer smell is the result of my precautionary interest in thwarting flus and viruses over my entire body. I told her the port-a-potty is a “fun alternative” to a flush toilet—which has been removed from my house as part of the toxic mold scare.
Some day, I will seek out a psychologist and confront the night spirits through her or him. “Why bathrooms?” I will ask.
*This story was dictated and transcribed
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Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu). Mattress jokes: upjoke.com/mattress-jokes.
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