Dilemma (di-lem’-ma): Offering to an opponent a choice between two (equally unfavorable) alternatives.
Boss: Making choices is what we’re all about. I say yes. You say no. I say maybe. You say certainly. I say, you better agree with me or I’ll kick your ass. You say, you and who else. Look, you can have your ass kicked, or find a job somewhere else. Look at me—i work out every day from 7:00-11.00. My biceps are bigger than your thighs. Your arms are like broom sticks with hinges. Mine are like tree stumps with fingers. I will pound you into the ground like a tent stake and use your head as a swivel stool. You better just run away to your mommy baby boy and hide behind that stupid baggy dress she wears all the time. There she is over there, coming our way, waving her cast iron skillet. She should be in the kitchen with that thing. She is too stupid for words.
Worker: I’m gonna fight for my job, Cold-hearted Boss. You know damn well there aren’t any jobs within a thousand miles of this place. Even though I work here, I’d rather work somewhere else—making mop handles 12 hours per day 7 days a week makes me want to puke, but it is a job. The income is meager, barely enough for my family to afford one meal per day, and a bad meal at that: a bowl of cabbage soup and a crust of bread. My children are all bowlegged and my wife is saggy and cranky all the time. Our younger son, Milo, fell off the back of a wagon and was run over and killed by Lord Helmsly’s speeding carriage—he was late for his weekly poker game. He blamed my little boy..
I learned Karate when I was in the Queen’s service stationed in Japan. It is deadly. Most likely, I will kill you with two or three blows. Or, my mother will whack you with her cast iron frying pan, leaving you with a cracked skull and dimwits. Step over here to this level ground and we shall commence our fighting.
The fight: Boss started toward the level spot to fight his worker. The worker’s mother jumped out from behind a tree, whacking Boss on the side of his head, cracking his skull and turning him into a drooling idiot. Boss became the mop handle factory mascot and would grovel for bits of candy carried by the workers in their pockets.Worker kept his job. His mother was sentenced to one month in jail for “over aggressive self defense.”
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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