Category Archives: epizeuxis

Epizeuxis: Repetition of the same word, with none between, for vehemence. Synonym for palilogia.

“Dive, dive, dive you gutless wimp!” My father was working on what he called my cowardice complex that I had inherited from my grandfather. He had me perched on the top level of the playground swimming pool diving board. Well, actually there was only one level. It was one foot above the water. I stood on it trembling, fearing for my life. My little brother Beaver (named after the kid on the TV show) sneaked up behind me and pushed me off the end of the diving board. I screamed for help and an old man walked through the water over to me and told me to shut the hell up. The water was only four feet deep and more people were injured scraping their faces on the shallow bottom of the pool diving than ever drowned. In fact, in the history of the municipal playground, nobody had ever drowned. Nobody.

Yet, because I had inherited my grandfather’s cowardice I was terrified that I would inhale lung loads of water if I dove and die a hacking choking death beneath the water, or crack my skull on the pool bottom.

I did some research on my grandfather to see if I could find a remedy for my cowardly life. I found his journal which documented some of his experiences.

He “served” in the German Army in WWI. He was drafted at the war’s onset and disappeared after the swearing-in ceremony. He disguised himself as a gypsy. Gypsies were not allowed to serve in the military. He hid out in a caravan and the gypsies hid him and taught him how to make loaded dice. One day, he wandered off from the camp. When he came back the caravan had pulled up stakes and headed for a new campground. In the ultimate display of cowardice, he started crying, running around in circles, and rending his gypsy garments. After an hour, he got tired and stopped. Standing there moaning, his torn pants revealing his private parts.

A woman came by and stopped and stared at him. Looking at his torn pants, she asked him if he knew what a zucchini is. He said “No.” She said, “Your thing looks like a zucchini. You shall come live with me and my husband.” He lived in their basement for the entire war. His job was to grease up his “zucchini” three times a week and “frolic.”

In this case my grandfather’s cowardice earned him a pretty good deal—far better than being in a war. I learned that being a coward can be fun.

Then, there was changing light bulbs. My grandfather was an afraid of ladders. He would not change lightbulbs. It was dark in his house because back then women (aka his wife) were not permitted to do manly work because men were afraid that they would take over the world. Eventually, all of my grandfather’s lightbulbs burned out and it was dark in the house at night. After he fell down the stairs twice in the dark on his way to bed, my grandfather decided to do something. Candles were out of the question—they would burn the house down. He settled on miner’s hard hats with lanterns mounted on them like headlights. Having emigrated to Pennsylvania, used miner’s helmets were in abundant supply and he bought one each for his wife and three children and five more for guests. The romantic play of the lantern light on the house’s walls gave it a nightly aura of love and peace. Once again, my grandfather’s cowardice had taken him down a road toward something beneficial.

I vowed to find redemption in my cowardice. At the same time I learned that the worst thing about being a coward were the taunts and ridicule addressed by cruel idiots. So what if I didn’t rescue the baby held at gunpoint by her insane father? So what, I didn’t run into a burning building to save a puppy? So what, I or dodged the draft?

I was destined for the safety of better things as I rebounded from peril and hid or ran away.

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.

Epizeuxis: Repetition of the same word, with none between, for vehemence. Synonym for palilogia.

“Hell, hell, hell and more hell!” It was the story of my life. For as long as I can remember, nothing’s gone right. When I was two, my car seat flew out the car when my father took a curve too fast. To this day, nobody knows how the car door came open, but I think my blankie got caught in the door when my mother closed it after she loaded me in. Blankie kept the door from closing all the way. Also, my mother never buckled in my car seat. It was an accident waiting to happen. Whenever I asked her about the accident she would give me a thimbleful of gin and tell me to “Shut up and be grateful.” She did that until I was five. After that, she just hit me.

What was I supposed to be grateful for? My face had skidded across the pavement tearing off my lips, nose, and and eyebrows and leaving lines etched up and down my face like pin stripes.

I can’t afford to get my face fixed so I use Halloween wax lips and wear Groucho Marx eyebrow nose glasses. The lips make my speech incomprehensible. It’s a trade-off. The nose covers the two holes in the lump of flesh that used to be nose. The glasses are useless, but they make me look intelligent.

One of my goals in life is to have cosmetic surgery. I save every penny I can working at the car wash. I’m still trying to collect from Dad’s insurance company, but whenever I contact them, there is a mechanical voice that says “Negligence, negligence, negligence. You are ineligible to file a claim. Cease calling. Claim closed.”

Last week I tried to have a little fun. I went to the beach. I was trying to get a tan and my lips melted in the sun. They dripped down my chin. I was so embarrassed I ripped them off and peeled the wax off my chin. A woman walking by looked down at me and screamed at my lipless mouth. A crowd gathered around me. Some fat guy got in my face and said “We don’t like your kind around here.” I asked what my “kind” is. He said “Freak.” That did it. I put my backup paper bag over my head and ran to the bus stop in my bathing suit and flip-flops, leaving behind my blanket and cooler.

There. That’s just two examples of the hell of my life. There are hundreds more, but I don’t pity myself. One day I’ll be repaired and able to face whatever comes my way. Maybe somebody will love me.

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.

Epizeuxis: Repetition of the same word, with none between, for vehemence. Synonym for palilogia.

“Take me the fu*k home! I want to go home RIGHT NOW!”

She wasn’t having a good time. She was tied up and blindfolded and stuffed in his car’s trunk. You should’ve gagged her so she wouldn’t upset you with her yelling.

You met her at church. You sat next to each other. You sang hymns together: “Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty” was your favorite. You often feel almighty when you’re on a “dupe date” with somebody. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to get somebody in your car’s trunk. You say, “Wait a minute” and pull over. You jump out and open the trunk. Your date is curious and bends over to look in the trunk. You give her a little shove and you bagged another one. Before they know what’s going on you inject a sedative in their butt, blindfold them, tie them up, and slam the trunk shut.

Now, the date begins.

You drive around for awhile listening to their muffled screams and their flopping around. They all remind you of your sister who you accidentally decapitated when you were kids. Your Uncle Harry had brought you back a machete from Malaysia where he had worked on a rubber plantation. Your Mom said it was a bad idea, but Uncle Harry assured her that you were a well-balanced young man who would probably just hang it on his bedroom wall as a souvenir. Uncle Harry was wrong. You chased your sister around the house with it swinging it over your head, until finally, you tripped on the hallway carpet and lopped off her head. Since you were a child you were not charged with a crime.

Two months later your copy of “Boys Life” magazine featured a taxidermist who decapitated dead animals and mounted their heads on wooden plaques. You felt vindicated. You made a squirrel trap, caught squirrels, decapitated them, and nailed their heads to pieces of wood. You made ten of them and took them to the Farmer’s Market to sell for $59.95 each. Your stand was called “Dead Squirrel/Good Squirrel.” The Game Warden was summoned. He complimented you on your craftsmanship and bought two—one for his father and one for himself. This further affirmed that you were doing something good. A Game Warden! Your mounted squirrel heads sold out. Dead Squirrel/Good Squirrel was a hit! People had all kinds of reasons for buying them. Your favorite was the guy whose brother owed him money. He was going to put the squirrel’s head on his brother’s pillow to scare him into paying up.

Anyway, as you got older the squirrels’ heads and your sister’s head got mixed up in your mind. You started decapitating women and mounting their heads on boards. Tonight, you were shit out of luck. Your trunk prisoner was able to get ahold of her switchblade and cut her bonds and take off the blindfold. She got her cellphone out of her jeans and called 911. Her friends told her she was paranoid, but she carried bear spray anyway. She had it in her hand and she was ready to spray the living shit out of the guy who had kidnapped her.

And there you were machete in hand, opening the trunk and getting soaked in the face with bear spray. The pain was deathly—you were repelled and ran to get away and ran into a tree and knocked yourself out. The woman stood on your throat until the police arrived. You were crying as they handcuffed you and guided you into one of the waiting police cars.

You are considered a serial killer. There were 6 heads hanging in your garage and another one on your workbench in the process of being mounted.

Of course, you’ll plead insanity and try to get sentenced to a mental institution. But that won’t work. You kept a diary that is lucid and meticulously records the details of each of your murders and shows how all the murders were premeditated.

You are a monster—how could you sing “Holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty” with a woman in church while at the same time planning to decapitate and mount her head? Maybe your Uncle Harry is somehow to blame for giving you the machete in the first place. He’s back in Malaysia serving time for stealing buka balls and putting wigs on them.

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.

Epizeuxis: Repetition of the same word, with none between, for vehemence. Synonym for palilogia.

“Hope, hope, hope,” that’s what my friend Lyle yelled every time we took off for the Passaic River. We were ten years old and we had watched too much “Sgt. Preston of the Yukon, and His Faithful Husky King” on Saturday morning TV. I started calling my beagle King. His real name was Checkers, but he didn’t care.

Lyle and I had decided we should be gold miners like everybody on “Sgt. Preston.” The Passaic River ran past a golf course near where we lived. We took pie pans from our mothers’ kitchen cupboards. We practiced with the pie pans in my bathtub using marbles for gold nuggets. We got pretty good. The next day I hid my pie pan under my shirt, and my sock to hold nuggets in my back pocket, and headed for the door. My mother said from her chair, “Stop!” I thought I was caught, but she just wanted to give me a hug.

I rode my bike and met Lyle at the caddy shack and we took off across the street to the river. The banks were too high to pan, so we walked along the bank looking for a low spot. We walked past rusted shopping carts, a baby crib, a rotted mattress, and a lawn spreader. What a mess.

Then, we came to a low spot. It was sandy. We dug in our pie pans and swished the river water around. We did that for a half-hour to no avail when I hit something that looked like canvas. I pulled it out of the sand and rinsed it off. I instantly knew what it was! A mail pouch just like the one Sgt. Preston carried to Moosejaw once a week. Then, I noticed it said “Madison National Bank” across the front. On the back it said in big red letters “DEPOSITS.” The pouch was locked.

I pulled out my switchblade and flicked it open. It was illegal, but I carried it out of respect for my grandfather who had given it to me a couple of weeks ago on my tenth birthday. I slit open the pouch and a black balaclava fell out along with a little .25 auto pistol. I was elated! Now I could hunt squirrels in the woods behind my school!

But then! Bonanza! Money started falling out. $100 dollar bills wrapped in bands saying $20,000. We were rich. Neither of us had a backpack. So, we split the money and stuffed it into our shirts, our waistbands, our socks, our Yankees hats, and our underpants. I put the pistol in my nugget sock and tied it to one of my belt loops. I threw the balaclava into the river.

We could hardly walk, but we didn’t care. We yelled “Rich, rich, rich, we’re fu*kin’ rich!”

We walked our bikes out of the woods, waddling with our loads. There was a black Cadillac parked sideways at the head of the trail. The back window went down. It was Big Al whose “Sporting Good” store sold dynamite, fully automatic weapons, hand grenades, LAWs, silencers and switchblade knives along with fishing lures, worms, shotguns, rifles, fishing poles and reels, and ammo.

Big Al looked directly at me and said, “I think you have something that belongs to me.” I almost shit my pants, but I held it for the sake of the money stored in my underpants. “What?” I asked. Big Al asked me if my grandfather had given me a switchblade for my birthday. I said “Yes.” “That old fu*k stole it from my store. Give it back now and Melee won’t slice you up into little meat cubes with his machete.” Big Al said with a smile. With great care I fished out the knife and waddled over to the Cadillac and handed it back to Big Al. “You better do something about that crotch rash” he said as he rolled up his window, Melee drove them away.

Lyle and I were elated. We did it. In great pain we rode our bikes home. I waddled in the front door and Mom asked if I was ok. I told her I was fine and crawled up the stairs to my bedroom. I unpacked my self, throwing the money on my bed. The pile was high. I didn’t want to count it.

I got a safe deposit box at the bank. It was New Jersey, so there were no questions. All I needed to do was sign a signature card. I rented two of the biggest boxes. I wrapped the money in a blanket and put it in my wagon and pulled it back to the bank. I was given a private room where I stuffed the money in the two boxes.

I was home safe. When I was old enough to drive, I bought a red Thunderbird for cash. I paid my college tuition in cash. I’ve funded a revival of “Sgt. Preston of the Yukon.” The only differences from the old show are that the sled dog King was replaced by a snowmobile, and Sgt. Preston is bipolar.

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.

Epizeuxis: Repetition of the same word, with none between, for vehemence. Synonym for palilogia.

“Help, help, help!” It was 2:00 a.m. It was my goddamn parrot Larry. He was crying for help, so I had to check and see what was wrong. As usual, it was a false alarm. His seed dish was empty and he was pecking at it and crying “Help!”

I had inherited Larry from my Aunt Lana and I would inherit $500,000 if I took care of Larry for five years, or if Larry died of natural causes before the five years had passed. My aunt had died the previous week in a mysterious poisoning incident. Everybody joked that it was probably Larry who killed her. She and Larry had a notoriously bad relationship ever since she had bought him at an estate auction of Zippy Williams’s worldly goods.

Williams was found dead on his kitchen floor, his throat cut by a cuttlebone—the sharp internal bone of a Cuttlefish. Cuttlebones are often given to birds as a source of calcium, and also, to sharpen their beaks with. Everybody laughed and joked about Larry being Zippy’s killer.

Zippy had been paroled after spending ten years in prison for feeding his wife to a wood chipper. He claimed it was an accident, that she had gotten sucked into the chipper when she was looking for a missing erring. Her hair got caught in the chipper, and that was the end of that.

One of the terms of Zippy’s parole was that he obtain a pet and “learn how to nurture and love it.” That’s where Larry came in. His previous owner was an EMT who had fallen out of his kitchen window and died. Larry learned how to mimic the obnoxious “wee-wah” sound of his owner’s emergency alert box, and also to say “Help, help, help” like his owner yelled when he would frequently get up in the middle of the night and run out the door to an emergency.

Clearly, Larry had a checkered past.

Now, Larry was mine and I didn’t know what to do with him. His midnight antics were making me crazy.

Thanksgiving was just around the corner. Maybe I could pass Larry off as a small turkey and eat hm for Thanksgiving dinner. Only my girlfriend would be coming over. It might work.

First, I had to take off his head. I got out my biggest kitchen knife and headed for his cage. He knew what was up and he started yelling help. He got around my knife-hand and flew out of his cage, still yelling help. I dropped the knife, realizing it wouldn’t look like natural causes if I cut his head off.

He flew to the top of the bookcase and pulled what looked like a vitamin capsule out of the basket on top of it. He flew at me and shoved the capsule in my open mouth, dug his talons into my cheeks and flapped his wings until I swallowed it.

Almost immediately I saw colors and little men climbing my living rom walls yelling obscenities over their shoulders.

There was pounding on my front door. It was the police! The policeman told me that “Somebody called 911 from this address yelling “Help!” I told him it was my bird (who had gone silent when the police arrived). Then I asked if he was the Atman or the walrus and told him he better take care of the unpleasant little men climbing my walls.

Somehow, Larry was able to make a small cut over his eye. I was arrested and charged with animal cruelty and put under observation for “bizarre statements and paranoid delusions.”

Larry was sent to Florida to a place called “Parrot Kingdom.” I have heard he performs segments from the second act of “Don Giovanni” for the “Parrot Kingdom” tourists.

“Parrot Kingdom” has received the $500,000 from my Aunt Lara’s estate.

I will never know where the drug capsule came from that Larry shoved in my mouth. I suspect he had it hidden under his wing when he moved into my house from Aunt Lara’s. But, where did it come from? Maybe Aunt Lara was a fan of psychedelics? She often talked about attending “Woodstock” and how she was Peter Max’s mistress for a week. She made macrame plant hangers, tea cozies, mittens, balaclavas, and coasters for a living, and sold them on her Etsy site “Knot Now.”

I am homeless now and I owe it all to Larry. I have often thought of hitch-hiking to Florida and killing him.

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.

Epizeuxis: Repetition of the same word, with none between, for vehemence. Synonym for palilogia.

“Dive, dive, dive!” We were playing submarine in my father’s car parked in the driveway. It was wrong. My father would go crazy if he found out. We were ten years old. Sadly none of us could drive. I was behind the wheel anyway. My First Mate, Carl Brucke was at the navigator’s hatch and Sally Darbin and Phil Jazzowski were in the observation turret keeping a lookout for enemy subs behind us.

We were a tight-knit crew—undersea most of the time prowling for targets. So far, we had destroyed 12 enemy subs, 4 oil tankers, and by mistake, one cruise ship on the way to some Dutch colony in the Caribbean.

“Whale, whale, whale!” I had spotted a whale and steered around it. Actually, it was my mother. She was overweight and I couldn’t help calling her a whale. It wasn’t meant to be an insult.

She was running across the yard holding an envelope. She yelled, “Micky (I was Micky) it came, it came, it came!” I opened the porthole and grabbed the envelope. 4 months ago, on my 10th birthday, I had applied for a Junior Internship at “Big Bells Diving Bells,” a company specializing in the construction of underwater exploration craft. The company was owned and operated by “Sea Skate” Maloney and his 15 children. He had been married 9 times, one lasting only 20 minutes.

The Junior internship was designed for “aspiring diving bell builders” and lasted for two months in the summer. It was unpaid, and given my age, I had to secure a special work permit from the state of Florida, where Big Bells was located.

I was packed and ready to go. My father loaned me the $75 for the bus ticket to St. Augustine. At the last minute, I kept the $75 and hitched to Florida. My first ride took me all the way. She had run over her cat in her driveway and was on her way to Miami to commit suicide due to her grief. I talked her out of it. I read about her years later. She had become a notorious cat lady in Miami, taking care of 57 cats in her South Beach condo.

I arrived at Big Bells and introduced myself to Sea Skate and his family. They showed me to my “room” which was actually a derelict diving bell with a mattresses on the floor.

My job was “leak and air inspector.” When a bell was finished, but not certified yet, they’d lower me down 200 feet. I loved it. I would carefully check for leaks and make sure I was breathing ok. Inevitably there was something wrong. Once, I was up to my neck in water when they finally hauled me up. The last straw was in August when I passed out due to a lack of air. By the time I was hauled up I was almost dead. I was taken to the Emergency Room where I called my parents. With great difficulty, I talked to my dad and he told me he really couldn’t understand me, but. I’d have to wait until September 1st because he had rented out my room to a “college girl.”

The doctor told me the oxygen deprivation had killed a number of my brain cells. It should affect my speech and motor skills for the next couple of months as the cells grew back. I said, “Shanks for legging me know.” He said the bill for my stay had been sent to my parents, who probably had insurance.

Sea Skate was nowhere to be found and Big Bells was closed and shuttered. I had $26 to my name. I decided if I walked home from Florida, I’d get there around September 1st.

Word spread of the “brain damaged boy” walking from Florida to Wayne, New Jersey. I had a small motorcade following me. I affected a slight limp and was interviewed by ABC News. I told them my story.

Subsequently, Sea Skate and his family were arrested for “malignant neglect” of a child. Big Bells was sold to a Chinese holding company. People threw money out of their car windows as they drove by, yelling things like “God bless you” and “Get Well.” I would yell “Shank you. I yam gravel.” (Thank you. I am grateful).

I got home a day early and walked in the front door. To my horror, dad and the college girl were dragging mom’s corpse across the the kitchen floor. Dad said, “Son you’re a day early. I didn’t think you’d be back until tomorrow.” They looked pretty tired, so I offered to help. Dad told me mom had tried stab him, so he shot her the first chance he got. He and the college girl were going to collect mom’s insurance and take off to Ohio or Arizona. We dumped mom in a landfill, and I called the police. I should’ve called earlier, but I was in schock.

I netted $500,000 on my “Walk to Wayne.” There’s going to be a movie made. Jason Winslow the child actor will star, playing me. The movie’s title is “The Brain Damaged Boy.” Jeff Birdcage will play my father and Jeff Goldloon will play Sea Skate. Meryl Street will play my mother and Hilary Swink will play the College Girl.

This has been a crazy year. My Aunt Barbara has been named my guardian and we’re still living in my old house. I bought a Maserati. I am looking forward to playing submarine in it in the driveway with my friends.

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.

Epizeuxis: Repetition of the same word, with none between, for vehemence. Synonym for palilogia.

“Boing, boing, boing, boing, boing.” My blind date said. We were sitting in an aluminum clad diner on Rte. 22 outside Elizabeth, NJ, where I had been shot by an asshole with a zip gun at a birthday party at the Polish Community Center 2 years ago. He got me in the hand with a .22. It didn’t even go through my hand. I pulled out the bullet and beat him senseless. We dragged him into the men’s room and stuck the gun up his ass. I was 16. I was ruthless. I had a reputation. Nobody fu*ked with me.

Now I was 18 and I was sitting across from some crazy-assed girl that I had never met before. I said “Boing, boing” back to her. She looked disappointed. Maybe it was because I just did two boings instead five she had done. I asked if she was disappointed and she shook her head no and smiled. I figured if I just asked her yes and no questions then she could nod or shake her head to, we could have a pretty good time. I started.

“Are you from Elizabeth?” I got a yes shake. “Do you want a Coke?” I got another yes shake. “Do you like me?” Something new: I got a shrug. I was disappointed, but, I kept going. “What do you like to do?” The second I opened my mouth, I knew I had screwed up. She started going “boing.” When she got to ten, I told her to shut the hell up. She looked hurt and stopped boinging. I apologized. She said it was ok—she couldn’t control the boinging, then she started boinging. I just sat back and listened. She stopped on her own after 26 boings. I wanted to take home and say good night. She slid a piece of paper across the table. It said “I know a place under the Goethals Bridge.” So did I—it was a notorious make-out place. I said, Let’s go.” We got there and it was packed with cars rocking back and forth. We kissed and she went “boing, boing, boing, boing.” People rolled down their car windows and were yelling “Boing, boing, it’s Lady boing, boing.” I told her I didn’t care. I liked her boings and all. That’s what she needed to hear. She instantly stopped boinging. She was so bright and had so much to offer. I gave here my skull jaw-breaker ring and she’s wearing it around her neck. We’re going steady. Who knows where we’ll end up. Whenever I think of her, my heart goes boing, boing, boing.

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.