Category Archives: homoioteleuton

Homoioteleuton

Homoioteleuton (ho-mee-o-te-loot’-on): Similarity of endings of adjacent or parallel words.


NOTES FOUND IN A BANK VAULT

The door swung open, and I was finished coping, remaining calm and affecting aplomb in the face of the collective rancor of my employees. It was Christmas Day and they were working as I had dictated. But now, they had decided to give me a chance to let them go home. Rob Ratchet stepped out in front of the mob. He was a commie sympathizer who actually believed that employees had “rights.” “Let us be with our families on Christmas Day,” he whined. The mass of losers behind him started chanting “family at Christmas, family at Christmas,” inching toward me with clenched fists. I called my pal Elon and asked him what to do. He said “Fire them all Scooge. They’re all commies. They’ll pick your pockets and set up a day care center. The next thing you know, you’ll lose a billion dollars and look like fool. Marla will never marry a weak man!”

They were coming toward me arm-in-arm, still chanting. “Go ahead and ruin your lives you fools. You’re all fired!” I yelled as I locked myself in the bank’s vault. I would be safe and I would hire new employees the next day. There were plenty of spare unemployed people around who I could scoop up for $5.00 per day. Maybe this incident could benefit me. The profit margin would increase. I would be richer. Soon I would purchase a Tesla from my buddy Elon, at a “Good Friend” 25% discount.

It sounded like things had quieted down outside. I put my ear to the vault’s door—nothing. It was time to go. I tried 10 different combinations, but none of them worked, in fact, on my 12th try, the vault made a beeping sound and clicked loudly. It was the security override that rendered the lock inoperable for three days. I picked up the receiver to the emergency phone, and it was dead. I knew it was that damn commie Ratchet who had knocked it out. My cell phone wouldn’t work either—another regrettable security decision. There was nothing I could do except wait for three days, but even if I did, if I couldn’t remember the combination, I was still screwed. Fat chance, that Ratchet would let me out. I had fired him on Christmas Day. I never should’ve listened to Musk. He’s a monster. Then, I yelled “Let me the hell out of here!”

There was a flash of light and a loud farting sound that lasted a full 15-seconds. A live garden gnome about 7-feet tall suddenly appeared. I am Gil, your guardian garden gnome. I can knock down that door with one big gnome kick. I started crying and said “yes, yes, oh please, yes!” The gnome asked, “Do you know the sickly teller Tiny Slim? He will die without a job and the health insurance benefit it affords. He, like all your workers need a 25% pay raise just to properly feed, house and clothe their families.” I was adamant: “No, no, no! I am a man of business, not a clergyman!” The giant garden gnome disappeared with a lengthy fart and a flash of light. Somebody will save me, I thought.

Nobody did.

POSTSCRIPT

After complaints from customers, the bank was reopened, so was the vault. It had to be opened by 3 shaped charges of C-4. When the door blew open Scooge’s rotting corpse raised a smell. It prompted the emergency team to return to their truck for gas masks. When they got back to the vault, they rolled Scooge over. They were surprised to see a handful of 100 dollar bills hanging from his mouth. Evidently, starving, he tried to eat the money and choked to death on it.


Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)

Selections from The Daily Trope are available as a book under the title of The Book of Tropes.

Homoioteleuton

Homoioteleuton (ho-mee-o-te-loot’-on): Similarity of endings of adjacent or parallel words.


Life was so different without my wife. We had been together for 33 years. We had just celebrated our anniversary. I had given her an apron with a picture of Benny Hill on it. She loved Benny Hill, and seemed to love the apron. She had recently begun to smoke. It was no joke: she was smoking a pack of Marlboro 27s every day. Even though I had given her a new apron, she started making frozen dinners in the microwave. She knew I hated them. Like a fool, I wrote it all off, as she was trying new things—frozen dinners and cigarettes. “What next?” I thought as I got ready for bed. In the spot where she usually slept by me, there was a coiled up garden hose. I called to her and she yelled back “Shut up, I’m sleeping in the garage.” The door slammed shut. Now, I was worried. The next morning I went down to the garage to talk to her. There was a note scrawled in pencil on a piece of paper on my lawnmower’s seat: “Trouble is double when there are two. Two minds. Two directions. Two lives. After capitulating for 33 years, I have seen the light. His name is Cramwell Stricter. I have joined the Sunshine Mountain Collective where Cramwell is the treasurer-in-chief. Stay out of my life.” Well, that was the end of my wife.

I sat in my big living room chair to think and decide what to do next. I was elated that she left me. The past 20 years had been like living in a drainage ditch with a ill-tempered rat. I decided to go onto a dating site. I chose “Match Catch,” a site for people over 60. Their tag line is “We’ll find you somebody to spend your Social Security check on.” I was ready for that. I got an immediate response from a woman named “Tik-Tok Terry.” She lived in the next town over and wanted to come to my home that evening. I agreed on 8.00 pm. The doorbell rang right on the dot. I opened the door and nearly passed out. There was a woman in her sixties dressed like a cheerleader. She started cheering: “You are home, you’ve no place to roam. I’m at your door to give you more—to tease you and please you with my Tik-Tok dance, and possibly some romance.” I thought I must be hallucinating. I slammed the door and hid in the basement. I could hear her yelling obscenities on the front porch. It quieted down. I went back upstairs and opened the front door a crack. She was still there! She started with her Tik-Tok dance again. That was it! I opened the front door to push her off the porch, but she lunged at me. She had a knife. She slashed the back of my hand and ran away. I called the police and they showed up about a half-hour later. I looked a wreck and they asked me if I wanted to try counseling to deal with the incident. I nodded my head. The police officer gave me a card with contact information. The counselor’s name was Cramwell Stricter. I started to cry, tore up the card and asked the night “Why does life have to be so hard? I need a drink. I need to think.”

After ten minutes of deep thought, I went online and bought a plane ticket to Belize. I was going to get tattoos and run wild in the jungle. Then my doorbell rang. The obscenities started. A shotgun blast blew a six-inch hole in my door. I ran out the back door, jumped in my car and drove to the airport. My flight left at 6:30 the next morning. I would spend the night in the airport. What could go wrong?


Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)

Selections from The Daily Trope are available as a book under the title of The Book of Tropes.

Homoioteleuton

Homoioteleuton (ho-mee-o-te-loot’-on): Similarity of endings of adjacent or parallel words.


I was a Dead Head in the 60’s. I was a travel-all-over rover, driving my green and white VW bus everywhere the Grateful Dead was appearing. It was a big pot-smoking acid-dropping family.

If I hadn’t had my trust fund to draw on, I couldn’t have been a Dead Head. The drugs alone cost bundle, especially since I gave a lot away, mainly to hot looking hippie chicks who showed their gratitude in many splendored ways.

The weirdest thing that happened was at a Dead event in Kentucky. I took a hit off a joint, and looked up, and bam, there was Al Gore standing in front of me in a pair of jungle fatigues singing along with the Dead’s “Box of Rain.” I didn’t know who he was at the time. I found out years later when he went into politics.

We smoked the rest of my joint together. We talked, and he did almost all the talking. I don’t remember what we talked about, but after that conversation I decided to go back home, go to college, and go into finance.


Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)

Selections from The Daily Trope are available as a book under the title of The Book of Tropes.

Homoioteleuton

Homoioteleuton (ho-mee-o-te-loot’-on): Similarity of endings of adjacent or parallel words.

I left my watch on the dresser alongside of my bed. What was going through my head? Here I am without doubt about where I left it, but without a clue to when I can get home to retrieve it.

I guess “mess” is too strong a word to describe what it is for me to be watchless.

Anyway, my cellphone gives me the time of day! That’s more than I can say for my colleagues here at the office.

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Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)

Homoioteleuton

Homoioteleuton (ho-mee-o-te-loot’-on): Similarity of endings of adjacent or parallel words.

ISIS by the truck full. They struck Mosul and took control almost in the blink of an eye. Everybody’s asking “Why?” Why did the Iraqi security forces drop their guns and start running?  Why didn’t they see it coming when the border with Syria disappeared weeks ago?

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Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)

Homoioteleuton

Homoioteleuton (ho-mee-o-te-loot’-on): Similarity of endings of adjacent or parallel words.

Saw baby saw! Go ahead, cut down another tree! It’s ok with me!

Saw baby saw–cut them all!  Save our struggling shopping mall!

We need a bigger parking lot.  So, I say “Why not?”  All that asphalt’s nobody’s fault–it’s by design–it’s like a big strip mine that will fill with chugging dollar signs–Escalades, Hyundais, soccer vans,  and pickup trucks will soon be queuing  up–they’ll all be parking there, filled with shoppers shopping here!

Call me a visionary if you like!

Saw baby saw!

Save our struggling shopping mall!

That patch of tar and stone will benefit us all (not to mention my little business in the mall)–the parking lot is worth so much more than a wasteland filled with trees that harbor wild squirrels and dirty birds–untamed beasts and fowl that harass our kids, build unsightly nests, chatter and caw, dig for nuts, and crap on our windshields.

Saw baby saw!

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Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)

Homoioteleuton

Homoioteleuton (ho-mee-o-te-loot’-on): Similarity of endings of adjacent or parallel words.

Your policies are criticized because they’re considered by experts to be ill-conceived. Your proposals are not oriented toward the interests of the people you serve, and consequently, they too are poorly received. In fact, almost nothing of importance that you’ve said in the past six months has been generally believed.  In sum, your administration’s motto, most aptly put, should be: “Nothing Achieved!”

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Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)