Category Archives: mesozeugma

Mesozeugma (me’-so-zyoog’-ma): A zeugma in which one places a common verb for many subjects in the middle of a construction.

Trucks, wagons, and wheelbarrows carried the loads, some small, some large, some medium-sized. I wielded a wheelbarrow made of iron and oak with a wooden wheel. My cousin Eddy used his Tonka truck, pushing it along, crawling through the dirt. My next door neighbor, Caroline, had conscripted her brothers red Radio Flyer wagon, pulling it with grace and dignity. She was beautiful. I loved her, but she didn’t love me. She loved Ritchie the rich bastard who lived on the hill and didn’t even know she existed. It was pitiful, but someday she would be mine.

We were building the biggest pile of dirt in history. While we hauled the dirt, my little brother Klause and two of his friends dug it up and dumped it in our conveyances. Klause thought he was named after Santa Claus. He was fat and wore a fake beard and red lumberjack shirts and black patent leather boots year round. My mother nurtured his delusion by encouraging him to go “Ho, Ho, Ho” every few minutes. It got so bad that neighborhood kids would tell him what they wanted for Christmas!

Suddenly Klause’s shovel hit something with a hollow sound. He said “Ho, Ho, Ho” and hauled it out of the ground. It was an old ice chest—also called a “cooler.” It said “July 1951 Time Capsule” across the top in black paint. We opened it to see what was inside.

We found a big tube of “Off!” insect repellent, a replica of General MacArthur’s corn cob pipe, a picture of the “Thing from Another World,” a tube of “Super Glue,” a non-stick frying pan, “Backseat Bingo” instructions (rated R), a Tupperware hot dog container, an autographed picture of Marlon Brando, Pink capri pants, madras shorts, and more!

We gave up on the dirt pile. It was 1999, so our trove was pretty valuable. We assembled the collection in my falling-down detached garage. We put up flyers that said “Come see the return of 1951 in Johnny’s garage 50 cents.” It was a hit. Mainly grown ups came to see the exhibition. Then one day this big fat man with gold rings on his fingers, and smoking a cigar, walked into the garage and said “I’ll buy the whole lot.” So far, we had made $200 and weren’t about to sell until he said “I’ll give you $80,000.” We all yelled “Sold!”

That’s it. I used my share to pay for college. Now, I own an ice skating rink and a used car lot. My wife and I are quite happy and are expecting our 5th child. She’s the girl next door from the old days. By the way, I kept the box of Maypo from our trove. I don’t know why, but I have “I WANT MY MAYPO” tattooed across my chest backwards so I can read it in the mirror. I repeat it and it makes me feel assertive as I get ready to go to work at the car lot. My brother Klaus moved to Alaska.

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.

Mesozeugma (me’-so-zyoog’-ma): A zeugma in which one places a common verb for many subjects in the middle of a construction.

“Life is too boring to reclaim from the pits, my downward plunge, or life’s tragic rodeo.” I actually had these thoughts at one point in my life before I turned into the North Star and guided everybody home. I made a giant blue wing and sent it forth throughout the land. Soaring along, picking up passengers one by one, setting the tone for the future—wolves and lambs hanging out, the wolves turning into vegetarians by the magical power of B. Good. He played the guitar like the spirit in the sky blessing Heartbreak Hotel on Tuesday afternoon, giving everybody a little red Corvette for their special day.

Somebody said “It’s raining crabs in Disneyland.” This must be true at some level or it never would’ve been said, even if it’s a lie. If it is a poetic configuration we can retrieve its significance from the swamp of literalism. We must ask ourselves if there in fact any such thing as literalism—isn’t it just a deep rut in poetry’s road, so we’ll-travelled that it has become a road in its own right distinguishable from the poetic road, but as we know, not different, only observable, like a stain on a sweater or a floor. Nothing new here. Time to fire up the grill.

We’re having big fat wieners imported from Germany via jet. We have big fat buns. We have big fat mustard. We have thin sauerkraut to challenge our sense of continuity, to teach the first lesson of fracture’s ubiquity—how the world goes 1, 2, 4, thwarting our expectations, dashing our hopes and dreams. But, tomorrow is never today unless you have severe jet lag, like you flew nonstop lower class from Sydney, Australia to Newark, USA with diarrhea and shingles. That’s bad. Think about it. If you can’t think about it, you haven’t read it: to read is to think. Of course you can think without reading. You can listen. But the most important things can’t be read or listened to. Thinking entails taking what’s there and thinking about it. As soon as that happens, it’s like you’re pole dancing with what is. But that’s the best we can do if we want to “share” with others, to socialize and overcome our isolation. We are willing to sacrifice the unsharable for the shareable, by communicating.

Well, that took us nowhere—not like a bus or a subway conveying us to a well-imagined destination—even if we’ve never been there we can go map in hand, GPS in front of the face—pulled into time by a well charged Apple device—playing music, leaving messages, staying in touch, but not actually touching.

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.