Category Archives: metastasis

Metastasis (me-tas’-ta-sis): Denying and turning back on your adversaries arguments used against you.

There’s no way I kicked that dog! Where were you when it happened? I heard you yell “Bad dog!” In the alleyway, and I heard a yipping sound that sounded to me like a dog in pain. My girlfriend was standing next to me when it happened. She saw what I saw and heard what I heard. So, go fu*k yourself. I’m rescuing that poor little puppy from you. If you complain, I’ll turn you in to animal control.—you’ll be arrested and pay a hefty fine for animal cruelty. The abuser told me to take the goddamn dog and “shove up my ass” if I wanted to.

I took the dog.

His markings were weird. He was black with a white 666 on his left side. I had heard that 666 was the mark of the devil, but I wasn’t concerned: I was an atheist and didn’t believe in the devil. The markings were just some kind of coincidence. I named him Clutch and had him neutered. As he grew, he became more attentive, like he could understand every word I said. One day as an experiment I told him to go downstairs and fetch my I-Phone. He promptly complied. Not only that, somehow he managed to send me a text telling me he was on his way back upstairs with the phone. I probably should’ve been frightened, but I wasn’t. I thought it was cool.

Then, one night he jumped up on my bed and said in a raspy voice “Kick me asshole.” I couldn’t help myself. I stood up on my bed and kicked him. He went flying and hit the wall pretty hard. He whined and jumped in his doggie bed and went back to sleep.

Knowing he could make me do his bidding for god knows what, I had to get rid of him quickly. I bribed the Vet to euthanize Clutch even though he had nothing wrong with him. It was Monday and the appointment was Wednesday. When I made the appointment, Clutch looked like he knew something was up.

That night, he woke me up and said in his raspy voice “Joy ride.” There was a bottle of vodka and the keys to my father’s car on the bed. I cracked open the vodka and took a big swig, put on some clothes, picked up the keys, and headed out the door. Clutch followed me. We got in the car. I drank two more big gulps of vodka and started feeling pretty good—in fact, I was getting drunk. I backed out the driveway and knocked over the neighbor’s mailbox. Clutch laughed diabolically. His eyes gleamed red. I mowed down all the mailboxes on my street. I headed downtown. I was riding on the sidewalk when I heard sirens. A police car pulled in front of me. Clutch said “vanish” and the police car disappeared in a puff of smoke. I took another swig of vodka. Clutch got behind the wheel and drove us home.

Wednesday came,

I wanted Clutch gone more than ever. I had to drag him out the door and drag him to the Vet’s. Dr. Bedfloor was ready when we got there. He gave Clutch a shot to knock him out. Then, he and assistant hoisted Clutch onto the table. Needles were inserted and the lethal mixture started to flow. Suddenly Dr. Bedfloor and his assistant clutched their hearts and fell to the floor. I sat there horrified as Clutch stood up, shook out the needles and started to grow. He grew to the size of a Shetland pony, turned bright red and said “You were fun. I’ll let you live.” Then, he turned back into regular Clutch and ran out the front door when a customer came in.

Dr. Bedfloor and his assistant regained consciousness and remembered nothing. The police questioned me for two days before they finally released me, satisfied I had nothing to do with the Vet’s and his assistant’s “weird” experiences.

Yesterday, I got a cat. He looks at me like he’s hungry for human flesh. I named him Chewy.

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.

Metastasis (me-tas’-ta-sis): Denying and turning back on your adversaries arguments used against you.

You say I ruined the “Life’s a Gamble” float. “That’s bullshit and you know it, scumbag. It was you. I know it was you. You’re just trying to cover your own tracks by accusing me. I worked harder than anybody else on this goddamn float. I’ve been here everyday, and even spent some of my own money on it!” I yelled.

“Cheeto” Smith was a dog. The senior prom was two weeks away. He had been disgruntled all the way because his idea for a float was not chosen by the committee, but mine was. He wanted the float to be a giant spider chasing the senior class to the prom, in a sort of horror movie scenario. The football coach, Mr. Bell would drive the float, zig-zagging back and forth and playing a recording of a bear growling from loudspeakers affixed to the spider’s eye sockets. The spider was designed to “eat” three or four seniors on the way to the gym. It had soft furry mandibles that were designed to pull the students in without hurting them.

The fear the spider would engender was deemed contradictory to the spirit of the senior prom. Also, Cheeto’s hygiene was brought up—his teeth were orange like a beaver’s. The committee felt that he would not represent Bass-Weaver High in keeping with its mission statement; “To strive to be a very clean and healthy place with a devotion to learning in all the facets of attainment owed to passionate, committed, and caring human beings with good posture.”

Obviously, the committee made the right decision, rejecting Cheeto’s bizarre proposal, as well as Cheeto himself. My design was selected. Cheeto vandalized it out of jealousy. My “Life is a Gamble” float perfectly represented the prom’s theme, unlike Cheeto’s monster spider. I proposed a gambling casino theme for the float with a dice table, roulette wheel, and blackjack tables surrounded by dummy slot machines. The props would be made by students in wood shop and metal shop. There would be students gambling on the float, and winning, periodically jumping for joy and waving fistfuls of fake money.

The roulette wheel had been stolen, and some of the green felt on blackjack tables had been torn. We quickly raised money to replace and repair the items with a car wash. We raised more money than we needed and bought vodka with the extra cash we raised. This would be the best senior prom ever.

Cheeto finally returned to his senses and apologized and brushed his teeth. When he heard about Cheeto’s reform, our Principal Dr. Bowling said “Mission accomplished.”

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.

Metastasis (me-tas’-ta-sis): Denying and turning back on your adversaries arguments used against you.

“Why were you looking through my dresser? Pervert. Creep. You need help!” My sister yelled. Another accusation. Every day she accused me of something new. Last week, it was using her toothbrush. Before that, “ransacking” her closet. In every case it was the other way around—she was doing what she accused me of doing, and I told her: “You’ve got it all wrong Ginger—it is you who’re doing all these things to me! Let’s look at our dressers and see which one’s been gone through!” We looked hers—all the drawers were tidy. Clearly, nobody had gone through dresser. Then, we looked at mine. Things were pushed all over the place and hanging out of the drawers. What was alarming was my lock-blade gravity knife was missing. It had a 10” blade and was made for killing. I had inherited it from Uncle Chuck who had been shot in the back when he was robbing a bicycle repair shop in Huntsville. They found him with a bicycle chain around his neck, strung up, dripping blood from the bullet hole in his back. Nobody knew who shot him or hung him up. There were 11 witnesses, but none of them saw anything. He was buried with honors by the Boy Scouts who he had faithfully served in various capacities for 27 years.

Anyway, my sister yelled, “I didn’t do this, you did! I straightened my dresser back up early this morning. Creep. Pervert!” “I know you did it and I know you’re not going to admit it,” I said. “I just want my knife back. Uncle Chuck wanted me to have it. It’s dangerous. You could get hurt playing with it.” She had the knife. She had it tucked in the waistband of her pants, in the back. She pulled it out and flicked it open and laughed: “Hurt myself? It’s more likely that I’ll hurt you! Creep. Pervert.”

I grabbed her wrist and shook it hard. The open knife came out of her hand, cut through my cheap flannel slipper and stabbed me in the foot. The knife had pinned my foot to the floor. I couldn’t move. My foot was soaking the varnished floor with blood. My sister yelled, “You’re in big trouble now. A knife is not a toy, you idiot.”

I reached down with two hands and yanked the knife out of the floor. I pointed it at Ginger. She ran downstairs yelling “Mama he tried to kill me with Uncle Chuck’s knife.” My mother came running up the stairs yelling “What did you try to do to Ginger?” She got upstairs, looked at my foot, gasped, and asked me what had happened. I told her everything, especially about the false accusations. The police were called. My mother told them I had tried to murder my sister, but she had fought me off, knocking the murder weapon from my hand, where it fell and stabbed me in the foot. Dad just sat there nodding his head. I was arrested, handcuffed, taken to jail, tried and convicted of attempted 2nd degree murder. I professed my innocence throughout my trial. I received a three-year sentence.

Three days after my conviction, my sister murdered both of our parents and burned our house down. I was immediately acquitted. I went and visited Ginger in jail. I asked her why she did it. Against her attorney’s advice, she told me: “The roller skate living under my bed would wake me up in the middle of the night by singing “Brand New Key” and skating up and down my body. It would park on my forehead. It would stick its key in my ear, open my brain, and give me orders. When it was done, it would close my brain and roll back under my bed. I had to obey the roller skate because it was a certified dictator, as I learned from ‘Dirty Sock’ on the floor next to my bed. I never told anybody about this for fear Roller Skate wouldn’t give me the bucket of gold he promised as a reward for obeying orders.”

All those years, my sister had been completely insane. I should’ve seen the signs: wearing her dress backwards, getting a tattoo of a handgun when she was 11, burning up our ant farm with a magnifying glass, and, of course, the barrage of false accusations that landed me in jail.

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.