Category Archives: orcos

Orcos

Posted on June 6, 2025 | Leave a comment

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

I swear on my grandmother’s grave, and swear to God I’m telling the truth! What do I have to gain by lying? I don’t even like money. Who would? Selfish, greedy, losers that’s who. I may be a loser, but I’m not selfish or greedy. I know you believe me and this is some kind of joke. Ha ha, come on, let me go. these bungee chords hurt.

Ok. I told you fifty times the money bag disappeared. I left my seat at Subway to order my tuna with onions and cheese on Italian bread. I looked back and it was there. I made my order and turned around and it was gone. I could see where it was dragged out the door. $2,000,000 is pretty heavy, so it left a trail. The trail was red, the color of the bag.

When I got outside, I saw a little man tressed like a garden gnome drag it around the corner, I ran around the corner just in time to see him load it in a small yellow helicopter with a picture of Mr. Haney from “Green Acres” on the door. As the gnome flew over my head, he swooped down and knocked me to the pavement. I got a concussion and spent a week in the hospital recovering from my head injury.

POSTSCRIPT

The McCracken gang was having none of it. Mouse had always been iffy on the trustworthy scale. He stole donuts from his fellow employees at the morning coffee break. He had made numerous passes at the boss’s wife and kept dropping a pencil in front of her desk and getting down on his hands and knees and looking for it for too long.

The McCracken’s planned Mouse’s demise carefully. They got him drunk and pushed him off a cliff.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in orcos

Tagged , , , , ,

Orcos

Posted on September 29, 2024 | Leave a comment

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

“I swear I didn’t eat your wedding dress.” Of course I didn’t eat her wedding dress! She didn’t even have a wedding dress. I was trying to make a joke. It could be considered funny if you were really charitable. I was trying to assuage her grief. The man she’d been “engaged” to for seven years had just dumped her. He said she was too old for him. I swear, he is a perfect idiot. I guess, after 7 years she has aged a bit, but they’re both the same age. His new fiancé is seven years younger than him. Perfect symmetry.

I have loved Angie since we were little kids and threw pieces of cat shit at each other in my sand box. Her mother would come and get her and carry her away. My mother didn’t care if I played with cat shit. She spent a lot of time sitting in the window seat drinking hard cider and smoking Luckies. She hated my father and punched him in the stomach every night when he came home from work. He didn’t deserve it. He was always helping his secretary “fix things” in her apartment. It seemed like every couple of days something went wrong and Dad would have to go over to her place after dinner to “fix” it. When Dad went out, Mom would go downstairs and watch Hector the maintenance mad play Sudoku, and sometimes, they would read the Bible together.

I would be left all alone and wrote love letters to Angie to pass the time. I swore that I loved her—that I was telling the truth—I loved her more than my hamster Ed. I loved her more than than Mr. Rogers. As I got older, I told her I loved her more than Jane Russell or “The Benny Hill Show.” I kept saying I loved her and making trite comparisons until I was around twenty-five. I decided to give her all the love letters I had written, and let the chips fall where they may. The “chips” fell into the incinerator in her back yard without even being red. I was about to embark on a new strategy when she got engaged to the Loser King, Reggie Twirly. The years passed and they did not get married—he was like Scrooge, always making excuses centered on his business dealings, like Scrooge did with Belle—putting her off year after year, until things got “better.” Then, Cat came along and knocked Angie out of the running. When Reggie abruptly broke off their engagement, Angie was prepared to kill Reggie. I talked her out of and we made a plan for me to woo Cat away from Reggie and break his heart.

I tried everything, but I failed. Every time I tried to kiss her she would cry, “A thousand times no, I am spoken for by another.” She made feel like Snidely Whiplash, the 19th century cad. So, basically, I gave up on the whole thing. To hell with Cat. To hell with Angie. To hell with everything. I moved to California and started a business as a surrogate love letter writer. I had so much experience, I could whip off a love letter in five minutes. The business was called “Love’s Thunder.” I took the pen name “Cupid’s Arrow.” Business was good. I met a wonderful woman, we got married and we have a baby on the way.

Then, I got an order from Angie. It was for a love letter to me. Somehow, she had my email address from back in the day. It was still functioning! I ignored Angie’s request, gave her a refund, closed the email account and went on with my life, happily married, baby on the way.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in orcos

Tagged , , , , ,

Orcos

Posted on February 13, 2024 | Leave a comment

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

“It is true! If you don’t believe me, you’re crazy and your soul is at risk. Not believing a sincere man is a giant step into hell. Think about that when you doubt my veracity. Let me tell you my story again, sister.

“I was minding my own business eating my Toastie Oats for breakfast. I started smoking and shaking and shrinking—very slowly. I was alone in the kitchen, so nobody saw it happen. I stopped shrinking and I became a flatworm. I kept my cognitive functions, and I could see.

Dad came into the kitchen and made himself fried eggs. I fell on the floor. I climbed up the leg of Dad’s chair and up onto his shoulder. I was going to try to communicate with him so he could help me, but I fell off his shoulder and fell onto his fried eggs—onto the piece headed for his mouth. I rode the piece of egg into his mouth, and he swallowed me. When I got inside his body, I felt at home. His stomach was like my living room, his intestine was like a tunnel of love where I met other flatworms and partied. Then, one night, things started moving faster than ever before. I jumped on a piece of potato, riding it to wherever we were going. Suddenly there was a loud trombone-like sound and I shot out into a toilet bowl filled with undigested fragment of food. If I didn’t get out of there I knew I’d be flushed into oblivion. I squirmed up the side of the toiled bowl, and reached the seat just as Dad flushed. He left the bathroom. I was sitting there wondering what to do, when I turned back into me. I took a shower and changed into some clean clothes. I saw Dad in the hall. He said, “Son, where the hell have you been? Your mother’s a wreck. Your sister wanted to have a funeral, and bury your bathrobe in the back yard.” I felt like telling him I was up his ass, but he probably would’ve hit me. So, instead, I told him I was sowing my wild oats. He accepted this. It was something he had been trying to get me do for months.”

After I finished my story, my sister looked at me as though I was a danger to myself and others. She said, “How about I lock you in your bedroom for a couple of days?” I said “No. Leave me alone. I can deal with is on my own. It was probably some kind of psychotic episode, with a cause, etc.”

But, I longed for the warmth of my alimentary living room, with the flow of edibles and the damp throbbing darkness. Partying in the large intestine with other flatworms was the greatest feeling of camaraderie I ever had. It was a world of love. I know I can never go back. I will admit: I enjoyed being a flatworm more than I’ve ever felt right about being human.

I will continue telling my story of transformation, finding other people who’ve incarnated into other beings—into flies, cows, beavers—the panoply of living creatures—flying, crawling, swimming things. But, for whatever reason they’re forced to return to their normal human lives, disappointed and full of anguish and pain.

So far, I haven’t met any former “carnates.” I know you’re out there. Send me a letter to: Mel Pickleton, Rosy Future State Home, Tarrytown, NY. We can be friends.

POSTSCRIPT

Mel got a reply to his letter:

“Dear Mel,

I was a muskrat off and on for two years. I have adopted the muskrat lifestyle. I have 12 children with seven different muskrat “wives.” I spend most of my time repairing the flimsy pile of reeds I live in, in a marsh in Kentucky. However, now I am residing in a building run by the state. I look human again, but I have the heart of a muskrat and I miss my wives and kids.

Regards,

Squeaky Marlon

PS Let’s be friends”

Mel didn’t get the letter. He had turned back into flatworm and taken up residence in Nurse Gigi’s gut. It wasn’t meant to last. She was taking pills that would kill him within three weeks.

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.

Leave a comment

Posted in orcos

Tagged

Orcos

Posted on July 5, 2023 | Leave a comment

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

I always wondered what the connection might be between swearing something is true, and just plain swearing, as in “dammit.” How about a double swear: “I swear it’s true, dammit.!” But, like all things we say, we’ve got to be careful who we say it to. For example, my mother accused me of stealing my sister’s Mickey Mouse pencil. I responded “I swear I didn’t steal it, dammit.”

I had just learned how swear, so I wasn’t sure when and where to deploy it. I had learned how to swear at my friend Bruce’s house. He was rich and lived at the top of the hill. When we played there, his parents let us swear all we wanted. We sweared about everything: at lunch “Pass the fu*kin salt” or “Let’s watch some shit on TV” or “Where the hell’s the bathroom?” The only downside was Bruce’s sister. She kept trying to get me to come up to her room to see her horse pictures. The first time she asked I complied. We sat on her bed and looked at her pictures. When we were done, she got down on her hands and knees and made me ride her around her bedroom. She made a horse noise and reared up on her “hind” legs. I fell off and ran downstairs.

I found Bruce in the kitchen holding a steak knife. He was licking his lips and rocking the blade back and forth, making it flash under the kitchen lights. There was an open bottle of whiskey on the counter next to where he was standing. There were also two empty glasses sitting there. He said, “Let’s have a shot, or two, or three.” We were only 12 and I had never had alcohol. Then his sister came into the kitchen and slammed down tree shots in quick succession. She said, “My name is July and I’m an alcoholic.” She was 18, so I guessed it was legal for her to drink. But an alcoholic? Wow, she hadn’t wasted any time. She wanted to play horses agin, but I said “No.” She threw a box of Cheerios at me and stalked outside to the garden. She lit a hand-rolled cigarette and stared singing the Neil Diamond song about cracking roses.

I took a shot of whiskey and gulped it down. The world seemed to be a better place, so I drank another shot. I think I was a little drunk. So, I said “I’m goin’ the fu*k home.” Bruce said, “I don’t give a fu*k, go ahead.” I was glad to get out of there and back to my normal family—mom and dad, my older sister Molly and my baby brother, Nestor.

Getting back to the missing Mickey Mouse pencil episode:

For weeks, I had been taking the pencil and hiding it around the house and “helping” my sister find it. For me, it was a game, for my sister it was a total pain in the ass. At some point she told mom about the pencil game, saying I stole her pencil. That’s when my mother interrogated me and I gave the solemn oath including a swear word. My mother went crazy: “Not only are you lying, but you’re swearing too! I’m telling your father.” “Oh shit,” I thought, My father’s a gun nut and he’s been drawing his gun in the living room and aiming it at Nestor’s bassinet, yelling “Come out with yours hands up you little piggy!” Then, he would throw Nestor’s velour fuzzy rabbit at the bassinet.

My mom told my dad I was a liar and a swearer. He said, “Don’t worry I’ll get that little piggy! We’ll be eatin’ him for dinner tonight.” At that point my mom realized that dad had landed in cloud cuckoo land. Mom called 911 and they came and took dad away after he shot up the TV. After he’d been hauled off, I said to mom: “That was fu*ckin’ brilliant calling 911. You saved our lives.” Mom said, “Fu*kin’ A. He was out of his goddam mind.”

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. There is a Kindle edition for $5.99.

Leave a comment

Posted in orcos

Tagged , , ,

Orcos

Posted on November 8, 2022 | Leave a comment

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

“I swear on my mother’s grave that it’s true.” This was a popular saying where I grew up. It supposedly bolstered your avowal of truth by bringing your dead mother up, and the sanctity of her grave, as warrants—if you lied while swearing on her grave at the same time, it would double damn you with disrespect for your dead mother and disrespect for the truth. Swearing on your mother’s grave is a pretty morbid way to establish your credibility, and I’m not sure if my understanding of its rationale is right. But the odd thing was, we were just kids and our mothers were all still alive.

Despite not having a mother’s grave to swear on, we used the credibility-generating saying. To make it work, we discussed it and decided we were referring to future graves. Everybody dies sooner or later, so pushing the grave reference into the future was taken as a good-faith promise to actually swear on a mother’s grave after she died as a way of settling the times you swore on it when it was non-existent. This all made perfect sense to me, and I went on with my life.

Then, ten years later, my mother died of kidney failure. My mother grew up in Arizona. She was an actual cowgirl when she was in her early teens to early twenties. In my favorite picture of her she’s holding a dead 4-foot long rattlesnake in one hand and a six-shooter in her other hand. She was wearing boots and jeans and a flannel plaid shirt. This was topped off by a black cowboy hat with a beautiful concha-decorated hatband, and a belt buckle shaped like a longhorn steer. She met my Dad when he was stationed in Arizona during the Vietnam War. He was a mechanic in the Air Force. That’s all I know.

When they got married Dad had been discharged from the Air Force. They moved to New Jersey where Dad had grown up working in an ESSO refinery in Linden. He got his old job back. He came home every night smelling like a big can of motor oil. I don’t know how my mother stood it, given where she grew up. After I was born, I became the center of Mom’s life, displacing my father. He resented it. He resented me. He would leave me at the bus station or the train station hoping I’d be abducted. I would always show up back at home and he would curse while Mom would cry with joy. But now, me and Dad were following a hearse with Mom’s body on board—driving from New Jersey to Arizona, listening to Bruce Springsteen on the satellite. It made no sense, but my father never made any sense—he was a jerk, a fool, and an idiot. We should’ve flown. After four days driving, we arrived in Sedona, AZ—where Mom grew up and where we were going to bury her. It would be my mother’s grave—the real thing. After she was buried, I took a picture. The grave was pitiful. There was no headstone, just a wooden cross made out of treated 2X4s with Mom’s initials and her birth and death dates on a nailed-on plaque. We probably could’ve bought a nice headstone with what it cost us to drive from New Jersey to Arizona. But, like I said, my father was a jerk, an idiot, and a fool. Let’s add cheap bastard to that.

Now, when I say “I swear on my mother’s grave,” it’s not just an empty catchphrase—she’s actually dead and buried. When I swear on my mother’s grave, I pull out a copy of the picture of her grave I took at the cemetery in Arizona. Then, for further assurance, I give the picture to the person I’m trying to convince of my truthfulness. Usually, they back up saying, “No, no, no. That’s all right. I believe you!” I’m never sure whether they mean it, or whether they’re just trying to get away from me. I swear on my mother’s grave that I just don’t know, but God knows, I’d like to know. I cross my heart and hope to die.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. There is a Kindle edition for $5.99.

Leave a comment

Posted in orcos

Tagged , ,

Orcos

Posted on March 20, 2022 | Comments Off on Orcos

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

Liars are the lowliest form of human life. They tear the social fabric like it is cheesecloth. Once that fabric is torn, unmoored, set loose from trust, the essence of human relations is undermined, and when lying becomes endemic, paranoia sets in. When you ask anybody anything, if it makes them look better, they’ll lie—ask them how old they are, they’ll shave off five years. Ask them where they got all that cash. They’ll tell you from gambling.

I am not a liar and that’s the truth. That wasn’t a lie. Neither was that. Or that. I won the money gambling, or I inherited it, or something like that. I have receipts and other documents supporting the truthfulness of what I’m swearing to. So, while I could be lying, I swear I’m not. It’s like when I tell my wife I love her, there’s no way of proving it. Same with the money. Even though the same amount is missing from the place where I work, it is a coincidence, like if my wife saw me coming out of a motel with my secretary. My wife would say, “Oh gosh. What a coincidence that is. They must’ve been working away from the office.”

I am an honorable man like Julius Caesar, or Huey Long, or Donald Trump. Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy.

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. There is a Kindle edition for $5.99.

Comments Off on Orcos

Posted in orcos

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Orcos

Posted on July 20, 2021 | Comments Off on Orcos

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

I swear to all I revere and hold holy that I am about to tell the truth. You have my assurance that I won’t lie about something as important as this. Prevarication is off the table as are fibbing, bs’ing, telling whoppers, and bearing false witness.

What was the question, again?

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. There is a Kindle edition for $5.99.

Comments Off on Orcos

Posted in orcos

Tagged , , , , , ,

Orcos

Posted on January 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

Republican Senator Brickbrain: Esteemed Chairman, how many times would a woodchuck lie if the woodchuck could get away with it?

Republican Senator Fornicator: 25-30 times a day, unless this is a poetic allusion to the accused.

Republican Senator Brickbrain: Precisely. He is not a woodchuck. He is the President of the United States, and woodchucks can’t even talk, let alone lie!

Democrat Senator Willy-nilly: We have arrived in Wonderland.

Republican Senator Brickbrain: Yes. Yes. I  can vouch for that–absolutely true, and that’s the absolute truth. I am telling the truth, I swear.

Republican Senator Fornicator: Ok then. Let’s vote. All in favor of letting him off the hook for purely political reasons, say “Aye.” Ooh what do I hear? The ayes have it it.

Democrat Senator Willy-nilly: What about the nays?

Republican Senator Brickbrain: Nay to that!  Ha! Ha!

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. There is a Kindle edition for $5.99.

Leave a comment

Posted in orcos, Uncategorized

Tagged , , ,

Orcos

Posted on June 29, 2017 | Leave a comment

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

Senator Lunar: How many Russians can dance on the Head of the FBI?

Government Witless: Probably 5 or 6. But, respectfully, I believe it is the head of a pin, not an actual head & that it is somehow a metaphysical meditation on the corporeality of Russians’ souls (if they have any in the first place).

Senator Veritas: You lie I cry!

Government Witless: I swear I am telling the truth so far as Senator Lunar’s more or less insane question begs me to.  By the way: Your mother is alive and well in Miami.

Senator Lunar: 5 or 6 Russians dancing on Comey’s head, eh? There is no bruising. I think you’re lying Witless.

Government Witless: Respectfully Senator Lunar, my answer is true insofar as it is consistent with a historical tradition of speculation on bodies and souls, not to mention angels and whether they’re pure spirit. Russians are a new twist on the commentary.

But I want to ask you: Why are you asking me this more or less (on the face of it) irrelevant, if not crazy, question?

Senator Lunar: My Life Coach Billy Ed Joseph Ronald Richards gave me the idea. He was giving an ‘inspiration’ on how to advance political agendas and one way is ‘dancing’ on the heads of opponents. So, if 5 or 6 Russians danced on Comey’s head, it could very well be the case that he was ‘brought around’ and colluded with the Russians.

Government Witless: Wow! That’s more bizarre than 12th century philosophy and theology combined!

Senator Lunar: I swear it’s true. I may have been there. That’s not ketchup on my loafers. Whoops!

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

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99.

Leave a comment

Posted in orcos, Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , ,

Orcos

Posted on June 20, 2016 | Leave a comment

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

X: Where is my red shirt?

RAY: I have no idea.

X: You lie you die!

RAY: I swear on my mother’s grave: I DO NOT KNOW.

X: Your mother is alive and well in Miami.

RAY: Well then, I swear on your mother’s grave.

X: That does it. Put up your hands. I’m taking you in.

RAY: Hello, 911? My roommate has flipped his widget–what’s that? His widget! It’s just a figure of speech, like flipping one’s wig, or flipping out.

Now, please send somebody over! He’s threatening me–he is pointing his cheap Chinese spatula at me. He’s waving it around. HURRY!

X: I see my shirt under the couch. Sorry.

RAY: Dumb ass.

  • Post your own orcos on the “Comments” page!

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

Leave a comment

Posted in orcos

Tagged , , , , ,

Orcos

Posted on April 18, 2014 | Leave a comment

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

Z: I swear on a stack of bacon that I did not touch your grill.

X: What about my lawn tractor?

Z: I swear on a pile of mulch that I did not sit on your lawn tractor.

X: What about my hummingbird feeder?

Z: You got me! I poured red nectar on my pancakes and I feel like humming and building a tiny nest.

X: Hello, 911?

  • Post your own orcos on the “Comments” page!

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

Leave a comment

Posted in orcos

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Orcos

Posted on July 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

I swear, I won’t release any more NSA secrets. I want to stay in Москва, drink Шуба, eat Шуба, and Барыня ты моя, сударыня ты моя all night long! Anyway, I’ve run out of clean socks and underwear, it’s too hot in Bolivia, and I miss my mommy.

  • Post your own orcos on the “Comments” page!

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

Leave a comment

Posted in orcos

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Orcos

Posted on February 24, 2008 | Leave a comment

Orcos (or’-kos): Swearing that a statement is true.

I stand by that document. What it says is true. I give you my word it is true–it is factual. But that’s not enough–find out for yourselves. Read what I read–the official statement of their policy–and draw your own conclusions.

  • Post your own orcos on the “Comments” page!

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

Leave a comment

Posted in orcos

Tagged , , , , ,