Tapinosis (ta-pi-no’-sis): Giving a name to something which diminishes it in importance.
“Hey dust-mote, get over here.” It was Feral Freddie again. He never called me by my real name. It felt good for him to belittle me with a fresh insulting moniker every day. In a way it’s my fault. I gave him the name “Feral” when we were in high school. It stuck, partially because it went well with Freddie—Feral Freddie, an insult made in heaven. He was a wild thing. He peed on fire hydrants and chased squirrels. He was terrible with girls. He would sniff them in the mall by the fountain and then take a drink from the tidy-bowl blue water like a bad version of a lion. He would roar—it sounded like somebody loudly saying “Roar”—the word roar, not the sound roar.
He was arrested for stealing candy from the candy jar at the barber shop in broad daylight, while the shop was open. His defense was “Its a free country.” He was 14 so he didn’t go to prison. Instead, he went to juvenile detention for one month. The first time he tried to pee on the fire hydrant in the exercise yard, he was put into counseling with Dr. Pretendo, who was notorious for his nearly 100% failure rate counseling inmates. Feral Freddie was no exception.
Dr. Pretendo read Nietzsche’s “Twilight of the Idols” with Freddie and watched “The Fly” starring Jeff Goldbloom with him over and over again—sometimes two or three times a day. Dr. Pretendo presented Frankie with an inflatable sex doll to help him develop healthy relationships, and maybe find his true love. By the time he completed his sentence and was released, Freddie was completely insane.
I was at his house when he came home. He rang the bell and his mother answered the door. There was Feral Freddie standing at the door with his inflatable sex doll under his arm, who he introduced as “Dolly Madison” his fiancee.
I’ve been hanging out with Freddie. I don’t know why. I guess in one sense I’d like to be like him—a free range nut case with no conscience or respect for human life. On the other hand, Freddie makes me sick. His “fiancée” is a case in point. I couldn’t handle a silent vinyl girlfriend. I need something that talks—maybe a parrot or an answering machine. But at least Freddie doesn’t want to kill anybody. He takes his aggression out on earthworms on the sidewalk after it rains—stomping on them.
Today, we’re going to the park to tip over baby strollers and kick sand at toddlers. It’s good to have a plan.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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