The Daily Trope

Paroemia (pa-ri’-mi-a): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, maxim, proverb, and sententia.

I said to my wife Mags, “It’s better to be a beggar than a chooser.” she looked at me like I was crazy and I realized I sounded crazy. But, I was not going to admit it. I would go through my usual lying justification for the stupid things I said and did. What I had actually meant to say was “Beggars can’t be choosers.” I could’ve just corrected myself and be done with it, but I couldn’t do that—it was too sane, too normal, too right to be wrong. So, I let the bullshit fly.

I told Mags to stop looking at me “that” way. My fallback was Great Uncle Mark, an old, broken down, semi-demented Catholic Priest who was retired from the Priesthood and lived in the “Corinthian Home for Unhinged Priests.” No matter where they drifted, retired Priests were under the care of the Church until they died. Father Mark believed he is Jesus’ cousin, and together they went fishing and performing miracles together every day. The Sea of Galilee was too far, so they went fishing in the fountain out in front of Corinthian Home, where they never caught a fish, but sometimes they would turn the fountain’s water into wine (that only they could see).

Great Uncle Mark made up the saying “It’s better to be a beggar than a chooser.” It has a religious connotation.

When Great Uncle Mark took his vow of poverty when he entered the priesthood, he came to realize that a simple life of poverty relieves stress and enables you to focus more clearly on the gates of Heaven instead of the entrance to the mall, burning up your days making choices—of being selfish, always trying to have it your way. The Gates of Heaven start to glimmer when you begin to depend on the charity of others, giving them the opportunity to express their Christian love.

This all looks great until you find out that Great Uncle Mark ran the car lottery, and love boat cruise lottery every year. But, he was selling, not buying, so in a way he was begging.

I told Mags that when I said “It is better to be a beggar than a chooser“ I was thinking about our upcoming yard sale where we will get some spiritual purchase on our lives by selling most of what we own, and we don’t have much of a choice about it—we have to pay off our credit cards. Do you understand now?” Mags said “No. Why don’t we just sell our wedding rings? They are really gold, right?”

I said “All that glitters isn’t gold” and prepared for the worst.

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.

Paroemion (par-mi’-on): Alliteration taken to an extreme where nearly every word in a sentence begins with the same consonant. Sometimes, simply a synonym for alliteration or for homoeoprophoron [a stylistic vice].

Tomato trees towered tremendously tall. It was part of a fabled garden that was hidden away somewhere in South Jersey, where the “Garden State” got its name from. Somewhere near the Pine Barrens, but where the soil is rich and fertile—probably the best dirt in the USA.

My uncle Sal told me he had seen the tomato trees. He was drunk and had lost his shoes. He was crawling along fearing he would die and become a pile of dirt. Then, he lost his pants, panicked, and started screaming, still crawling along faster. Suddenly, a fairy princess with a perfectly red round ripe tomato abdomen popped out of the bushes.

Uncle Sal was terrified. He begged her to have mercy on him. She said “I will do better than that. I will show you the giant tomato trees.” Uncle Sal thought he was delirious until the Fairy Princess gave him a giant grocery bag with arm holes and a hole for his head to wear in place of his lost pants.

They started their trek. Uncle Sal was barefoot. He complained to the Fairy Princess and she pulled two gigantic bell peppers from her bag, and put a slit in each one, and shoved them on Sal’s feet. He was relieved. Then, she tied a vine around his neck like a leash and told him to close his eyes and open them when she told him to. He followed her instructions because she told him she would turn him into a slug if he didn’t.

She told him to open his eyes and there were the tomato trees! They were as tall of redwood trees. The tomatoes were gigantic—the size of hot air balloons. Then, the Fairy Princess waved her wand at Uncle Sal and he woke up on a park bench hugging an empty bottle of Mr. Boston. His pepper shoes and paper-bag suit were gone. He was cold lying there in his underpants. He was arrested and spent the night in the Chatsworth Town Jail where he was given a pair of used tuxedo pants and a pair of well-worn pleather loafers.

Nobody believed Uncle Sal’s story—nobody, not one person, not one single bit.

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.