Amphibologia (am’-fi-bo-lo’-gi-a): Ambiguity of grammatical structure, often occasioned by mispunctuation. [A vice of ambiguity.]
My brain was searching. I was chasing a tortoise in my underpants. I saw a duck driving my car. I don’t know what’s wrong, or maybe it’s right. I was turning into a myth. Who would sing my tale—the man who got lost in his garage. I saw a screw driver in my socks. I dropped my hammer. It made a spark and disappeared. And so, the story begins.
I was born in a very big flower pot in the lobby of an upscale hotel in Camden, New Jersey. This is highly unorthodox. My mother is very small, so there were no complications anticipated by the fake doctor—Merlin Fangshaw— who oversaw my mother’s health. He would say ”Merlin’s my name, and malpractice is my game.” Then he’d laugh and say “Just kidding.” I didn’t think he was kidding. His diagnostic skill was absent. I’ll never forget the time he diagnosed my mother’s ingrown toenail as cancer. He prescribed chemo, and when it didn’t work, he amputated her toe so the cancer wouldn’t spread.
There were about fifty people, hotel guests, who assembled in the lobby to witness my birth. They got a good show.
My head was unusually large. My mother was unusually small. She had a horrible birth. The flower pot cracked a she was torn like a piece of paper, bled profusely, and died before the ambulance arrived. As far as the people at the morgue knew, I had no relatives. I was sent to “Children’s Woe” orphanage. My big head was not an asset at the orphanage. I was bullied. I was called “Basketball Head,” and “Planet Head.” I was sad and angry all the time. I started crying when I got out of bed and started crying again when I went to bed at night. My pillowcase was damp from the tears and I developed a rash. It seemed incurable. I was sent to a medical research laboratory where they experimented on my face. I was happy at the laboratory and stopped crying. My rash went away.
They kept me at the laboratory to use me in their experimental work. I was a vehicle for a number cures. They would give me a disease, and then, try to cure me. The scientists would lay odds and bet on whether I’d be cured or die. My favorite disease was “Lip Smack.” When you had it, you could smack your lips so loud that they would sound like a handgun and scare the crap out of everyone! Another one was “Elephant Ears.” They injected my ears with “Dumbo Juice.” If I stood facing into a strong wind, my giant Elephant Ears would lift me off the ground. This was great fun until they found a cure. If I abstained from peanuts, my ears went back to normal, surgery wasn’t necessary. After they were surgically removed, I was allowed to tan my ears and I have them for entertainment hanging on my apartment wall. I look at them in my lab coat eating breakfast and watching the morning news.
When I was at the laboratory, I noticed that one of the scientists had a big head like mine. Big heads run in my family. We got to talking, and I started talking about my mom and her horrible death in a flower pot in a hotel lobby while giving birth to me. His shoulders slumped. He looked at the floor and said, “I wondered what happened to your mother. I am your father.” We hugged. I was a little too aggressive and my big head hit his big head too hard. He fell to the floor and a puddle of blood pooled around his unconscious head. I called 911 and we lived happily ever after. I call my Dad “basketball head” and he calls me “planet head.” Life is good.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.
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