Epizeugma (ep-i-zoog’-ma): Placing the verb that holds together the entire sentence (made up of multiple parts that depend upon that verb) either at the very beginning or the very ending of that sentence.
I was going fishing, running amok, and shopping.
I headed to Lake Whammy where I kept my boat “Jackweed.” 50 people had signed a petition to make me change the name of my boat. What a bunch of assholes. Somebody had actually scraped “weed” off my boat’s stern, leaving “Jack,” what they considered a more “sanitary” name.
Anyway, I was going to catch some Walleyes. I would pan fry them and wash them down with five or six beers. I caught 4 Walleyes. When I got home, I pulled out my frying pan, floured up the fish and dropped them in the bubbling oil. I lined up 5 beers on the kitchen island and quickly chugged 2. I yelled “Life is good” at my dog Bozo. He wagged his tail and went back to sleep. I finished off the beers. Feeling no pain, I jumped in my car and headed to the Town and County, City, Village, State, and Planet Mall.
If I got pulled over and took a breathalyzer test, I would go to jail. On the way to the mall, I hit a parked car, backed up and kept going. I ran over a cat and knocked down an empty bus stop shelter. I had trouble parking in the mall parking lot. I parked too close to the car next to me and smashed it with my door when I squeezed out of my car.
I stumbled to the mall entrance, falling down once along the way, and peeing in my pants. After all the beer, I was beyond caring. I was headed for “Steeler’s Jewelers.” They had sold me a counterfeit Rolex. I had pad $55,000 for what I thought was a solid gold Oyster. I had found out it was a fake when I wore it in the shower and it stopped. As a fake, it was worth $25.00 at most. I was packing a .45 that I had had since I was a Boy Scout in New Jersey. I had never killed anything with it, but there’s a first time for everything.
I had Mr. Steeler and his employees up against a wall. They were squirming and begging. At first, I was only going to shoot Mr. Steeler, but now that I was standing there with a loaded gun, it seemed like a good idea to shoot them all.
Then, the police showed up. Frank, the head of the SWAT Team, asked me what was going on. He was my brother-in-law. I told him about the watch. He said, “That’s terrible. I don’t blame you one bit for what you’re doing here. You can handle the fraud in court. Now give me the gun and go do something else with your life.”
I heeded what he said, and although I was still a little drunk, I decided to go shopping like I had planned . After all, I was at the Mall. I decided to go to DSW (Discount Shoe Warehouse). I had wanted a pair of hob-nailed lumberjack boots ever since my daughter had gotten a pair. It is really weird, but she was wearing them when she stomped a mouse to death in her apartment. She left it on the floor for a couple weeks until it dried out and then she got a picture frame for it. She hung stomped mouse in the kitchen to “scare off” other mice. So far, it has worked.
I wear a size 12. They didn’t have the boots in my size. But, they had boots with built-in leg braces for disabled people. They were so cool—shiny surgical steel latticed braces and black elk-skin wing tip boots. I had to have them. They were $600. I didn’t have that kind of money, so I stole them. As I ran out of DSW, threatening alarms went off: a screaming ear-splitting siren and a voice repeating “Put them back or you may be shot.” I kept running, made it to my car, squeezed in, backed up, and peeled out. I got home and hid in my basement for 2 days.
Somehow, I got away with the theft. That is, until my sister and her SWAT Team husband came over for dinner. I was wearing my brace boots. Her husband Frank noticed right away. He said, “Nice boots you got there.”
Now, I’m serving 3 months in the county jail for felony shoplifting. Frank was just doing his job.
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu.
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