Maxim (max’-im): One of several terms describing short, pithy sayings. Others include adage, apothegm, gnome, paroemia, proverb, and sententia.
“If the cookie doesn’t crumble, it’s stale.” I learned this saying in day care. Ms. Mingle tried to instill us with wisdom to make us able to deal with what she called “the vicissitudes of life.” She tried to adjust her wisdom to our age-bound sensibilities. One day, she asked “Is your juice box half-full or half-empty?” Mine was neither—I had just barely poked the straw through the tin foil when she asked. I told her that my juice-box was full. She threw her juice-box to the floor and yelled “Too many cooks spoil the broth” and told me to put my juice-box on the floor. I set it down. She walked up to it and stomped on it. She said calmly “The poor need respect, and it begins with cleanliness.” I had to clean up the floor.
I was on a scholarship to “Little Winners” daycare. I was from the poorest family in town. I won my scholarship by walking to the mailbox in my socks through snow for one week. My mother had sold my shoes so she could buy beer and lotto tickets at Cliff’s. She got drunk and didn’t win anything.
I had to walk to school in my socks. Two days later, Ms. Mingle showed up with my shoes and put them on her desk. She said “Somebody might want these shoes, but I’m not sure who it is. ‘Find your sole mate’ and you will find your destiny.” She picked up the shoes and threw them at me yelling “Take a hike! You pants-wetting pony brain. They’re your shoes, aren’t they you little wart?”
I quickly put on the shoes. They felt so good—flexible and soft, like I wanted to be. My shoes were telling me to dance. I twirled and tapped my feet. My classmates clapped their hands in harmony. I felt like I was in heaven until Ms. Mingle started swatting me with a flyswatter yelling “I wouldn’t hurt a fly, but you’re not a fly.” She made a buzzing sound while she swung the fly swatter. I thought fast and tripped as she came at me. The handle of the flyswatter plunged into her eye when she hit the floor. She pulled the flyswatter out of her eye. She rolled around moaning and crying in pain. I said “No pain, no gain” and stuck my pencil in her other eye as she got up and came at me with her hole punch yelling “I’m going to make you into Swiss cheese, you low-class scholarship student! ‘The money you make is a symbol of the value you create’ you worthless prig!” She had been blinded, so she couldn’t find me to punch Swiss-cheese holes in me.
The mayhem settled and Ms. Mingle was taken to the hospital’s mental health ward for eye surgery and “counseling.” This all goes to show you that “The proof is in the pudding.”
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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