Rectal-Cranial Transfers: Euphemisms*

“Of course, Sterling was never one to call a spade a spade when he could call it a ‘vulpine-refuge evacuator.’ So the next stop was the US Army where he was issued a pair of ‘leather personnel carriers’ and an ‘aerodynamic personnel decelerator’ because Sterling had said he wanted to go airborne. He actually wrote that he wanted to join the ‘vertical transportation corps,’ but his commanding officer said the army had no need for elevator operators.” Skip Eisiminger

Skip the B.S. (Bovine Scatology)

By Skip Eisiminger

“I was an expert on migration problems.”—Adolf Eichmann

“Death and genitals are things that frighten people, and when people are frightened, they develop means of concealment and aggression. It is common sense.”—Noam Chomsky

CLEMSON South Carolina—(Weekly Hubris)—10/22/2012—Sterling Silver grew up reading Webster’s edition of the Bible, in which Onan doesn’t “spill his seed” —he “frustrates his purpose.” After the boy’s father mysteriously died, Sterling began mumbling something about “a platform collapsing at a state function.” But the son’s odd linguistic habit began in earnest at the Search and Rescue Seminary where he started calling Devil’s food cake “Salvation Chocolate.”

As a freshman, he defied the “Prince of Insufficient Light” and announced, “Sam Hill is a place for those who don’t believe in The Lawdy.”

By the time he was a junior, however, he was swearing freely: “Well, I swan!” was commonly heard in the dorm and, at football games, he was known to yell, “Cheese and rice, Ref!” When his girlfriend Mary moved on, he exclaimed, “H-e-double-hockey-sticks—she can go to heckfire and tarnation for all I care.” Privately, Mary explained that Sterling had “had his bell rung” playing intramurals and was a “terminally Caucasian male” on the dance floor. In his exit interview, Sterling told the dean of men that “sweet zombie Jesus” had lost his appeal.

Of course, Sterling was never one to call a spade a spade when he could call it a “vulpine-refuge evacuator.” So the next stop was the US Army where he was issued a pair of “leather personnel carriers” and an “aerodynamic personnel decelerator” because Sterling had said he wanted to go airborne. He actually wrote that he wanted to join the “vertical transportation corps,” but his commanding officer said the army had no need for elevator operators.

After basic training, Sterling qualified for Officer Candidate School, where he learned about “enhanced radiation weapons,” “sunshine units,” Russian missiles, and American “factors of peace.” He also heard a lecture on how the change from “War Department” to “Department of Defense” had been worth billions to the military. Because of his “communicatory jujitsu skills,” Sterling was sent to the Pentagon as a speech writer in the same office that gave us “Manifest Destiny” for killing Native Americans and “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” for the mental health of those who survived the horrors of Viet Nam. “Just three wars ago,” Sterling wrote his mother, “‘PTSD was ‘shell shock.’ From two syllables to eight, a 200 percent gain in less than a century—now that’s linguistic progress.”

In his first job, Sterling was asked to “ethicate” spending $2,043. for a $.13 steel nut. Explained the speech writer, “If you call it a ‘hexiform rotatable surface compression unit,’ the taxpayer’s nethermost aperture is proactively greased.”

As his reputation grew, Sterling moved over to Langley to fabricate phrases for the CIA such as “collateral damage” and “terminate with extreme prejudice.” Life was good until he described the bullet hole in Ronald Reagan’s chest as a “ballistically induced aperture in the subcutaneous environment.” When asked by the Washington Post to confirm the report that he’d written so callously, Sterling said that was a “categorical inaccuracy,” but he soon “underwent a career adjustment” for speaking with “incomplete candor.”

Out of work and with little in the bank, Sterling was desperate. He wrote his mother that he was suffering from “illness and fatigue,” but the truth was his boss was sick and tired of him. In a job interview, he claimed he’d “implemented a massive office reorganization” at the Pentagon, but a phone call revealed that he’d merely moved some file cabinets while he was awaiting his security clearance. Eventually, he landed a job selling “experienced furs” as a “retail therapist,” but he lost that when his “turf accountant” demanded a payment on his gambling debt. His then girlfriend, Linda, owner of “a capital-intensive, female-empowerment club, found him a job driving a “motorized transportation module,” but he lost that as well in a fight with a “petroleum transfer engineer.”

It was at about that time that Sterling fell hard for “Jane Plain.” Her litany of “swamps” that used to be “wetlands,” “jungles” that were “rain forests,” and “trees” that were “reforestation units” inexplicably resonated with him. The purity and directness of her language made him tremble. Was there ever a time, he wondered, when “dental appliances” were “false teeth,” “daytime dramas” were “soaps,” “running shoes” were “sneakers,” and “the landfill” just “a dump”? Sterling never learned the answer, for when he referred to one of Jane’s “barking spiders” as a “fart,” she marched off without pageantry.

After a few months on a District of Columbia “correctional campus” for a “wardrobe malfunction,” he was released. But not before he’d learned “footwear maintenance engineering,” which led him to the arms of “Mustang Sally,” an “unclaimed blessing” and fellow bootblack. The two moved to the “Georgetown arrondissement” just a few blocks from his parole officer’s home.

Sally, now Sterling’s “spouse equivalent,” was a former ad writer for Spin, Polish, and English. It was she who gave us “adorable” for “small,” “the other white meat” for “pork,” “dried plums” for “prunes,” “huggable” for “fat,” “underarm wetness” for “sweat,” and “occasional irregularity” for “constipation.” She lost her job, however, when she ran a “Haul derriere” ad for Mercedes in the Wall Street Journal.

Living on government cheese under the Key Street Bridge and unable to afford “portable hydration” or “interdental stimulators,” Sterling had never been happier. For years he’d patronized “Linda’s House of Negotiable Affection,” but now he was ready to “embrace the connubial couch.” One night, however, as Sally was heating Sterling’s “ball-park bratwurst,” she sensed something was not right. Eventually, our protagonist admitted he’d been feral so long he wanted to retain the right to conduct “post-nuptial research.” Chastened but unreformed, Sally left for an “optional swimsuit area” on the Potomac.The last anyone heard, she had volunteered to teach a “Gut and Butt” class if the proprietor changed the name to “Abs and Glutes.”

Within days of Sally’s departure, Sterling’s curious speech habit made a 180° turn. Oleomargarine which, for decades, had been “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter,” turned to “axle grease.” The newspapers he slept under became “dead-tree editions,” the lottery he’d played morphed into “a tax on idiots,” and while his weak chin was still a “confident overbite,” his mouth was a “pie hole.” Lost within the Beltway, Sterling wasn’t “probing alternative termini”—he was “investigating hopeless destinations.”

Looking at what had become “a Victorian loveseat tuber,” Sterling realized he had “sub-optimized his potential.” After pulling on a clean pair of “gentleman’s assistants,” he went to visit an “afterlife coach” to make arrangements for a “basement apartment,” for he knew he was “circling the drain.” A few days later, the Post reported that Sterling had died of “therapeutic misadventures.”

Note: To read more about Sterling “Skip” Eisiminger’s subject matter here, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euphemism