Paraprosdokian

Would someone who is an expert in 8th grade please write to me and tell me if my daughter really needs to be able to identify and name the rhetorical devices epizeuxis, epanalepsis, or polysyndeton? What makes this impossible list even more ironic is it comes from a book called Painless Poetry.  Painless for whom, I have to ask? Certainly not for the poor student who not only has to pronounce them, but define them as well.

So unless the 8th grade expert writes and tells me I have to make Asherel memorize these, we are just learning that they do exist and a few choice ones I am making sure she knows. Like Paraprosdokian.  I don't care what it means- you have to love a word like paraprosdokian. Can you see all the little 5th grade boys fighting on the playground and shouting with disdain, "Well your mama is a paraprosdokian!!!"

We were doing our schoolwork on a late afternoon, and I had dispiritedly checked the website for the NRA art contest results. They had judged the artwork several days ago, one of which my own dear student had worked on for 8 months.  I had the timeline from an email from one of the organizers, and knew the winners were to be notified within a day or two of judging. So I sadly told Asherel that she hadn't won. I was anxious for the winners work to be posted on the website so I could tell what blockheads the judges were to have chosen any of them over Asherel's beautiful and so lovingly and tediously produced work. So far, the winners pictures were not online, though promised to come as soon as the work was scanned in. There had been some 1200 entries.  I had seen past year winners and knew that every one of those kids had to have cheated.... there was no way any child could draw like that. Still, I really had thought that Asherel's inventive and lovely art had a shot. Oh well. There are certainly more important things in life to be dismayed about.

While sucking on these sour grapes, the phone rang. I ignored it. I hate the phone. It is almost always someone trying to convince me that I alone have the power to save the world if I just send them $50. I get weary with all the need in the universe.  But it kept ringing, and something inside me told me I ought to get it.
I slogged over and grabbed it.
"Is Asherel there?" asked a deep, man's voice.
I glanced at caller ID. NRA was calling. Either Asherel was purchasing a firearm, or something good was about to happen.
I handed her the phone.
"Oh," she sparkled, "That's wonderful! Thank you so much!"
She handed me back the phone.
"I won second place," she said, "Does that mean I don't have to finish my Painless Poetry?"
"Paraprosdokian!!!!! You are living your Painless Poetry!!!!"
Paraprosdokian means "surprise ending."

Far too often I write the ending before God does. I wallow in dismay because life is not the way it should be. Evil is rewarded. Good people suffer. Innocence is abused and God is mocked. Cancers come back, children make poor decisions that can have eternal repercussions, dogs pee on my leg.  The happy ending is too many sequels away and in the meantime, the hero is getting crushed.  The Bible is one long story about people crying out, "When are you going to finish the book and give us the happy ending you promised!?"
And He repeatedly tells us, "It ain't over til the fat angel sings...." or a close facsimile of that.
This is a slight paraphrase, but  He does tell us that the end is Paraprosdokian.... we will not believe it but unless we do, we won't be there to see it.

Deuteronomy 8:15-17 (New International Version)

¹⁵ He led you through the vast and dreadful wilderness, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. ¹⁶ He gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, something your ancestors had never known, to humble and test you so that in the end it might go well with you.

John 3:11-13 (New International Version)

¹¹ Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. ¹² I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? ¹³ No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.^[a]