And… drumroll… It finally came to me.
The Near-apocalyptic Snorker.

Huh???? I can see the wheels spinning behind your eyes. “How the hell did you come up with THAT?”

Welcome to NaS 101.

First, we’ll start with the middle. (Don’t we always, but I digress.) Apocalyptic. Most people think it means the end of the freakin’ world. And, to most of the world’s religious definitions, CAPITAL A Apocalypse does mean the end of the world. Everybody’s toast, kaput, all-she-wrote. The freakin’ fat lady sang.

But what about LITTLE A apocalypse? The etymology is Greek apokalyptein – or “uncover”.

Heaven knows (yes, that’s intentional) we’ve certainly uncovered a lot of things in the past couple of years. What the hell, maybe the “uncovering” even began with Watergate. Besides, uncovering could mean a lot of things, and I do a lot of uncovering in my plots.

Ex. 1 Combes threw back the tarp to uncover the body in the truck bed.

Ex. 2 Berni’s ex-husband, the ex-race driver, threw back his martini so fast that his toupee slipped, uncovering the warts on his head.

Ex. 3 Vaz threw back the blanket to uncover Macie’s…

OK, in addition to a lot of uncovering, there’s also a lot of throwing back. At least it’s not throwing up, although there is some of that too.

So, dang it, for a lot of reasons apocalyptic fits.

OK, what about the Near- part? What’s with the hyphen anyway?

The rule is: Anytime you say apocalyptic, it has to be something HYPHEN apocalyptic. As in post-apocalyptic (after everybody gets whacked), pre-apocalyptic (before everybody gets whacked when only some people get whacked), neo-apocalyptic (only the freakin’ punk rockers get whacked), post-cretaceous-apocalptic (when the dinosaurs got whacked).

So NEAR-apocalyptic means it could be just around the corner from everybody getting whacked — or just around the corner from everybody in the world getting uncovered at once — which could be cool in Orange County California, and not so cool in Orange County Florida.

Understand so far?  Good! That makes one of you. Now the last word.

Why is it the last word?

Because I always get the last word, that’s why.

Snorker.

WTF is Snorker? You ask.

Well. To quote a lawyer friend, and pretend that I am a lawyer myself — It DEPENDS.

Depends on WHAT? You ask, this time not quite as friendly.

It depends on where you live.

For example a snorker in Australia — well let’s see. I guess it depends on whether or not you’re hungry. One Aussie definition of snorker is a sausage. Twisting that into a metaphor of your own, I’ll leave it to you to find out what the second definition is.

What about if you live in Detroit? You ask.

What? Who lives in Detroit? Nobody I know. OK, well maybe those car guys. You know, the ones that thought using music by the ole’ Zep in commercials would make their car a better car.

WAIT! Now you’ve done it, you’ve got me digressing by a freakin’ mile here. FORGET Detroit!

Lets just say if you live ANYPLACE BUT AUSTRALIA –

A snorker is someone who makes a pig sound when they have a good laugh. ERGO (my, doesn’t that sound impressive? I’ll have to say it again.)

Ergo a story that makes a snorker snork can also be called a snorker.

Thus, (basically the same freakin’ thing as ergo, except in American)

Near-apocalytic Snorkers

BLOODY FREAKIN’ THRILLERS with enough funny parts that you don’t feel the need to puke when someone is turned into FOD burger by a jet engine, or feel like jumping in front of a bus because the whole freakin’ world financial system has collapsed.

Snork on.

Ron