# Writing > General Writing >  Everything Must Go!

## AuntShecky

If youre a night owl or work the graveyard--aka lobster-- shift, you might have caught the following 30-minute infomercial airing in the wee small hours of the morning. (Hey, it was either sitting through that or a rerun of _The Ropers_) :

This weekend only! BIG BONANZA BLOWOUT! HUGE store-wide sale at Cliché Discount Warehouse, the areas largest selection of trite, hackneyed, and worn-out expressions. One-Stop Shopping for all your cliché needs. Come to the Cliché Discount Warehouse where there is literally nothing new under the sun!

Stop in this Saturday and Sunday for our biggest sale ever. Hurry  our merchandise is selling like hot cakes, and the clichés are flying off the shelves.

Visit our Pet Department this weekend. Free dog-and-pony show for the kids! Our elephant in the room is more fun than a barrel of monkeys!

Every dog has his day, and youll find them all at Cliché Discount Warehouse. Lots of old dogs and new tricks. Weve got those hard-to-find dogs that youll wont find anywhere else (except in amateur prose): dogs with barks worse than their bites, dog-eared, dog-tired, and dog-gone dogs, even that dog who wont hunt.

Are cats your cup o tea? Every cat in Cliché Discount Warehouse has nine lives-thats like getting nine cats for the price o one! Weve got plenty of E-Z payment plans, cause theres more than one way to skin a cat!

Birds of a feather flock together, and theyre all flocking to the Cliché Discount Warehouse! Saturday Night Special: buy one bird-in-hand, get two in the bush free! We have chickens galore, here a chick, there a chick, chickens crossing the road and coming home to roost. This weekend only-- buy a dozen chickens, and well throw in the fox to guard the henhouse!

Yessir  weve got enough birds to last till the cows come home. (Weve got cows too, but why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?)

Theres something fishy going on-where can you catch your favorite denizen of the deep? At Cliché Discount Warehouse, of course, where you _always_ have the option to fish or cut bait! 

Well give a man a fish, but we wont stop there! Well _teach_ a man to fish, too! No limits on quantity  plenty of fish in the sea! 

Keeping up with the Joneses? Let us lead you down the garden path to our Home and Garden Center, where youll find the finest fences to straddle and lines in the sand to draw. Is the grass always greener on the other side of fence? We can help. Weve got pesticides to beat the band. Pick your poison. Our Big Spring Sale on fertilizer is in full-bloom: large selection of the finest horse-, bull-, or bat-poop. Choose the one thats right for you. 

Cliché Discount Warehouse has everything to make your home sweet home. Weve got paintings  cheap! - but each picture is worth a thousand words. Well not only help you make your bed, well lie in it with ya. Our housewares department is no flash in the pan. This weekend buy a pot to piss in, get a free window to throw it out of! 

For a limited time only, 50% off on broken watches. Well, theyre off by more than that, but theyll give the right time twice a day! Bring in your old timepieces. Well clean your clock while you wait.

But wait! Theres more: Sports and clichés  you cant have one without the other. Cliché Discount Warehouses Sporting Goods Department does it as well as anybody. We touch all the bases, and the balls in your court. With our bargains, youll hit a home run, sink a slam dunk, and score a hole-in-one. Ask about our deals on extra-roomy team uniforms that go the whole nine yards.

Dont forget  we offer a full-service grocery section so you can put bread on the table. At Cliché Discount Warehouse, we know which side of the bread the butters on, and our butter wouldnt melt in your mouth!

We know that if you want to make an omelet, you gotta break some eggs. And we got em, six of one, half-dozen of the other, or if you prefer you can put all of your eggs into one basket. 

And how do you like them apples? Our apples dont fall far from the tree. If you _do_ happen to come across a bad apple, we guarantee that one bad apple wont spoil the whole bushel.

If we hand you some lemons, you can make lemonade. You ought to see the way _our_ cookies crumble! You can have your cake and eat it, too!

Times a-wastin and time waits for no man. Sale ends Monday at the stroke of midnight. So hurry in to Cliché Discount Warehouse. Conveniently located in your neck o the woods, just off the beaten path, as the crow flies. Youll have no trouble finding us, especially if youve been around the block a few times. 

(Just like our clichés.)

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## MANICHAEAN

Dear Aunty
You dug up a few golden oldies there ( a bit like me) and as I'm currently reading Farnsworth's "Classical English Rhetoric," I was as a rejoinder going to fire something back on; epizeuxis, anadiplosis, polysyndeton and praeteritio. However I held my fire as firstly I am still trying to digest what it's all about and secondly, I was waiting to see the whites of your eyes!
Take care.
M.

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## AuntShecky

> I was waiting to see the whites of your eyes!
> 
> M.


You may have to wait awhile. They're a little blood-shot at the moment.

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## Hawkman

You could have single handedly revitalized my sadly neglected Copywriters' Corner thread with this little lot! 

Live and be well - H

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## DickZ

This is great, Auntie. I thought for a moment I had identified an additional one that you left out. But on re-reading your excellent piece, I found that you actually had that one too! I don't think you missed anything.

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## AuntShecky

Thanks for your comments, Hawkman and DickZ, and Manichaen:






> I'm currently reading Farnsworth's "Classical English Rhetoric," I was as a rejoinder going to fire something back on; epizeuxis, anadiplosis, polysyndeton and praeteritio. M.



At one time I knew about those rhetorical tricks, but looked them up to refresh my increasingly doddering memory. Praeteritio (aka apophasis) occurs often in political screeds but especially in monologues by old-school comedians, to wit,"I won't say my mother-in-law is fat, but when she sits around the house, she sits AROUND THE HOUSE." (You probably can find that joke and similar chestnuts in the Yucks department at the Cliché Discount Warehouse.)

Is this an audience or an oil painting? etc.

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