AH: I thought I'd totally shaken it off, but then it came back again. Like a bad case of excema.

SW: You have excema?

AH: No. I'm saying that it came back. You know . . . like excema.

SW: Sweetie, where do you have excema?

AH: I don't have excema.

SW: You don't have excema?

AH: No. There's no excema.

SW: But I thought you said you had a bad case of excema.

AH: No. It's metaphorical.

SW: Metaphorical?

AH: Yes. [A little too loudly, causing other habitués of the local China Trough to look up from their dinners.] That's what I'm saying. It's metaphorical! I have emotional excema!

SW: You have metaphorical emotional excema.

AH: Exactly. Did you know my mother pronounces it egg-zee-ma? So that it sounds like the skanky divorcee of that girly beer drink, Zima? So that it rhymes with that toxic mentholated face wash, Noxema? For the longest time I was convinced that Noxema was an anti-excema topical ointment.

SW: Yikes.

AH: I know! It's awful. And now I need metaphorical Noxema. For my emotional egg-zee-ma.

Heh. I free-associate around words in a similar (and for my friends, similarly confusing) manner.

Why can't they keep up???

NB: My "word" to verify that I am not a robot is "puxyax." Just try to get that one out of your head now that you've seen it!