June 3, 2005

Mailbag Metaphors.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 9:25 pm

It’s getting late, and I am without content. Truth is, even if I had something worth a damn in mind, I’m too ragged out to do the heavy lifting necessary to write it out.

Fortunately, my friend Brian the Air Force Vet, came through with an e-mail that purports to contain “extracts from actual High School essays in which students were asked to use analogies and metaphors.”

I truly wonder whether these came from high school kids, or from the mind of someone who can write some pretty funny stuff. Either way, some of them made me laugh out loud.

Here they are:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are known to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

14 Comments »

  1. Too Funny

    This is a hoot and a half….

    Trackback by Absinthe & Cookies (a bit bitter, a bit sweet) — June 3, 2005 @ 9:52 pm

  2. Numbers 2 and 8 are my life.

    Thank you; that was a riot!

    Comment by Shamrock — June 3, 2005 @ 11:55 pm

  3. Am Lit 201

    The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.Cousin James has lots more here….

    Trackback by Jack Bog's Blog — June 4, 2005 @ 12:52 am

  4. Those aren’t metaphors, you ignorant twit. They’re similes.

    Comment by Allan — June 4, 2005 @ 10:10 am

  5. Allan,

    I gather you failed to read the words between the quotation marks in the second paragraph.

    As for the title, I went for the alliteration.

    Here’s a nice imperative sentence for you. Fuck off.

    Comment by Jim - Parkway Rest Stop — June 4, 2005 @ 11:19 am

  6. She had the hysterical screeching laugh of a reader accustomed to rearranging text in the tiny reddish-brown box at the top left of Jim’s blog. “You HAVE to read this hysterical list!” she screamed, to the bespectacled dog at the other computer. “You’re like a fool, only without the straitjacket,” the dog replied, without looking up from Jim’s blog.

    Comment by dogette — June 4, 2005 @ 11:48 am

  7. Love ’em! I think I’ll save ’em to use. hehehe

    Comment by Pammy — June 4, 2005 @ 12:02 pm

  8. I think #10 is perfection.

    Comment by zonker — June 4, 2005 @ 2:07 pm

  9. #19 totally cracked me, and #20 I’m going to steal.

    Comment by Sally — June 4, 2005 @ 6:48 pm

  10. … dude… I laughed out loud.. really, really loud.. both at your post and the smackdown of Allan…

    Comment by Eric — June 4, 2005 @ 8:07 pm

  11. #10 gets my vote, too….

    Comment by mostly cajun — June 4, 2005 @ 9:43 pm

  12. Heheh… gotta go with 13 and 20, although alot of them had me grinning like a drunken Cheshire cat! Nice elbow to the skull on Allan, too!

    Comment by That 1 Guy — June 5, 2005 @ 2:26 pm

  13. My all-time favorite (donated from my DH who can make me laugh like nobody’s business):

    “The smile was ripped from her face — like an episiotomy done with hedge clippers.”

    And nice use of the imperative, Jim! You, as always, rock!

    Comment by Margi — June 5, 2005 @ 3:10 pm

  14. I laughed … I cried … and I choked on my tea when I read Jim’s imperative sentence…

    Comment by allehseya — June 6, 2005 @ 11:11 am

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