SCHOOL DAZE: “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 machine.”
Talk about mixed metaphors!
September is indelibly linked with the opening of school – even
though most schools now start the week before Labor Day. With that
in mind, we thought it would be a good time to pass along a
collection of supposedly actual metaphors found in high school
essays – such as the one above.
Fair warning: These are from the Internet so we can’t vouch for
their authenticity. Still, they are pretty funny:
• Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two
sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
• His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking
alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
• 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.
• She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was
room-temperature Canadian beef.
• She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog
makes just before it throws up.
• Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
• He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
• The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way
a bowling ball wouldn’t.
• McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag
filled with vegetable soup.
• 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 p.m. instead of 7:30.
• Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a
sneeze.
• 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.
More when space allows.
