Thursday, April 15, 2010

Therapeutic Funnies

Well, since my day got off to a rip-roaringly shitty start, I figured I'd better amuse myself damned quick. So here's something entertaining for all of us.

There's a competition in which English teachers from across the USA can submit their collections of analogies, similes, and metaphors culled from actual high-school essays. Here are last year’s winners:


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 machine.

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, Granddad 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 wont 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.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

15 comments:

LVLM(Leah) said...

Aww, K.Z. I hope you're feeling better.

This post made me laugh so hard I peed my pants. Kind of like how I usually pee my pants if I laugh. :P

Hang in there, the day can only get better.

Word veri: onsigh- it's like OnStar but for *sighs*

Tam said...

Poop. Sorry you are having a bad day. But you'll be happy to know my mascara is now running. If some of these stories were meant to be humerous those kids are brilliant.

Hugs

wren boudreau said...

((hugs))

I particularly liked the bowling ball, the nose hair and brother-in-law Phil.

I laughed with a sound like a ceiling fan makes when it's going really fast and has that little squeak it makes on each revolution.

K. Z. Snow said...

Aren't they great? Most writers couldn't dream these up if they tried!

wren boudreau said...

Then I shook my head, over the absurdity of it all, and my hair fluttered like ratty-assed t-shirts on the laundry line in an EF5 tornado.

Lily said...

Sorry to hear you're having a bad day. Hope it gets better soon.

LOL, thanks for the laughs. Those were great!

K. Z. Snow said...

I know, Wren. I was wheezing like a polio-stricken child, one of those waifs worthy of Dickens, when his iron lung goes on the fritz.

Chris said...

((((KZ))))

Amusement is warring with nausea after reading those. Which will win? Hopefully amusement, since I had a Chipotle Burrito Bowl for lunch...

wren boudreau said...

Weird. Blogger is managing the world again. I swear on the grave of my childhood invisible friend Petey that your comment about the iron lung was out there before my tornado one. I'm as befuddled as a dog in room full of cats and toilet paper.

K. Z. Snow said...

When do we get to meet Petey, now that you've outed him?

wren boudreau said...

Um...That's up to Petey, I'm afraid. He's shy.

veri word: dedifi. If you don't stop hitting me, I'l dedifi you.

Clare London said...

*hugs* you to feel better! And many thanks for the laugh this early in the morning :). I adore #6 and hug it as closely as my new bra is squeezing my rib cage into the shape of an egg timer.

Now back to the tricky logistics of trying (by phone) to get my boss back home from France after he got stranded yesterday by the volcanic dust...

Happy weekend, all! :)

Jenre said...

Very funny, KZ. I particularly like the ones which take a beautiful thing and compare it to something mundane or even slightly disgusting.

Hope things are better for you today.

K. Z. Snow said...

CLARE! Where've you been? I would give you a tackle hug if a) I knew for sure what one was, and b) I knew for sure it wouldn't cripple both of us.

No. 6 was immediately my favorite too. "Like, whatever" ... I've had writing days like that. Another fave is "Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do." :-D

K. Z. Snow said...

Hi, Jen. Glad you enjoyed the list. Actually, the richness of imagination in the writers' use of figurative language is pretty damned impressive. A bit misguided, but impressive. :-)