They're, Like, Metaphors, Like, You Know...

I cannot vouch for the veracity of these, but they were presented to me as actual, real life metaphors by high school students, like a cathedral bell ringing with a clapper made of corn muffins. No, they're better than that, metaphors like a cat purring warm in your bed while you hack from allergies.

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 35mph.

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 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.

26. She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword.

27. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had
forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.

28. She walked into my office like a centipede with
98 missing legs.

29. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you
accidentally staple it to the wall.