Metaphorically Speaking

My mother sent me this list compiled by teachers across the country of the worst/most amusing metaphors and analogies from their high school student's essays. Here are some of my favorites:

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

2. 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.

3. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

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

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

6. 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.

7. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each otherlike 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.

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

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

10. 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.

11. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

12. 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.

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

And, my favorite:

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