(From the Washington Post contest, in which high
school teachers sent in the worst analogies they'd encountered in
grading their students' papers over the years.)
1. Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the
center.
2. He was as tall as a 6' 3" tree.
3. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two
sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
4. 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.
5. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who
had also never met.
6. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog
makes just before it throws up.
7. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender
leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
8. 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.
9. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
10. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room
temperature Canadian beef.
11. 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.
12. The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object.
13. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag
filled with vegetable soup.
14. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances
like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
15. 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.>
16. 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.
17. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
18. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a
bowling ball wouldn't.
19. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
20. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when
you fry them in hot grease.
21. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences
that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
22. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was
the East River.
23. 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.
24. He felt like he was being hunted down like a dog, in a place
that hunts dogs, I suppose.
25. She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword.
26. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
27. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike
Phil, this plan just might work.
28. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not
eating for a while.
29. "Oh, Jason, take me!" she panted, her breasts heaving like a
college freshman on $1-a-beer night.
30. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple
it to the wall.
31. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around
with power tools.
32. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard
bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
33. The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after
the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.
34. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put
in any pH cleanser
35. Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was
a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like
"Second Tall Man."
36. The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin
sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a
play.
37. The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.
38. She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that
used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you
banged the door open again.
39. Her pants fit her like a glove, well, maybe more like a mitten,
actually.
40. Fishing is like waiting for something that does not happen very
often.
41. They were as good friends as the people on "Friends."
42. Oooo, he smells bad, she thought, as bad as Calvin Klein's
Obsession would smell if it were called Enema and was made from
spoiled Spamburgers instead of natural floral fragrances.
43. The knife was as sharp as the tone used by Rep. Sheila Jackson
Lee (D-Tex.) in her first several points of parliamentary procedure
made to Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) in the House Judiciary Committee
hearings on the impeachment of President William Jefferson Clinton.
44. He was as bald as one of the Three Stooges, either Curly or
Larry, you know, the one who goes "woo woo woo."
45. The sardines were packed as tight as the coach section of a 747
46. Her eyes were shining like two marbles that someone dropped in
mucus and then held up to catch the light.
47. The baseball player stepped out of the box and spit like a
fountain statue of a Greek god that scratches itself a lot and spits
brown, rusty tobacco water and refuses to sign autographs for all
the little Greek kids unless they pay him lots of drachmas.
48. I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German
name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don't speak
German. Anyway, it's a dread that nobody knows the name for, like
those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I
don't know the name for those either.
49. She was as unhappy as when someone puts your cake out in the
rain, and all the sweet green icing flows down and then you lose the
recipe, and on top of that you can't sing worth a damn.
50. Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can
tell butter from I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.
51. It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one
had ever seen before.
52. Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access
T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by
mistake.
53. You know how in "Rocky" he prepares for the fight by punching
sides of raw beef? Well, yesterday it was as cold as that meat
locker he was in.
54. The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating
electric fan set on medium.
55. Her lips were red and full, like tubes of blood drawn by an
inattentive phlebotomist.
56. The sunset displayed rich, spectacular hues like a .jpeg file at
10 percent cyan, 10 percent magenta, 60 percent yellow and 10
percent black.
