Miscellaneous

Maybe you?ve seen the viral e-mail titled ?Twenty-Eight Reasons Why English Teachers Die Young.? It purports to list 28 similes found in high-school essays. The e-mail has taken in many bloggers, including this one. Actually the content of the e-mail comes from the Washington Post Style Invitational?s outrageous-analogy contests in 1995 and 1999. Here are some of my favorite entries (this time with proper attribution):

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. (Joseph Romm, Washington)

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)

She was sending me more mixed signals than a dyslexic third-base coach. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn?t. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup. (Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring)

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)



Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)

They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan?s teeth. (Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.)

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)

The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon. (Jennifer Frank and Jimmy Pontzer, Washington and Sterling)

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do. (Jerry Pannullo, Kensington)

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work. (Malcolm Fleschner, Arlington)

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while. (Malcolm Fleschner, Arlington)

It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before. (Marian Carlsson, Lexington, Va.)

The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant. (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)

The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object. (Nanci Phillips Sharp, Gaithersburg)

He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up. (Susan Reese, Arlington)

She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef. (Brian Broadus, Charlottesville)

She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs. (Jonathan Paul, Garrett Park)