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Ramona passes this one along.<strong><font size="5"><br>
<br>
Analogies and metaphors</font></strong><font face="Arial" size="4"> <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Every
year, English teachers from across the USA can submit their collections
of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These
excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across
the country. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Here are last year's
winners.</b></font><font face="Arial" size="4"> <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">1. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two
sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master. </font><font color="blue"
face="Arial" size="2"><br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">2. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking
alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.</font><font
color="blue" face="Arial" size="2"> <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">3. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">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. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">4. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was
room-temperature Canadian beef. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">5. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog
makes just before it throws up. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">6. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">7. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">8. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">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. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">9. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the
way a bowling ball wouldn't. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">10. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty
bag filled with vegetable soup. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">11. </font><font face="Arial"
size="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. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">12. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a
sneeze. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">13. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots
when you fry them in hot grease. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">14. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">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. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">15. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket
fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">16. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds
who had also never met. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">17. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she
was the East River. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">18. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">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. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">19. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">20. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike
Phil, this plan just might work. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">21. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from
not eating for a while. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">22. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">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. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">23. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one
slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">24. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids
around with power tools. <br>
<br>
</font><font face="Arial" size="2">25. </font><font face="Arial"
size="4">He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard
bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up </font><font
color="blue" face="Arial" size="2"><br>
</font>
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