Thursday, June 28, 2007

Thigh masters and mob informants

I was just searching the archives of my email for an old attachment that I still can't find, and I stumbled upon one of the greatest emails I've ever received. Due to the sheer joy it has brought to me, I now share it with you:

As a creative wordsmith, I figured you might like this. Every year, English teachers from across the country 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. Here are last year's "winners."

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 machine.
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 35 mph.
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, Granddad 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.

>>Anthony A. Maher>Chairman, President, & CEO>PCS Edventures, Inc. [PCSV.OB]

8 comments:

  1. OH...MY...HECK! That was so funny! Seriously, I think most of these kids are brillant. I sure hope we wrote as well when we where in high school. I'm not kidding when I say that I enjoyed every moment of that email.
    P.S. I LOVE that you have a blog! I'll try to make comments as much as possible. I love you and miss you dreadfully!

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  2. You know, I am not great at ENGLISH by any means, but some of those lines killed me. Is America really that stupid? (Please don't answer my faith in humanity is drained daily).

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  3. You know how people casually write "lol" when something is funny enough that they might actually laugh out loud at their computer, but you know that they are actually just staring at the screen with perhaps a bit of drool inching it's way out of the left crevasse of their mouth?

    Well, now is not one of such times.

    lol. really.

    Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Welcome to the wonderful world of blogging! Also, welcome to the more-than-mediocre-middle-name club. (Should I have included another dash?) And finally, welcome to middle earth. May I suggest the mangoes?

    Hope that you and R-H-E-T-T are enjoying life as newly-weds down in Vegas. We're excited to see you next week and introduce you to little Kate!

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  4. My favorites were "Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever." and "The boat drifted across the lake exactly like a bowling ball wouldn't." Genius. Oh, and for Shanna, my other favorite was the freight train story problem, and I'm pretty sure they meet at about 8:12 pm.

    Natalie, Natalie, Natalie. My dear you were born to blog and to share your amazing writing talent with all of us who are lucky enough to know about it.

    Keep 'em coming! I love you!!!

    p.s. (which means I am about to say something completely irrelevant...) Thank you for the long distance support on the day of Kate's birth. I love you and know that you would have been there if you could have been.

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  5. Hi Natalie! Thanks for the message! Yes, this is Mike's sister Michelle. Sure enough, my husband Jac does know Clint - in fact they see each other almost every day. They are both doing research this summer and are working in the same area of campus. Jac was happy to say "hi" from you and Clint sends a "hi" back. Hope I'll get to meet him sometime! Speaking of meeting, I think I must have met you before, but it's probably been since Mike and Lydia's wedding - eh? Aren't you one of the "Three Musketeers"? :)

    PS - Those essay excerpts are incredible!! Thank you for the hearty laugh!

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  6. Natalie, I needed that good laugh this morning. It was a nice, hearty laugh, but nowhere close to the sound a dog makes before it's about to barf.

    You are just a bundle of beauty and joy and talent. I love your blog already! It seems like you and Rhett are doing so well--it was really fun to see you at the reunion. Keep in touch!

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  7. finding your blog was difficult like climbing Mt. Everest with live weasels as snow shoes...

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  8. Thank you for the fantastic metaphor Sean! But wait - who is Sean?

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