A Mystery, Part 1

I'm going to try something a little different. Because of the length, this is will be done in installments. This first is to simply lay the groundwork, prepare the palate, if you will. So, put on your seatbelts, hang on for the long ride.

What follows is fun to read by itself. Tomorrow, I will post the first part of the story that came out of this.
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A Mystery On A Dark And Stormy Night
A short story based on Random Metaphors
Gathered from High School Essays

by
L S A
October, 2003




A while back, I read a list of some humorous gaffs made by high school students. The fractured metaphors used by students in essays brought me quite a few chuckles. I couldn’t help but wonder what each entire essay looked like. So I’ve taken these passages into one story. Let’s see how it might go.

These are the . . . . . . .

Actual Analogies and Metaphors Found in High School Essays


1.) Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other 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 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 solar eclipse without one 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 formally surcharge-free ATM.

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 pm instead of 7:30.

12.) Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.

13.) The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

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 pm traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 pm 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, Grandpappy 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 known 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.

26.) She was as easy as the TV Guide crossword.

27.) She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

28.) Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened.

29.) It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

30.) She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

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OK, there you have it. Stay tuned, boys and girls! The story begins tomorrow!!!