It was like, ya know . . . .

The clearcut on the mountain was like aluminum foil.

I think the sentence above was my most favorite metaphorical classic during all my years of teaching English. That was like back then when everyone hated clearcuts like they hate milfoil, which, by the way, is like twisted sister. So, I was thrilled like a happy mayfly which has loosed itself from an aphid-soaked water tank when my friend Marian sent me some similes overnight.

Marian and I taught together at Sandpoint High School back in the late '70s, early '80s. She later moved across the state line and earned a lot more money teaching English and Spanish in Washington. My favorite memory of many with Marian occurred the day we sat in the darkened classroom watching the nauseating guy with slicked-back hair and the skinny black tie repeat "You are now what you were then."

For ninety minutes, he drummed that into our head with numerous anecdotes of support but with no stupid similes. While the well-behaved teachers among our group dutifully took notes on his every word, Marian and I exchanged notes about his every word. I thought his corny message at the time was about the stupidist thing I'd ever heard since the day I'd learned the ASS-U-ME message from Bill Sheffield during a U.S. Forest Service defensive driving workshop at Sandpoint Community Hall.

But like my missassumption about assuming making an ASS out of U and Me, I learned to appreciate the man's message a hundred times over after that curriculum day workshop where Marian and I, in spite of our naughty behavior, took it all in.

Anyway, Marian sent me another note, and unlike those I wrote to her during that in-service program, I'd like to share. Enjoy, and possibly some readers, with upcoming essays to write, may want to make copies so you can inject some of these prizes into you text and really impress your teacher:

Every year, English teachers from across the country are invited to submit their collections of analogies and metaphors culled from student essays. These entries are published each year, to the amusement of teachers all over the country. Here are the most recent 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 solar eclipses 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 a slab of room-
temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like the sound a dog makes just before
throwing 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 thirty 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 twelve 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 a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leapt 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 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 resembling 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.