Each simile listed below was actually used by high school students in their various essays and short stories:

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.

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

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 P.M. instead of 7:30.

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

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

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

Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie, this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "second tall man".

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers race 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.

The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr. Pepper can.

They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.

The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

Susan,
These are hilarious! Oh my Lord! How funny! Did I ever write this way? I can only hope not.

JJ

Really, really funny!

Too funny! Is this something you put together?
I loved the one about the picket fence and teeth!

These are hysterical!! I laughed at every one.

I can remember reading things like this in my critique group many years ao, oh hey wait a minute, it was only last week. Scary what some writers will put down on paper isn't it?

No Dotsie, I found it on the net somehwere or other...at a writing site, I think.

I wrote most of those similes when I was in High School, in Norcross, Georgia. It was right after the solar eclipse on May 30, 1984. I was 15 years old.

I wrote them as a joke on purpose. I am shocked to find them all over the internet! For some reason, some sites show different people as being the authors of the ones I wrote, which I know I that I wrote.

Here's how it started... Our assignment in Advanced 9th Grade English (I'm serious) was to write similes, and the teacher explained how to do it. So, I thought I'd have some fun. The first one I wrote was, "Her eyes were like two brown circles with black dots in the center." I did it as an obvious joke. I was just messing with my teacher. I remember that I couldn't decide to end the sentence with "center" or "middle". So I asked a friend of mine which word I should use. He started cracking up laughing, and said to use "center". Then it just got out of control from there. We kept trying to see who could write the lamest, but funniest similes.

"Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever." That was mine, too. As well as the one about the Hummingbirds who had never met. I wrote most of those, and somewhere along the line, poeple have added to the collection, and even altered the ones I wrote! Like, there's a British version? What's that all about? I do like the one about Nancy Kerrigan's teeth! That was funny!

The saddist part of the whole thing is that poeple are assuming some stupid kids wrote those. Actually, they were written by two very intelligent teenagers, just having fun at the teacher's expense, just like typical High School students do.

-PF

[ April 04, 2005, 09:41 PM: Message edited by: pf ]

pf, did you have them published on the internet? Is that how people stole them?

Oops, welcome. Pardon my poor manners. I see that you are a web designer. Is that what you do professionally? It sounds like fun. Please tell us more.

[ April 05, 2005, 01:08 PM: Message edited by: Dotsie ]