These are taken from
actual high school essays and collected by English teachers across the country
for their own amusement. Some of these kids may have bright futures as humor
writers. What do you think?
1. Her face was a perfect
oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a
ThighMaster.
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.