Metaphors

We've been talking about poetry in my English class lately. I've actually kind of been getting into it. My dad is a poet (a good one, might I add), and I've tried my hand at writing a couple, previous to said English class, so I know I'm not TERRIBLE, but I could be better.

Anyway, my teacher said that using metaphors and similes is a good thing to know when writing poetry. She then handed to us a sheet of paper. "This," she said,"is a list of bad metaphors. Don't write anything like this." I asked her for a copy to keep, and she graciously handed me one. I have actually heard of some of these, and you may have, too, but they're too funny NOT to share. These are actual metaphors used by college students (don't ask me what assignment they were used for). Their English teachers snipped them out and then gathered 'em all up. These are great.

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. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
12. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
13. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
14. 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.
15. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
16. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
17. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
18. 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.
19. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
20. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
21. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

As you can see, these are HILARIOUS!!! We were then asked to take our five favorite ones and make them better. Hope you enjoyed 'em! See if YOU can change any to make them better.