These are the winners of the "worst analogies ever written in a high school essay" contest run by the Washington Post:
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.
(Joseph Romm, Washington)
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.
(Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station)
The little boat
gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
(Russell Beland, Springfield)
McBride fell 12
stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup.
(Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring)
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.
(Roy Ashley, Washington)
Her hair
glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
(Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)
Her eyes were
like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.
(Russell Beland, Springfield)
Bob was as
perplexed as a hacker who means to access=20 T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung
but gets \flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung=20 by mistake.
(Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)
Her vocabulary
was as bad as, well, whatever.
(Unknown)
He was as tall
as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
(Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)
The hailstones
leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
(Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring)
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."
(Russell Beland, Springfield)
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.
(Jennifer Hart, Arlington)
The politician
was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.
(Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)
They lived in a
typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy
Kerrigan's teeth.
(Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.)
John and Mary
had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
(Russell Beland, Springfield)
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.
(Barbara Fetherolf, Alexandria)
His thoughts
tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a
dryer without Cling Free.
(Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)
The red brick
wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon.
He knocked on
his ex-wife's door like an EMT scrubbing stain remover in the back of the
ambulance after a long night.
He drank like
that guy from Phish.
Her future was
as bright as the before picture in a Rembrandt toothpaste ad.
The lenses in
his contacts were as dark as diet cola that went flat.
They kissed like
two kissing-fish, only different.
He played the
trumpet like a guy who has taken lots of trumpet lessons.
She could spread
a load of gravel just like the Caterpillar HC-4207G automated gravel
spreading unit, only slower.
Her skin was like porcelain, only warm and with tiny cracks and hairs on it.