Olde English is now New English

Every year, English teachers from across the USA may submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners:

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 hose 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 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 7:00pm 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 6:36pm traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19pm 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-i n-law Frank. But unlike Frank, 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.

Jump. Splat.

People constantly tell me how intelligent cats are, how they can jump from the 80th floor of a building and ALWAYS land on their feet (paws, whatever). Well, I doubt they have met my cat.

You see, I adopted him - nuts-free - from a Cat Hospital in Vegas when he was but a wee kitten. Full of fluff, loved to be cuddled. So I took him home and made him mine. Weeks turned into months, and months have well, almost turned into a year. And during that time, one would assume that a cat develops and grows. But don't be fooled by mystical appearances. My cat spends his day sleeping on my bed only getting up to eat and ... use the litter box. But when he jumps from the bed to the floor, he lands with a thump. Not an elegant cat-like pounce. Oh no, a loud thump as he falls into a crumpled mess of cat fur on the floor. Then he picks himself up and goes about his business.

I have a lazy cat. He stares up at the window but can't jump up to the sill. So I lifted him up. And there he sat, breathing in fresh air, alert as to the birds outside taunting him. But then enough was enough. He turned and jumped. Splat thud!

And there he lay. Eventtually he dragged himself to the carpet where he lay. I later discovered that poor thing had sprained his front right paw/leg. Not that I'm a vet - and I can't afford right now to take him to one - but nothing felt broken and he wasn't crying.

So now he hobbles a bit, but gets around. And does not jump from the bed. No. He sleeps 18 hours a day and has yet to use his litter box. Which reminds me, I need to get him off the bed. now.

The Middle Seat

I am on a mission. A mission to find the idiot who designed the middle seat on an airplane.

Some folks, like me, like the window seat. You get about an extra inch of space. You get to see stuff outside. You get to see the world tilt at an odd slant as the plane takes off. And you get to see all the houses around the airport slowly diminish until they look like little doll houses. Then there are the folks who prefer the aisle seat. Perhaps they have weak bladders and need to use the loo often. perhaps they just like that the cart carrying sodas and water and tasteless snacks knocks their foot or knee each time it passes.

Then there's the middle seat. No-one likes the middle seat.

But when you fly Southwest Airlines, there are no assigned seats. So you can't smile nicely at the woman behind the ticketing counter when you first check in and ask in an accent if you could please have a window (or an aisle) seat. It's first come, first served. Each man for himself. Pushing. Shoving. Humanity at its very finest.

So when you're in Group C, that means you're the last to board. And no matter what time of day or night it is, flights to Vegas are always full. So on you walk. And every single window and aisle seat is taken. You look around, scouring the seats, hoping someone has left one for you. And there you see it. Back there, in row 7439. A seat. A damn middle seat. The ONLY seat left on the plane.

So you smile at the woman in the aisle seat as she rolls her eyes. She has to unclip her belt, make the effort to get up, and wait all of 22 seconds while you shimmy into your middle seat.

You sit there. Tweedle Dee to your left. And Tweedle Dum to your right. And that's the way it's going to be for the next four freakin' hours. Enjoy!

It all began back in the rather uneventful year of 1974

It all began back in the rather uneventful year of 1974.

It was an unspectacular year, much like the one before it. And the one that followed it. He was born to a young, newly married couple. Their first born.

Throughout his years at elementary school, his life was much like the year of his birth. He learned to add, and subtract. He learned to draw within the lines. He learned his ABCs.

He didn’t care much for his sister when she was born just 18 months after his rather beige birth.

“Ja, she’s nice. But you can take her back now,” he said to his parents when they brought her home from the hospital.

It was during elementary school that his parents decided to divorce. He didn’t find this a nuisance partly because most of his friends’ parents were divorced. And because over the years, the level of arguing within the home had grown almost unbearable. It was during these times that his imagination grew fertile. He would lie in bed, under the covers, pretending that the duvet on his simple Pine-frame bed was in fact made of cement and that he lay under it, cocooned from the outside world. He would lie there in the darkness and feel oddly safe.

His elementary school years followed him to the local boys’ high school. The very same school his father had attended. Until now, his life had been quite sheltered. The only cuss words he would hear would come from rugged villains on the westerns playing on the TV set in the lounge. And when couples kissed on TV he would blush from embarrassment if either one of his parents were in the room.

So it should come as no surprise that high school came as quite a shock to the young, quiet boy.

At break times, he would meander aimlessly through the school’s many corridors, eating his packed lunches nonchalantly. He would watch the other boys as they sat in groups in the shade and laughed. He watched as some would chase each other around the edge of the sports field. And he would wish he had friends.

He was not an exemplary student by any means. Often times, he would sit in class and gaze out the classroom window at a passing hawk, or at the way the boughs of the Wisteria trees bent in the wind.

But he excelled at English. He would look forward to his lessons about Shakespearen literature. And old English poetry. However, try as he may, he could never grasp the concept of Math, much to his father’s dismay. When he decided to try his hand at Art, he learned firsthand of the depth of his father’s dismay for it was his father who had hoped his son would go on to become a fine tradesman, much like himself. Or perhaps he would excel on the sports field as he had when he was in high school.

But the young boy, who was a ‘late bloomer’ physically, would never follow in his father’s footsteps. He discovered that he had no aptitude for sports and was clumsy with a ball.

He remained tall and lanky while many of the other boys in his class started to fill out. Their voices started to crackle and deepen, and yet the young boy remained the same. At times, during physical education class, he would intentionally drag his feet along the cement pathway that lead to the physical education changing rooms so as not to have to undress in front of his class mates and face their ridicule at his lithe physique.

Sometimes, in the summer months when the swimming program was on, he would skip physical education class altogether and instead go to the art studio and catch up on work which had fallen behind.

He graduated high school with his class mates, many of whom went on to various prestigious centers of learning around the nation. He too had been accepted to one, but when he had mustered up both the courage and the pride to announce this to his father, he was asked who he thought would pay for this education. So as he watched his former class mates go off to college to become doctors and diplomats, he went to the local bakery to start earning his keep.

So the young boy who was now growing into a young man went to seek work. It would be almost a decade later before he enrolled as a freshman in college. A career of higher learning that was to last all of two years.

As the years dragged on, he where his talents lay. And he pursued them. His journeys around the world had begun. They took him to lands he had only heard about in the news. Yet all the while, he began learning more about himself, the world around him, and his place within it.

He began to realize that his chosen career path had little to do with his aptitude, but rather his life experiences up until that very moment. And while traveling on that path, he began to receive recognition for his aptitude. Awards came from various European countries, some from America, and a few from his homeland which he had left behind so many years before.

And all the while, the young boy who was finally becoming a young man felt empty. He felt a yearning for his family. And yet simultaneously an unexplainable desire to prove to his father, and to himself, that he had become successful. Despite all the odds. That in the face of adversity, he overcome all obstacles.

As he faces the many daunting challenges which no doubt lay ahead of him, he is reminded of his past. Of the mistakes he has made. Of the lessons he hopes he has learned from them. He is reminded of his family, so many thousands of miles away. And each time he hears of ill news about family and family friends back home, something inside of him withers. He wonders if he has indeed done the right thing by staying away. And yet, almost as if by epiphany, he realizes that he has learned more about himself and the world in the ten years away from his family than he did in the 24 he was with them. And so the internal struggle continues within him.

But our story is not all gloom for the young man continues to seek the happiness he once knew. The happiness which was the innocence of all things young. He realizes that that happiness comes now in various forms. And he actively seeks them out, as small as they are. As infrequent as they may occur. For it is in their minute size and infrequence that he is able to truly grasp the very core of what it means to be genuinely happy.

He has learned that happiness can come in the form of a job well done, just as it can come in the form of a birthday card sent from many thousands of miles away. And that lesson is just one of many our young boy who gradually turned into a young man has learned along the journey of self-discovery that is life.

He was born in the rather uneventful year of 1974. And today, that young man turns 34.

They say it's a jungle out there

Well, if you're a tepid little craeture, much like myself, then you can avoid the jungle all together by hopping on a bus and heading down to your local zoo.

I did this today and learned many interesting things, such as:

- an elephant's gestation period is 22 months (holy shit!!!)
- a lion (I'd say a 'male lion' but that would be redundant) spends up to 20 hours of the day sleeping and resting (in my next life I want to be a lion!)
- in a fight between a polar bear and a lion, the polar bear would win (could that be because lions spend up to 20 hours a day sleeping and resting?)
- the ostrich has a 46-foot long small intestine (I'm guessing most of it is in its neck!)
- the giraffe has the highest blood pressure of any animal (must be the strain of having that long neck)
- Zebras can't see the color orange (and we know this how exactly???)
- Chimpanzees are our closest relatives, with only 1.6% of our genetic material differing between humans and chimps (you wouldn't think so after a visit to The White House)
- a tiger's paw prints are called pug marks (mmmm, interesting)
- Elephants are the only animals that can't jump (well thank God!!!)
- Great White Sharks can go as long as three months without eating (now that's taking a diet too far)
- Polar Bears cannot be detected by infrared cameras, due to their transparent fur (and here I was thinking it was white)

Dear God enough already!

I think I have newly weds living in the apartment below mine.

Every second night, at about 11:30pm, while I'm sitting on my bed surfing online or checking email, the rather uninhibited sounds of physical gratuity and appreciation come creeping up the walls and into my apartment. It's as though someone has put a speaker right next to my bed.

Now I like to think of myself as a pretty open person, and even more tolerant that Barack Obama. But for the love of God Almighty, enough already.

The other night I heard I heard her screaming out, "YES, YES, YES!". At which point I had had enough and shouted back, "NO, NO, NO, I CAN HEAR YOU!" Silence. For two minutes. Then it started up again.

I'm all for people expressing their appreciation for physcial stimulation, but seriously, to scream loud enough that the entire building hears you? That's just rude.

Spring. She has sprung.

Here lies the blithe Spring,
Who first taught birds to sing,
Yet in April herself fell a-crying:
Then May growing hot,
A sweating sickness she got,
And the first of June lay a-dying.

Yet no month can say,
But her merry daughter May
Stuck her coffins with flowers great plenty:
The cuckoo sung in verse
An epitaph o'er her hearse,
But assure you the lines were not dainty.

I can't take credit for the purple tongue twister. We can thank Mr. Thomas Dekker for that. Poor chap obviously had nothing better to do back in 1655. Kinda morbid if you ask me. Last I checked, Spring was supposed to be a a joyous season of rebirth. Not coffins, hearses and epitaphs. Oh well. Spring has finally sprung in these parts. Woohoo!