[1033] in Humor
HUMOR: Analogies
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Andrew A. Bennett)
Tue Aug 29 17:39:51 1995
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 17:35:20 EDT
From: "Andrew A. Bennett" <abennett@MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 29 Aug 95 15:01:17 EST
From: pug@MIT.EDU (Sharalee M. Field)
Subject: HUMOR: It's like an analogy...
Forwarded message:
>
> (transcribed without permission from the Washington Post,
> July 23, 1995)
>
> Style Invitational Report from Week 120:
>
> In which we asked you to come up with bad analogies. The
> results were great, though we feel compelled to point out
> that there is a fine line between an analogy that is so bad it
> is good and an analogy that is so good it is bad. See what
> we mean.
>
> 4th Runner-Up: Oooo, he smells bad, she thought, as bad as
> Calvin Klein's Obsession would smell if it were called Enema
> and was made from spoiled Spamburgers instead of natural
> floral fragrances. (Jennifer Frank, Washington, and Jimmy
> Pontzer, Sterling)
>
> 3rd Runner-Up: The baseball player stepped out of the box
> and spit like a fountain statue of a Greek god that scratches
> itself a lot and spits brown, rusty tobacco water and refuses
> to sign autographs for all the little Greek kids unless they
> pay him lots of drachmas. (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover
> Hills)
>
> 2nd Runner-Up: I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably
> is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or
> something, but I don't speak German. Anyway, it's a dread
> that nobody knows the name for, like those little square
> plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don't know the
> name for those either. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)
>
> 1st Runner-Up: She was as unhappy as when someone puts
> your cake out in the rain, and all the sweet green icing flows
> down and then you lose the recipe, and on top of that you
> can't sing worth a damn. (Joseph Romm, Washington)
>
> And the winner of the framed Scarlet Fever sign: His fountain
> pen was so expensive it looked as if someone had grabbed
> the pope, turned him upside down and started writing with
> the tip of his big pointy hat. (Jeffrey Carl, Richmond)
>
> Honorable Mentions: - 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)
>
> - - The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after
> the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can. (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)
>
> - - 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)
>
> - - She was sending me more mixed signals than a dyslexic
> third-base coach. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)
>
> - - The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the
> way a bowling ball wouldn't. (Russell Beland, Springfield)
>
> - - Having O.J. try on the bloody glove was a stroke of genius
> unseen since the debut of Goober on "Mayberry R.F.D".
> (John Kammer, Herndon)
>
> - - 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
> T:flw.quid>55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets
> T:\flw.quid>aaakk/ch@ung by mistake (Ken Krattenmaker,
> Landover Hills)
>
> - - Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
>
> - - 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)
>
> - - Upon completing kindergarten, Lance felt the same sense
> of accomplishment the Unabomber feels every time he
> successfully blows up another college professor.
> (Anonymous, no city please)
>
> - - 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)
>
> - - His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking
> alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free
> (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)
>
> - - After sending in my entries for the Style Invitational, I feel
> relieved and apprehensive, like a little boy who has just wet
> his bed. (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)
>
> - - You made my day, even a day as gray as white cotton
> sheets washed for decades in cold water without bleach like
> no self-respecting woman who came of age in the 1940s
> would allow in her house, much less on one of her beds, but
> up with which she must put whenever she visits one of her
> own daughters, just as if they had never been brought up
> right. (DEV, Madison, Wis)
>
