Fun_People Archive
18 Aug
FW: Humor: Analogies as bad as my hair (fwd)

Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 17:18:36 -0700
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: FW: Humor:  Analogies as bad as my hair (fwd)

Forwarded-by: lanih@info.SIMS.Berkeley.EDU (Lani Herrmann)

> From jmichael@sas.upenn.edu Fri Aug 18 08:56 PDT 1995
> Subject: FW: Humor:  Analogies as bad as my hair 


	Hi folks. You may (or may not) be delighted to know that I've
	heard from Peter Langston, the originator of Fun_People --
	the private list from which I have been forwarding 9/10 of
	the mail you've been receiving from me -- and he's back. 


		Which gives me the opportunity to ask you if you would 

	like me (1) to continue forwarding most of the things he sends 

	my way (which in his full spate may be 10 messages per day), or 

	(2) to send you one or two messages per day (a sort of "best-of" 

	but you don't have as much choice, using me as a filter), or 

	(3) to send you only what I think might tickle you -- see caveat 

	to (2), or (4) to Cut You Off Cold Turkey. Actually, I don't mind
	doing any of the above, and am only happy most of you seem to
	enjoy most of the stuff most of the time. So please, if your 

	response is anything but (1), let me know. And otherwise, peace
	and good health to y'all. -- Aloha, Lani
	
> Shannon Michael wrote:
     

Style Invitational Report from Week 120: 

(from the Washington Post, July 23, 1995)
     

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*sa 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)
     

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 

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)
     

They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that 

resembled Nancy Kerrigan*steeth (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.
 (Jennifer Frank and Jimmy Pontzer, Washington and Sterling)
     

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)

© 1995 Peter Langston