With all the bravado that’s been oozing from my blog the last couple of days, I was bound to be challenged. A friend posted on my Facebook page ’21 Actual Analogies used by high school students in English essays’ and commented ‘any chance you can string a few together in your next blog?’ Now I realize she was probably joking, but I can’t just let a challenge pass me by, can I?
Besides, I am due for a little fun. Life can’t be all about battles, and transitions, and illness, and such. We do need to laugh.
I actually love to laugh, and I have been told on numerous occasions that I have a rather loud, obnoxious laugh, one that makes my children blush when they can hear it across a crowded room. However, It has never been described as, a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up*.
I have been told on several occasions, though, to quiet down; I shouldn’t laugh so loud. But what am I supposed to do, hold my laughter in? No can do. I love that feeling of laughing until I can’t breathe. So, I’m sorry if I am embarrassing you, or making you uncomfortable, I can’t hold it in or Joy [would fill my] heart like a silent but deadly fart fills a room with no windows*. (I am not making these up.) My kids always said the silent-but-deadlies were the worst.
Speaking of farts, not really, just kidding.
I can see the assignment now, “Write a five-paragraph essay using the strategies you have learned for using similes and metaphors. Include at least three analogies in your essay.” I can imagine the students staring at their blank screens, scratching their heads, coming up with gems like, [I] was confused; as confused as a homeless man on house arrest*. Or, The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object*. The poor teacher. She had written her plan, crafted her assignment. They had practiced, they had done in-class exercises. They had seen numerous examples in that catchy YouTube video. But still, her students were coming up with stuff like, The sun was below the horizon, like a diabetic grandma easing into a warm salt bath*. (Ok, you gotta admit, that one did create a pretty graphic mental picture.)
Aren’t words fun? The reason I am not a very good English teacher is because if my students wrote analogies like these, I would be laughing so hard, I would forget to teach them that the tone of their image has to match the tone of their message. It should not create tension like this: Their love burned with the intensity of a urinary tract infection*. I should, in the classroom, say something like, “The intensity of love has positive connotations while a urinary tract infection has negative connotations. Using an analogy like this creates dissonance, boys and girls. Our analogies should create consonance, agreement, harmony.” But instead, I would be laughing as hard as someone who is about to become a spokesman for Poise pads. (Yeah, that one’s mine.) I wouldn’t be able to pull myself together enough to give the true meat of the lesson.
But we would have fun. And we sure had fun.
Job 8:21
He will yet fill your mouth with laughter,
and your lips with shouts of joy.
*All bold statements are lifted from the original post my friend shared with me.
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