Smiles for Similes

There was a time when my Cousin Joy and I were stay-at-home moms, and we wrote to each other every week. We got so desparate for adult conversation that we set out to use big words as often as we could in our letters.

At some point we both decided to collect similies. Don't remember your literature? A simile is a comparison of two things using the words "like" or "as." A couple of examples are "slow as molasses in January," "She looked like the wrath of God," and "snug as a bug in a rug."

Over the years I wrote the similes I found in the margins of a book that was a collection of them. After I moved, I couldn't find the book, so I've just jotted them down on pieces of paper. Every once in awhile I come across one, and I get another chuckle out of it.

I remember when Jim's brother was going through his divorce, and he was so upset. He would visit us and unload about how he felt. It was very sad. The trouble was that he is a very humorous guy, and he would use these similes that would be so funny, I couldn't keep from bursting out laughing. My laughter was so inappropriate, but it was impossible not to laugh. The first one I remember was "slippery as snot on a glass door knob." Here I sit laughing so hard that tears have formed in my eyes. I wish I had recorded all of them that he said.

The other night I was finishing M. C. Beaton's book Death of a Gentle Lady, and up popped a simile I just had to save: “…her eyelashes were so heavily mascaraed, it looked as if two large spiders had found a home in her face.”

So now I'm starting over again to collect similes. Anyone want to join me?

Incidentally, if you can't get the comment thing to work, send your comments to my email, kdfyke@mchsi.com.