Category Archives: simile

Simile

Posted on November 29, 2025 | Leave a comment

Simile (si’-mi-lee): An explicit comparison, often (but not necessarily) employing “like” or “as.”

He was like a pizza covered with all the wrong things—pineapple, baloney, jolly ranchers, and Brussels sprouts. He was like toenail clippings in a dish of ice cream. He was like a white sport coat with no carnation. He had gotten his finger stuck in a wine bottle and was calling for help from under the train trestle where he had gone camping with his dog Barney that he had dyed purple and taught to bark whenever he said “Hi boys and girls!” It’s almost as if he had cracked the code of buffoonery. For failing clowns and comedians, he may have had some value. What that would be, I don’t know, but there is something there that has a modicum of value, like a counterfeit coin, or a fallen Autumn leaf, or a raw carrot.

I think he is what the Doors would call “a rider on the storm.” Into this world he was thrown like a scuffed up traffic cone or a piano without a tone: a rider on the storm. He is like a one-armed cowboy riding a nasty big-horned bull. It will probably gore him when he falls off. But, he rides it to the buzzer. When he steps off the bull it licks him on the face. The crowd roars like 50 hungry harbor seals. He gets in his limo with the New York state vanity plate saying “STUPIDASS.”

This is a phantasy comparison with no merit. He’s more like a hockey puck sliding over the ice of pomposity—confidently spouting inaccuracies, misconstrued fables, and recipes for inedible “treats” like a dried pea sandwich, gravel and cream, or fried blind mice. Scary!

I was going to end my relationship with him, but I couldn’t. He had me and was ready to blackmail me for the deed we had done. We were drunk and I was driving. I ran over a dog walker and the 10 dogs he was walking. I killed the dog walker and the dogs. We took off out of there and I ran over an elderly woman in the crosswalks as she crossed the street. We sped away only to hit a woman pushing a baby carriage, killing her and injuring the baby. Luckily, we were a block away from home and escaped detection. The next day we took the car to Gleaming Fenders Car Wash and washed off the blood and hair. Now, he was going to blackmail me! He wanted $50 per month to keep his mouth shut. I agreed and wrote him a check for $50.

Now, he’s like a stain on my life. He needs to be removed. My .45 is like stain remover. One pull of the trigger and no more $50 per month, no more him. I’ll invite him over, shoot him, and then I’ll tell the police I thought he was an intruder.

It didn’t work. I’m doing 30 years in Attica. My aim was bad. The shot wasn’t fatal. He’s still out there., like an overweight Beagle or a moldy raison scone.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available in an early edition on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Simile

Posted on April 29, 2025 | Leave a comment

Simile (si’-mi-lee): An explicit comparison, often (but not necessarily) employing “like” or “as.”

I was going to fly like an eagle. I was off to my freshman year of college at Tony Pecker University. Pecker had made a fortune cleaning up brownfields throughout America, and then, reselling them to unwitting people. He was famous for the elementary school that was built on one of his so-called “remediated” sites. All the students came down with tumors covering 80% of their bodies. None of then got past the age of 12. Pecker was sued but he got off by claiming it wasn’t his fault. He never explained exactly why it wasn’t his fault, but that didn’t matter, it was a jury trial. The jurors showed up the second day of Pecker’s trial wearing big gold chains with big gold crosses hanging from them.

Anyway, Tony Pecker University is built on one of Pecker’s brownfield sites. Many of the students suffer from hair loss and discoloration of their teeth, neither is fatal and after graduation their hair returns and their teeth return to their normal color. So, it’s no big deal. I had had my head shaved in anticipation of losing it. My head looked like a shiny pink muskmelon.

You may wonder why I’m going to Tony Pecker University. I’m not very smart and none of my high school teachers would write me a letter of recommendation. They would tell me that “I would have to accept my limited reach,” or “College isn’t for you,” or “You’ve made me feel like a failure as a teacher.” Then, I found out that my great uncle “Ponzi” had gone to Pecker. He was extremely wealthy and bribed the Dean of Admissions to let me in. He had a horrible rash on his right hand that he had contracted when he was a student at Pecker. He credited the rash with enabling him to weasel out of bad business deals. Due to his rash, people wouldn’t shake hands with him when it came time to seal a deal. So, technically, the deal wasn’t made. He was grateful to Pecker University for the rash. He told me if I wanted a rash like his, I should wash my hands daily in the toilet bowl in the second stall from the right in the second floor men’s room in Polly Hall.

Anyway, I can read and write. I can’t do math, but who cares. As a legacy, I’m allowed to make up my own degree program. My personal program is titled “Dogs.” i will be learning all about dogs—why they have four legs, the aesthetics of tail wagging and tail chasing, barking in different languages, faithfulness, playing catch, sniffing, and much, much more. It will be rewarding for me and for the dogs I will be keeping in my room: it’s like a doggie mansion, with a “man” in the mansion. Ha ha!

I think I want to be a dog walker when I graduate. I am going to move the New York City. It’s like a gold mine for dog walkers. I am planning in competing in “Broadway On A Leash,” the annual competition to see who can walk the most dogs at once down a quarter mile stretch of Broadway’s sidewalk.

I’m arriving at Pecker now and driving through the gates. I will be greeted by a bald RA who will show me where to park, and lead me to my room. I see her! Her head looks like a muskmelon, just like mine! She has beautiful eyes. Already, I’m falling in love.

Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Simile

Posted on August 20, 2024 | Leave a comment

Simile (si’-mi-lee): An explicit comparison, often (but not necessarily) employing “like” or “as.”

It was a lie like the one my mother told me about who my father was. She told me my father was Richard Nixon. They had met at a bar in a Washington, DC hotel when she was there at a meeting of “Mothers in Favor of War.” He seduced her by saying “I’m not a crook” over and over again, dinking gin. My mother was drinking beer and got drunk. They went to her room where I was conceived without her husband’s (aka my dad’s) consent or knowledge. 1 was sworn to secrecy on my patrimony by my mother. If anybody found out I was Richard Nixon’s son, it would mean the end of his career, and possibly, my life.

Then, I found out some things about the story of my conception were only more or less true. She had gotten drunk at the bar, but the rest of the story is a lie. There was no Richard Nixon, there was no sex with Richard Nixon. There was just her wandering through the lobby looking for the ladies’ room and stumbling into the men’s room by mistake. There was a man mopping the floor and he “sweet talked” her. They went into one of the toilet stalls and had a “nice time” together, and then, he went back to mopping the floor and she went to her room and watched TV until she passed out. The last thing she remembers from that night was Johnny Carson wearing a turban.

I was totally weirded out and vowed to find my mop-swinging father. My mother didn’t want me to find him and wouldn’t help me. So, I hired a private detective. His name was Magnuts DI. I paid him the flat missing persons rate: $2,000. Two days later I got a call. He had found my father. He was in prison, sentenced to 200 years for running the most successful Ponzi Scheme in history. He he had defrauded the equivalent of the population of Pennsylvania. He went from mopster to mobster. I did not want to know how. I was through with him. He called me and told me he would double my money if I visited him. I was tempted, but said “No.”

So, here we are. You make my mother’s lies look like passages from the Bible. You make them look like self-evident truths. Your lies are like a ball of poisonous snakes, showing their fangs and loudly hissing. Your lies are like 1,000 farts blown in a car with the windows up. I could go on and on, but the point is, you told me you are a princess and showed me a fake certificate of authenticity on our second date. I found out the certificate was faked when we went to get our marriage license. It was like I was shot in the heart by a large caliber handgun. You lied to me. You deceived me. You won my love by false pretenses. You’re not a princess and you never will be! You’re a window girl at Mac Donald’s. I should’ve known from the smell of cooking oil rising from your skin, like some fast food mist, like you were an x-large order of fries.

Good bye demon woman. If I ever see you again, I will call you names and point at you. You are like a pretty package with a bomb inside. Good bye. Good riddance.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Simile

Posted on January 10, 2024 | Leave a comment

Simile (si’-mi-lee): An explicit comparison, often (but not necessarily) employing “like” or “as.”

He was like a bee gathering pollen from Hog Weed.

He had spent 3 years in the Army as an enlisted man. He was used to taking orders, not giving them. You couldn’t just say “Meet me at the mall.” You had to say “Convey yourself in your motorized transport vehicle to the west end parking lot, exit your vehicle and make your way to the portal marked ‘Entrance.’ Take 25 steps and turn north. Proceed to the fountain in front of you. I will be positioned at 11:00 o’clock on the ledge circling the fountain, with Dick’s marking 12:00.”

I put it in writing. As I handed him the paper, he said, “I appreciate the written documentation, but I’m afaraid I’ll lose it. Can you just tell it to me again so I’m sure to follow your orders? I’m a good listener.”

Actually, he was like a slug in blue jeans. He was like a piece of gum that needed to be scraped off the floor. He needed to get out of the habit of needing a book, or a spreadsheet, or a roadmap to tell him what to do.

His retraining began at my house. I thought I could help him. He was sleeping over. I was going to say “Time for bed” to kick things off. We had just finished watching “Barbie.” It was 11:30. I looked at him and said “Time for bed Carl.” He looked at me with a blank look on his face—like a dog who had lost its hearing—like he knew I wanted him to do something, but he didn’t know what. So, I said it again: “It’s time for bed.” He started squirming around and scratching his armpit. I wondered what the hell that was about. Acting like nothing weird was going on, Carl asked me to give him a couple minutes while he got a drink of water from the kitchen. I said “Roger that.” He headed into the kitchen. The next thing I knew, I heard the kitchen door slam. I looked out the window, and there was Carl running down the driveway carrying my toaster oven. That was it. I took off after him. He dropped the toaster oven and climbed a small apple tree. I hit him over the head with the toaster oven and knocked him unconscious. I ran back to my house a got a roll of duct tape. He was coming to just as I got back to the tree. I grabbed him and wrapped duct tape around his wrists, behind his back. Then, I marched him back to my house and sat him down on the couch. I asked him: “What the hell is going on?” With great effort, sweating, eyeballs popping, he answered my question.

“There is a psychological disorder endemic to the military. It is called Obedient Solider Syndrome (OSS). It happens when a soldier becomes obsessively concerned with following orders and cannot do what he is expected to do unless it is spelled out in great detail. These soldiers end up in a Psych ward, and subsequently, they are discharged. I am one of them.

I have a particularly acute case of OSS and the VA will be employing me to write instructions for shampoo bottles, assembly manuals, for camping tents, and lawnmowers, recipes for cookbooks, and myriad other things where my malady is a benefit. I thought, “This is the craziest bullshit I ever heard.” I asked Carl: “Are you going to get help for your condition?” He asked, “Can you be more explicit?”

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)

The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.

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Simile

Posted on May 30, 2023 | Leave a comment

Simile (si’-mi-lee): An explicit comparison, often (but not necessarily) employing “like” or “as.”

I was going to walk across the US to draw attention to the plight of wealthy people. They were like weeds that everybody but them wanted to eradicate. They were like a landfill that needed to be burned. They were like snot that needed to be wiped away. All of these sentiments were so frightening and demeaning that it causes wealthy people to live in fear and bear the painful burden of low self esteem.

So far, I had walked around 500 feet in solidarity with my rich suffering brothers and sisters. It was hot and I wasn’t used to walking very far. I was actually sweating somewhat and was thirsty. In fact, my t-shirt was nearly soaked and it’s lettering had begun to run. I had made it myself. I probably should’ve used waterproof ink, but I was in a hurry to get my show on the road. The t-shirt’s inscription “Love the Rich Walk 2023” had run to the point where it was nearly illegible.

There was a Cliff’s up ahead. I could use some A/C, a cool refreshing beverage, and perhaps a slice of pizza and a couple of lotto tickets—my favorite, “Take 5” scratch offs. I started cooling off nicely and thought about how wealthy people had to deal with their swimming pools. It took at least a week to find a competent Pool Boy or Girl, all the while suffering in the sun, stuck on a chaise slathered with lotion like a gourmet hamburger from Omaha. Very sad. Very unfair. Very humiliating.

Just then, a clearly homeless man came through the door carrying a Cliff’s styrofoam cup. The guy behind the counter said, “Hi Jerry! Need a top-up?” Jerry said “Yes” and held out his cup. He turned and looked at me and said “What’re you looking at fancy boy?” “Nothing” I said. “Whazzat say on your shirt?” I told him “Love the rich walk, 2003.” He threw his coffee on the floor, picked up a plastic fork, and came at me. Just then, a clearly rich guy came through the door, having just fueled up his Maserati, and reaching for a six-pack of Ommegang beer, he knocked Jerry to the floor and stood on his throat while he called 911 on his cellphone and held Jerry at gunpoint with a shiny new Glock. I thought about the burden this rich guy had to bear, having to stand on a homeless man’s throat and put wear and tear on his brand new handgun. Unconscionable!

After the police came, questioned everybody and took Jerry away, with trussed up like a pig with zip ties, I was going think things over before I continued my trek. There was a real nice motel about 100 feet from Cliff’s where I could rest up—loll around by the swimming pool and get a good night’s sleep. In fact, I was thinking about staying a couple of nights. They had a well-stocked bar and a lounge where they advertised live music by “Eddy and the Fel-Tones.” They played 50s and 60s rock! I was going to request “Earth Angel” and hope one would descend on me! I ordered a rum and Coke and started to scratch my lotto tickets. I expected, maybe, with some kind of luck, to win $2.00. When I got to the last scratch panel in the lower right corner of the ticket, I felt like somebody had stuck a live wire up my butt: I had won $5,555.55! Then, everybody in the bar started screaming and scrambling for the fire exits. It was Jerry and he had a sawed-off shotgun. He saw me and came straight for me. He asked, “Give me a good reason not to blow you away you useless little prick!” “How about this? It’s a winning $5,555.55 lotto ticket.” I said. He grabbed the ticket, looked at it, said “Thanks scumbag,” and turned and walked out of the bar holding the ticket over his head. There was a shotgun blast, followed by sustained automatic weapon fire. Somebody had called the police and the police had “gifted” Jerry with at least 100 rounds of 9 mm slugs. Pretty much all that was left of Jerry was his mangled head and his blood-soaked overcoat.

That was probably the closest I’ll ever come to dying. Jerry’s gruesome death woke me up! I shouldn’t be walking in solidarity with wealthy people! I should be walking in support of building pens for the homeless—like super secure chicken yards. Think of what it cost to make Jerry into a dead man. If he had been penned when he became unemployed in the first place, it never would’ve happened. I call what happened the “Tragedy of the Wasted Ammo.”

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. There is also a Kindle edition available.

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Simile

Posted on October 1, 2022 | Leave a comment

Simile (si’-mi-lee): An explicit comparison, often (but not necessarily) employing “like” or “as.”

She’s like a bicycle with one wheel missing, scraping a groove in my heart. It hurts like the time she sanded my left butt cheek with #80 garnet grit sandpaper. She crumbled my butt’s smooth skin like a piece of cheddar on a cheese grater. It hurt. I think I need to get away from her before I end up in a frying pan with a couple of eggs.

But for some reason, stemming from some kind of mild mental illness, I am unable to leave her. I want to think that her propensity for inflicting pain is a passing thing. But then, I realize we’ve been together for five years and she’s been marking me up the whole time—that’s more than “passing,” it’s become officially “chronic.” Now, she wants to amputate my little toe, cure it with some kind of chemical concoction, put a hole through it, mount a jump-ring on it, thread it with a piece of rawhide, and wear it around her neck, making a fashion statement on love’s commitment. The only objection I had was that she wanted to paint my toenail “Essie—Easily Red.” I thought that shade of red was too festive. I thought “Shades of Red—Rust” was more appropriate for an amputated toe. It had a somber tone to it. After a brief argument, we settled on Rust.

The time came to amputate my toe. We decided that since I was right-handed I would miss my right toe more than my left toe, so we went with the left toe. I was wearing shorts and removed my Birkenstock from my left foot. Everything for the “operation” was laid out on the TV tray table: a zip-loc bag, a roll of surgical bandage, adhesive tape, scissors, a washcloth, and hedge clippers. Everything was fine until I saw the hedge clippers. They reminded me of the hell my father put me through clipping our twelve-foot high hedge when I was a kid. I was 14 and I would fall off the ladder, once enduring a mild concussion that set me back learning arithmetic—a setback I never quite recovered from. I would get blisters on my hands from the clippers, and knock birds’ nests to the ground at my father’s prompting. It was truly devilish work. Now, my toe was to be amputated with hedge clippers! “No!” I yelled and ran out the door and down the stairs wearing only my right Birkenstock. Halfway down, I tripped and fell and rolled onto the lawn.

I think my girlfriend had given me some kind of sedative in my Matcha to prepare me for surgery. I was having trouble moving, and through my double vision, I saw Mr. Rainy, the maintenance man, headed straight at me on his zero-turn lawnmower! He was hoisting a bottle of beer to his lips and wasn’t watching where he was going. I yelled as loud as I could, but between the engine noise and his noise-cancelling earmuffs, Mr. Rainy couldn’t hear me.

I caught a glimpse of my girlfriend standing on the stairs, doing nothing. Mr. Rainy saw me at the last second and whipped off to the left and shut the mower down. He helped me up and called a cab. I was going to stay with my friend Jessica. She was a geek—not the nerdy type, but the circus sideshow type. She raised hamsters for her act and was notorious for her performance reprising “Nightmare Alley.” We got along well. One day, I looked out the window and there was my old girlfriend down in the street slowly making a cutting motion with a a pair of hedge clippers. She did this every day for a week. Then, she disappeared forever. Luckily, I had gotten my stuff out of the apartment one day when she was at work at the tattoo parlor.

I never saw her again after what turned out to be her last hedge clipper performance. I had my life back. When I talked about her to people who asked I would say “I severed my relationship with her. I cut off all ties. It wasn’t brain surgery.” Nobody got the jokes. I didn’t care. Living with Jessica was wonderful. Her biting sense of humor headed off all my gloom.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. There is also a Kindle edition available.

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Simile

Posted on February 8, 2022 | Comments Off

Simile (si’-mi-lee): An explicit comparison, often (but not necessarily) employing “like” or “as.”

Sarah was like a noisy go-kart stuck on a slow track at the mall. Around and around we went, and we never got anywhere, and she wouldn’t shut up. I felt like a beaver with dentures, but I didn’t complain: I couldn’t complain. I was grateful to have somebody who, in my opinion, was beautiful: long blond hair, blue eyes, classic hourglass shape, the whole nine yards. However, she was the stupidest person I’ve ever known. Her brain was like a walnut. She was as articulate as a bathtub. She had the taste of a cockroach. Having a job was, to her, like having cancer.

So, why did I love her? Two reasons. (1) Her parents are filthy crazy rich; (2) She is the most trusting, giving, faithful, caring, gentle, loving human being I have ever known.

We’ll get somewhere someday. We’ll be like two pelicans pumping our wings over the Gulf of Mexico, heading to Cancun or maybe Corpus Christi. Our pelican bills will be filled with money. Our pelican hearts will be filled with joy.

Oh, a text message from Sarah: “I am like a smart shopper. I am returning you.”

I texted: “What the hell did that mean? Return me? Return me where?”

She texted me: “The bar where I found you.”

I threw my phone on the floor. It popped in half, just like me and Sarah.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. There is also a Kindle edition available.

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Tagged definitions, elocutio, example, figures of speech, rhetoric, schemes, simile, trope

Simile

Posted on May 29, 2021 | Comments Off

Simile (si’-mi-lee): An explicit comparison, often (but not necessarily) employing “like” or “as.”

My preferred character is projected by my speech. It’s like a currently popular catchphrase or a buzz word: I want to utilize incentivization to maximize our leverage in the upcoming negotiations. Ha ha! That’s me! Smart! With it! Learned!

I am constantly masking my rough origins and basic dishonesty with Latinized words. In a way, I am like a brick painted with elaborate images that will eventually be hurled through somebody’s window.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99. There is also a Kindle edition available.

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Posted in simile, Uncategorized

Tagged definitions, elocutio, example, figures of speech, rhetoric, schemes, trope

Simile

Posted on November 5, 2019 | Leave a comment

Simile (si’-mi-lee): An explicit comparison, often (but not necessarily) employing “like” or “as.”

Trump is like a talking fart.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

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Tagged definitions, examples, rhetoric, schemes, tropes

Simile

Posted on May 13, 2017 | Leave a comment

Simile (si’-mi-lee): An explicit comparison, often (but not necessarily) employing “like” or “as.”

Your breath smells like the River Styx.

Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).

Buy a print edition of The Daily Trope! The print edition is entitled The Book of Tropes and is available on Amazon for $9.99.

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Tagged definitions, examples, figures of speech, rhetoric, schemes, simile, tropes

Simile

Posted on February 5, 2016 | Leave a comment

Simile (si’-mi-lee): An explicit comparison, often (but not necessarily) employing “like” or “as.”

Higher education in the 21st century at many colleges and universities does not successfully prepare its so-called liberally educated students to negotiate life’s vicissitudes; to negotiate uncertainties and strife with humane voices speaking in the light. Rather, from the “safe spaces” where they reside, they learn how to “take offense,” and how to willy nilly level charges that are always taken seriously, and always will be heard.

Like latter-day nazis, like blood-hungry wolves, they have forged their brutish howling voices into pointed blades of fear, turning “judicial hearings” into monologues where cowering judges have only to decide how, and how much, to punish whomever “some students” may anonymously deride.

Somewhere, this is the culture of academic residential life, where there are no consequences for telling lies. In this community of Kafka houses after every trial, when the gavel grants another win to their revengeful pride, “some students” have been known laugh out loud, smoke a joint, drink a couple of drinks, and piss on the wall of the stone prophylactic euphemistically called “residence hall.”