Rat Piss on Cotton

Over the weekend, barista gave the Sassistas!^TM this year's list (compiled by English teachers) of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays across the USA. Following are our favorites among the winners:

• "She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like the sound a dog makes just before it throws up."
• "The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't."
• "Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze."
• "The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while."
• "Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever."

After reading this list aloud several times, the Sassistas!^TM began to have a new appreciation for metaphors such as these. We recalled our awe of a comment Carolyn submitted on May 7 in the sassosphere:

When I walked into that place, all activity stalled and you could'€™ve heard a rat piss on cotton.

How we wish we had written that line ourselves! Sasspired by dog throw-up and rat piss, we decided to create some of our own award-winning metaphors. We invite you to submit your own!

• His tongue scanned the horizon of her mouth like a submarine periscope.
• Her voice had a certain ring --- not like a diamond ring or even ring around the collar -- but more like a telephone ring, but not the ring from an old-fashioned wall telephone, but more like the ring from a 1970s telephone, the one that sat on a desk, remember? That phone. That ring.
• The cabernet had a robust, naughty bouquet, like it needed to be taken around the corner and given a good spanking.
• It was morning in America, like it was 7 a.m., not 7 p.m.

We want to leave you with a beautiful metaphor (we're serious) that a child of a good friend wrote when the child was just FIVE YEARS OLD:

Pink is like toe shoes dancing across the floor.

Stunning! For every bad metaphor and/or analogy you create, see if you can create one that tops what pink is like to a five-year-old. Dance away!

Comments

[Carolyn]

Well, if I can just get past the thought of you spanking that cabernet....give me a moment here...okay.
I love the metaphors that you sistas came up with, especially the telephone---and I'm a tough audience. How depressing to grade essays these days and see 'Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.' Civilization is evolving in reverse and eventually we'll be reduced to the scripted 'ug' of caveman lingo.
I admit a fuzzy warmness that you revisited my 'rat piss' comment. Say it with a Southern accent and it rolls off the tongue with a certain satisfaction. But....'Pink is like toe shoes dancing across the floor.' Face it. That's music.

[Flannista]

Ah, your brilliance continues to radiate in your description of "fuzzy warmness" [warm fuzziness?] to describe your satisfaction of penning the analogy: "a rat piss on cotton." The Sassistas! will never look at rats -- or cotton -- the same way again. EVER.

We know that you are a tough audience, so we have a fuzzy warmness that you liked our metaphors. At first, we weren't certain we could do it, "but like a blind man in a brothel, we had to feel our way through" (quoting Lt. Drummond from "Naked Gun 2 1/2," a real hero of ours).

Yeah, the eloquence of civilization seems to be diminishing quite fast, and it's not helped by the leader of the Free World who says stuff like, "Quotas are bad for America. It's not the way America is all about." Talk about a rat pissing on cotton!

Thanks again, Carolyn, for sasspiring today's post!

[babysis]

I really like this post and hope to hear some replies. I too am such a fan of Carolyn's way with words. Was looking for inspiration from my kids, but they aren't in the mood. All I could recall was a recent remark from my 7 year old when the dinner table conversation was becoming way too heavy. It's not a metaphor, but he said: "Lizards can jump really far." I should have asked him how far, and then I'd have some material.

[Flannista]

You gotta love kids for their inimitable way with words -- and their timing. babysis -- please do ask your 7-year-old, "How far?" Get back to us.

Six-year-old Olivia used to live in my neighborhood and one morning, I saw her in my front yard all dressed up and crying. I went outside and she told me that her grandmother had died and she was going to church to say good bye. "I have angry butterflies in my stomach," she said. Another stunner. Or as Carolyn would say: Face it. That's music.

[Matissta]

Yes, Carolyn you have a real gift. Your descriptions are quite unique.

The list of "winners," ironically termed, is alarming when you think that the students were serious.

We hoped that our attempts at award-winning examples would have inspired our sistas and mista-sistas to submit their own. But we guess not. It's hard to describe our disappointment. It's like showing up for your annual scheduled mammogram only to discover it's been postponed. So much anticipation with so little revealed. How hard we tried to squeeze it out of ya!

[Flannista]

What can I say, Matissta? We're two lonely Milk Bones in a dog-eat-dog world.

[Sistadawg]

Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food.

[barista]

Okay, okay. Your comments cut to the quick, not like a sharp knife's cut, but more like a butter knife and not really to the quick, as I don't know where the quick is, although quickness would be desired if you're gonna be cut, even with a butter knife.

[half-a-sista]

Overheard at a coffee shop, a young adult man on his cell phone describing his current financial crisass:

Huh? I'm not trying to get back on my feet. Hell, I'm just trying to get back on my knees.

[Flannista]

BACK IN SASSTION! WHOA-HOO! Or, if we were in the "300" movie, "HA-OOH!"

Where to begin, where to begin . . . . Sistadawg: the impact of your metaphor is like the impact of a hotel's revolving door when you aren't paying any attention and then out of the blue (peacock blue, not robin's egg blue) you see someone on the other side of the glass who's been there all along and you never bothered to look, because you were so preoccupied with your own expression, the one you get when you think you are the only person in the world or you're afraid you have spinach stuck in your teeth.

Seriously, though -- you're dancing with that memory metaphor. Wow.

barista -- your metaphor is like a slice of Life, but not Life cereal or the game Life, but like L-I-F-E, where you're born, you grow up and then you die and maybe some people remember you and maybe some people don't but all in all you're happy that you had your chance to slice and dice your way through this crazy thing called Life -- but not the cereal or the game.

[Flannista]

half-a-sista: your ability to overhear and record a young adult man on a cell phone is like . . . well, the Patriot Act.

Let's get on our knees! God Sass America!

[Matissta]

I'm so proud. Proud like a mother whose child just got out of jail, not because she had enough money to post bond, but proud because the evidence was bad, bad like this metaphor.

[Sistadawg]

I must admit that I scalped my memory metaphor from the internet. Flannista is persistent that I tell my story. My story is this: I get up, take care of kids, go to work, come home, do homework, go to bed and start all over again. Unfortunately this is a common theme in many women's lives. My story is as lifeless as tits on a bull, and I feel like a hamster on a wheel with no exit.

[Flannista]

Oh, that's really bad, Matissta, bad like a bad out of hell, bad like badminton, bad like Baden-Baden, a spa town in the Black Forest in southwestern Germany; pop. 48,700.

[half-a-sista]

How about...

she boarded the plane like a bowling ball thrown in the gutter.

he wanted to sit in the "Amen" corner but didn't think he could remember what to say.

she looked like a Hollywood star except she wore clothes and underclothes, her breasts weren't augmented and she didn't have inflamed lips.

he walked with a limp like Chester on Gunsmoke but it was his left leg that was bad, not his right leg so I guess he looked more like Chester's mirror reflection.

the soup tasted like someone had run the water through a dirty sock, but then I have never tasted a dirty sock, so how would I know?

[half-a-sista]

Tits on a bull might seem useless to those people who have stereotypes of bulls, but think of what they might mean to a bull...an "undercover" life as a heifer (a heifer impersonator) or a chance to relieve the mother of his calves while she runs to the bathroom or the life as a medical miracle.

The hamster on the wheel can always stop running like when you are on the treadmill in the gym and suddenly forget that you should move your feet and find yourself shooting off the back of the machine and, if you are lucky, your face doesn't hit the still moving belt and leave tire marks on your face.

[Flannista]

Sistadawg -- you have ponied up, not like a ponytail, but like an abandoned circus pony finding it's mother with your consassion about where you found the memory metaphor. Further, you have redeemed yourself, not like a store coupon, but like what Jesus does, with your life story which returns tit for tat, as in sharing an original metaphor for a lifted one, as in and eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, quid pro quo and ho-ho-ho.

half-a-sista: you have overwhelmed our sassosphere with metaphors like a Bacchic cornucopia on Fat Tuesday filled with tater tots, gummi bears and Hot & Spicy Cheez-its!

[half-a-sista]

She looked like Hell, not any of the first 6 levels but the last one with the lake of ice surrounded by giants submerged in different levels in the ice.

Her voice had a haunting quality like Linda Blair's in the Exorcist.

He had a nice smile like a jackolantern with about as many teeth.

The car hummed along the road like it didn't know the words.

The Irish priest crossed himself, not with the sign of the Irish cross but with the sign of the cross where the vertical pole is longer and the horizontal one.

She forgot where she was, but it was nowhere so it didn't matter that she had forgetten.

I like him like I like children...for short period of time and then they go home.

She had wanted this job for years like she had wanted her period. What a disappointment that turned out to be.

STOP ME!!! STOP ME!!! I feel like I'm in a car on a long journey with Flannista when she hasn't had any sleep and has a female action figure with her who talks. HEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLPPPPPP!!!

[Flannista]

half-a-sista: stop like there's no tomorrow, meaning no Thursday or no yesterday which was Tuesday, the second day of the week, not the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, first or whatever.

[Westsista]

Reading all these comments makes me feel slightly queasy, only not as queasy as when you step in something and you don't know what it is and you've tracked it all over your house and car, but just slightly sick like accidentally listening to Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly say something that sounds like it might possibly be accurate only you know that is nearly impossible so you end up having a conflict inside your stomach for the rest of the week.

[Chrysosistah]

Oh, my gosh! **SNORT!** (wipe away tears) I haven't laughed so hard in months!!!

I swear, Sassistas needs to take this on a comedy tour - you ROCK (no, not like granite or pumice, more like diamonds or rubies or sasspphires; or not like Milli-Vanilli; but like Pink Floyd or the Grateful Dead!).

Sassistas, I bow to your superior writing skills and innovative creativesass!

[PEACEsista]

Damn ... and to think I was painting today and misassing all this fun! Not painting a portrait, but the walls of a room. Not a bedroom, but a studio, which I will still not use to paint a picture, but I will weave in it. Not weave like a drunk (though I have done that before!) but weaving on a loom, with warp and weft to make fabric, or a noose, to finally end this rambling nonsense.