Why English Teachers Die Young

"Why English Teachers Die Young"
{Collection of excerpt from high school essays.}

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle
that had its two sides gently compressed
by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making
and breaking alliances like underpants in a
dryer without Cling Free.

3. 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.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of
E. coli and he was room temperature
Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh,
like that sound a dog makes just before it
throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years
had disintegrated because of his wife's
infidelity came as a rude shock, like a
surcharge at a formerly surcharge free ATM.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the
pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement
like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. 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 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose
hair after a sneeze.

13. REMOVED. Just too gross.

14. 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 at
the speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban
neighborhood with picket fences that
resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were
like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob
informant and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Grandpappy had
a mind like a steel trap, only one that had
been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law
Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the
kind of look you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the
metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real
duck that was actually lame, maybe from
stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe
and extended one slender leg behind her,
like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers
chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke,
he thought he heard bells ringing, as if she
were a garbage truck backing up.

26. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only
they had forgotten to put in any pH cleanser.

27. She walked into my office like a
centipede with 98 missing legs.

28. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after
you accidentally stick it to a cold pole.
Received on Sat May 27 07:47:31 2006