Laugh and learn

Glorious examples of how-not-to-do-it imagery (imagery = painting pictures with words)
* The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
* McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a paper bag filled with vegetable soup.
* Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.
* Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
* The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
* His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a tumble dryer.
* Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left York at 6:36 pm travelling at 55 mph, the other from Peterborough at 4:19pm at a speed of 35 mph.
* The red brick wall was the colour of a brick-red crayon.
* The door had been forced, as forced as the dialogue during the interview portion of Family Fortunes.
* The plan was simple, like my brother Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
* Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter."
* She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
* It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.
* The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a lamppost.
* 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 cash point.
* It was a working class tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with their power tools.
* He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a dustcart reversing.
* She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
* It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.