My three favorite metaphors created by others are…

 

meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup

nervous as a long-tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs

lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon-wheel rut

 

Meanwhile, here are about 300 of my very own concoctions, some dating back 80 years…

aboard a boatload of detonators in a lightning storm | accused of embezzling paper clips from office supplies | aerodynamic properties of a typewriter | after they get jammed up, rats traditionally wear a wire | any ocean on the planet makes the Everglades look like a backyard wading pool | applauding sagacious rats for disembarking an unseaworthy vessel | as bewildered as a third grader attending a seminar on string theory | as cool as the other side of the pillow | as tautological as a three-legged tripod | as welcome as mosquitos in a nudist colony  attendees at a rally packed in an airless auditorium like a breeding barn with a PA system | attention-span of a first-grader on a sugar-high | autumn ‘leaf-lookers’ on the back roads alongside ‘shun-pikers’ | average voter has one testicle and one breast | awakening suddenly from a nightmare that features naked babies with wings  | back when ‘chrome-to-chrome’ congestion was synonymous with ‘bumper-to-bumper’ | bar-car jigger with a hip-flask chaser | bedroom community at a superfund site | before personal computers, one’s laptop was a romantic place sit | being able to climb gum and chew stairs at the same time | being his brother’s keeper was the rôle sarcastically declined by the first murderer | being the strongest link in a weak chain | better to be a doozy than a doofus, better to drink brandy than shandy | biblical scholars are surprised to learn that men and women have the same number of ribs | big splash in the water hazard | bird species that produce droppings capable of denting the hood on a pick-up truck | bruising one’s chin on one’s necktie knot with both eyebrows seek refuge in one’s forelocks | building a sandcastle with the tide coming in | business model for the ‘reverse-pay toilet’: get in for free, pay to get out | busy as a one-armed paperhanger with a loaded moving van arriving in the driveway | campaign slogans on yard signs, bumper stickers, and urinal walls | capital investment limited to one wheelbarrow for the whole construction crew | carefully carrying around one’s own china-shop | cartwheeling during a sobriety test | chalking one’s stick, then running the table | chattering classes with snobbish opinions about yammering yokels | cheap-shot followed by a shit-eating grin | cheerleaders going on strike during half-time | chewing bubble-gum during a symphony | choosing the gerbil for a college mascot | classy as catsup bottles on a formal banquet table | clicking together one’s ruby slippers to make miracles happen | colorful speech features a basketful of juicy words decorating each mixed metaphor  | company house organs feature snapshots of newborn babies and triumphant anglers | computerized axial tomography for reading one’s dirty thoughts | contortionists may not be the only people who can wipe their noses on their pants cuffs | convex cheek unmistakably distended by tongue | correction fluid went out with the typewriter | counting on one’s fingers or solving a Rubik’s cube wearing mittens | crowd sourcing, as shown here, may not require a crowd larger than one person | crying over spilled milk when thy cup runneth over | currency of appreciation in small denominations | deadlier than neutrons from the business end of a particle accelerator | derelict satellites plus other man-made debris can become the ruination of orbital missions | destination for the road of good intentions is a mighty well-dreaded place | difficulty keeping track of hopscotch celebrity matrimonies | disguising political boorishness as anti-correctness | distilling prison hooch using toilet paper and old sugar packages | distinction between a disk-jockey and a band leader | divorce leaves emotional scars barely less obvious than tattoo removal | dogs don’t know the difference between getting tripped over or being kicked | doing a dance in the end-zone while the ball is still barely inside the 10-yard line | doing one’s homework by oil lamp, writing on a shovel blade with charcoal | dominos clattering across the table, each then unable to rise up | don’t be alarmed, but wife-swapping may in fact be husband-swapping | dongle with the key for an application now replaced by a thumb-drive loaded with gigabytes | don't worry about the mules, just load the wagons | dove hunting with an assault rifle | drenching one’s defense in an ocean of excuses | drone combatants must think they are merely stepping on ants | eager candidates each pole-dancing for the nomination | early worm gets eaten by the early bird | embarrassed enough to mimic a ripe tomato | embroidery on bib overalls | empowering a subordinate into victimhood with just one tush-squeeze  | end of bachelorhood in the sound of tin cans clattering from the bumper of the groom’s car | ending a cinematic narrative with a ‘rosebud’ enigma | envelopes with hand-written addresses get opened promptly by their recipients | essential as a screen door in a submarine | establish that observation as the gold standard for irrelevance if it doesn’t pan out | Eve’s leaves would conceal her navel, if only she had a navel to conceal | even as a polite metaphor, the expression ‘coming to a head’ refers to a boil on one’s butt | experience castrating hogs has qualified one candidate for the Senate Finance Committee | facts about the future do not exist and many opinions about the future never will either | fashion models in spiked heels striding along the boulevard like farm animals | fast as rumor speed or gossip speed, but as for enlightenment speed, not so fast | fast-food workers wear uniforms, but nuclear reactor operators do not | featherbedding reduces unemployment numbers according to labor leaders | featuring a split-screen montage of embarrassing contradictions in past pronouncements | fiberglass structures, first proven in surfboards, have now become essential for spacecraft | fickle as a day-trader in pork-belly futures | financial gluttony besmirching the reputation of pigs | finding one’s fly unzipped after speaking at Junior League banquet | firearms available for purchase in a gumball machine | flashing one’s high beams at an oncoming eighteen-wheeler | fleeing like a jittery shoplifter at the sound of a beeping barcode reader | flying is the reason that the bird has wings – not vice versa | forcing a frown to wipe the smirk from one’s face | free speech does allow for complaining on a crowded elevator about one’s oozing body sores | free-range chickens are the only ones that cross the road | French fries and toast, cuffs and coiffures – oh, and kisses | sincere expression from the bottom of one’s heart as recited off the top of one’s head | front-biting is more ethical but less effective than back-biting | getting saddled up to join the posse | giving the silent treatment to a passive-aggressive colleague | glaciers are still a metaphor for ‘slow’ no matter how fast they are melting | glad for the bell to ring for recess at the beginning of one’s recitation | going from bravado to bootlicking in the blink of an eye | going out to pasture but grazing too close to the freeway | going through changes in management like popcorn at the movies | grabbing a lineman’s faceguard is sure convenient but against the rules | granted an advanced degree in basket-weaving | grinning like a deacon with four queens and an ace kicker | groovy is in the ear of the listener | hacking the software in one’s drive-by-wire pollution controls | hanging one’s laundry in the Sistine Chapel whenever it rains | having a face that looks like it already wore out two bodies | having both hands full with the house-key at the bottom of a grocery bag | having more hairs growing out of either nostril than the strands atop the head of one’s rival | head-butting in competition with a mountain goat is best not done in rutting season | her cheeks may have been somewhat excessive but those on her face were perfect | high-heel shoes damage linoleum and asphalt tile, but guys sure like ‘em | hikers in nature take photographs only, leaving nothing behind but footprints | Holy Toledo is merely the ecclesiastical status of a city in Ohio | honesty may not be the best policy when one is obliged to think up a compliment | hypocrisy may actually be a lesser sin in government than incompetence | if the intelligent designer intended men to fly, He would have made their poop white | if you think anything is possible, try striking a match on an ice-cube | imagine a prisoner in his cell typing out poetry by Morse code on a toilet pipe | imagine hiring an astronaut who does not believe in gravity | impossible safety criteria: detect every threat but never issue a false alarm | in reality, electric motors are powered by burning coal at a distant power plant | in the land of the terse, people say ‘howdy’ and speak only in holophrastic words | intern in the circus walking behind the elephant carrying a shovel | invertebrates show more spine than some lawmakers | invincible ignorance tinctured with proud stupidity | jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces and no box-top picture | joining a militia for the middle-of-the-road view | journalists with subpoena envy | jumping overboard so fast the rats were left gaping | keeping one’s worst foot backward | keeping the basement or attic as one’s secret slum | kissing any frog and hoping for a prince | knowing beans with the lid off the pot, or not | lane-splitting the turnpike on a high-handled crotch rocket with an empty trophy-saddle | launching ballistic missiles every time one’s radar detects southbound flocks of geese | laundromat for filthy lucre | lawn-darts are not recommended as toys for tots | less promising than planting papayas in the Himalayas | let a good guy with a gun shoot a bad guy with a gun, or vice versa | letting trivialities obscure the bolder form: think trees and forest, here | life in limbo is regarded as worse than purgatory in death | lifting the lap-bar during a roller-coaster ride may be fun but foolish | lobbying for a matrimonial commitment on the first date | locks keep an honest man honest, thieves will break locks and steal | look him or her in the eye and tell him or her that his or her feet stink | looking up and seeing the first bird fly off the telephone wire followed by the whole flock | magnetic resonance imaging to display your innermost feelings | make friends with the alligators before swimming in the swamp | male dogs conserve their urine by marking posts where females agree to do their sniffing | managers look through frosted glass; the CEO is surrounded by mirrors | manually rolfing ball bearings during the angry search for those missing strawberries | many people believe that professional wrestling is real | many remember that comic-strip bully kicking sand in the eyes of a 97-pound weakling | maybe that’s not a big nose under the flap, but a huge camel is waiting outside the tent | meaningless job can maroon one’s career | monkeys in a row covering their eyes, ears, and mouth | more toxic than a creek flowing out of an arsenic mine | multiple radar blips for the same airplane cannot mean good news for that particular flight | mythological creatures include unicorns and welfare queens driving Cadillacs | natural selection means the holes pick the pegs, not vice versa | never mind using a scare-crow stratagem here; the crows are fearless | no mathematical correlation can be found in a scatter-gram that resembles an ink-sneeze | nobody ever asks why we holler ‘Geronimo’ before jumping out of the airplane door | not having learned how to wave goodbye until kindergarten seems electorally worrisome | not looking a gift horse in the mouth or any other orifice | nothing is less useful than a tripod with fewer than three legs | nuisances are like slalom flags | one can tell it’s an unfriendly neighborhood; every yard has a private swimming pool  | one milligram of prevention equals a kilogram of cure | one swallow does not make a spring or prevent a burp | optimism with the glass half empty depends on what was in the glass when it was full | painting the walls while the plaster is still wet | passenger on one side has a crying child; on the other side sits a nervous leg-spreader | passengers on a sinking ship are not likely to praise the captain for hitting the iceberg | past may be prologue, but it’s nothing like what it used to be | people who live in glass houses shouldn’t take showers | photographic snapshot of a comedian who does not ever expect to run for public office | piling up a haystack to hide a needle in | pinch-hitter who must be willing to go to bat for a team-mate | piss-pants in courage | plagiarism by copy machine is made risky by search engines | planting tulips to tiptoe through |plump, maybe, but nevertheless he or she is winning a private struggle against bulimia | pocketing my jack-knife, scooping up my marbles, and pedaling home | pollution at sea is what smokestacks are for | poor kids splashing in potholes on the highway | porpoising the full length of the runway at the end of one’s otherwise perfect check-flight | precedence always guides politics; until it doesn’t | prize-winning canvas produced by gobs of acrylics tossed into an airplane’s prop wash | promising a chicken in every pot and a war on every continent | prosecuting for minor offenses like tearing off one’s mattress tags | proud figurehead carven on the bow of a rowboat | pulling for something generally works about as well as praying for it | pulling on a piece of yarn and unraveling the whole damn sweater | pushing pawns during the opening, in front of prancing ponies and bashing bishops | putting on one’s shoes and socks – not necessarily in that order | quite a difference between a close shave in a barbershop and one in the crosswalk outside | rare as beer in a bar | receiving a grift certificate for a passing grade in some get-rich-quick correspondence course | receiving a singing electrocardiogram for one’s birthday | rejected for a part in a community theater then landing a starring rôle in a Broadway hit | remembering when Bikini was just an atoll in the Pacific | removing a pebble from one shoe and later feeling a same-sized pebble in the other shoe | respective anatomies of Dorothy’s three friends in Oz: gutless, brainless, and heartless | reverse engineering of nature is another name for science | reviewing a tear-jerker script for an upcoming episode of a detergent drama | road rage on Sunday morning entering a church parking lot | rose by any other name will still have stickers | rounding up busloads of assisted-living residents for casino gambling | running out of cheeks to turn | saying that a husband must man-up might also consider saying his wife must butch-down | fund-raising seat on the dunking chair in a village carnival | seeing may be believing, but digging is appreciating | self-explanatory like the string on a teabag label | serving cocktails in that airliner floating out there on the Hudson river | shackles for your hackles – hey, put your dander down | shaving one’s head in solidarity with a chemo patient in the family | shooing a gratefully verbose Oscar-winner off the stage with a times-up musical refrain | signature with flutes above the melody line while the cello does its business in the bass | single-child policy means no siblings, cousins, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles | sipping one’s martini while squinting down at farmland patterns in flyover country | skate to where the puck will be, not to where the puck has been | skeleton of a child’s kite dangling by its tail from a power line | slack-jawed, gob-smacked, hornswoggled, flabbergasted, and mind-boggled | smearing peanut-butter on the driver’s-side doorhandle of a double-parked pickup | smelling worse than a feedlot at a hog farm | smiling rage, frowning approval, tearful joy, and wet eyes at a shotgun wedding | smoke detector in the kitchen being used to ascertain when the bacon is done | smudge pots do not warm the orchard but produce atmospheric insulation above the trees | snake conserving venom by rattling its tail to ward off a threat that is too big to swallow | down South, “spittin’ image” is an unhygienic contraction of “spirit and image” | stainless steel for her fingernails and lipstick the color of dried blood | stampede of lemmings to the sea and the ostrich’s head in the sand – both are myths | stepping on the tines of a rake that is no longer lying flat in the grass | strolling in quicksand wearing bedroom slippers | struggling to compete for a mate with one’s antlers tangled in the lower branches | success in the office requires one to regard the boss’s secretary as always right | successful at selling yarmulkes to Muslims and rosaries to Baptists | such would be tantamount to stealing a person’s television remote | suggestions that simply reek of common sense | sure, we can just go for a stroll, but – hey, let’s boogie | swimwear fashions of today feature the codpiece and the camel toe | switching the barcode for a can of peas onto a sugar-cured ham | sword is mightier than the pen without ink | sycophantic adulation by a lickspittle lapdog | tattoos on a sailor’s forearm are long-lasting mementos of shore-leave drinking bouts | team getting confused by all those X’s and O’s on every page of the playbook | technology-rich retirement: polychromic bifocals, blue tooth hearing aids, and dental implants crafted on a 3D printer | teleportation technology must make a remote facsimile without destroying the original | television’s gifts include a flying nun and a talking horse | tethering one’s lifeboat to the sinking ship | some nail-salons offer discount manicures for amputees | that vehicle ahead on a long straight road having a continuously blinking turn signal | that’ll sure dampen your drawstrings | there’s a limit to how straight one’s lace can be | think of ‘brainwashing’ as ‘cerebral laundering’ | modesty of a pole-dancer at a bachelor party | third-finger greetings: vertical for you and horizontal for the horse you rode in on | those fanatic warriors found hiding in the jungle decades after the armistice | three out of four wheels are hanging over the edge of the cliff | time will eventually reveal what lies try to conceal | tossing rolls of paper towels into a room full of flood victims | towel-snapping and adolescent talk in the locker-room | tranquil as a colony of ants strolling through a spilled puddle of chardonnay | trickle-down prosperity is about as likely as Rumpelstiltskin turning straw into gold | trombone solo at a wedding | trusting anything said by a man wearing pantyhose, or not | twitchy suspicions metastasizing into full blown paranoia | typical Alaskan mosquito with a spot on his back about the size of a nickel | tyranny of urgency inflicted by that ringing damn telephone | unmistakable sound of chase-me-catch-me pumps on a hardwood floor | using a catch-and-kill publishing stratagem to suppress a tell-all manuscript | vacuum flasks must be artificially intelligent; they keep hot things hot and cold things cold | vending machines in economy class on a jumbo jet | waggling fingers aside one’s temples to simulate “scare quotes” | watch-out for buffalo turds in that watering hole | watching footage in a video technology that does not have footage | watching a schooner at sunset majestically capsizing in a squall | welcome as parental chaperones at the high-school senior prom | white eye-sockets from wearing sun-goggles in a tanning bed | wings are hardly redundant; every airplane needs both | win-win situations are intuitively preferable to lose-lose | years atop a tall stool, with green eyeshades and sleeve garters, bifocaling ledgers | you can tolerate anything so long as you can think of something worse | zombie on steroids