Dead as a Doornail

"But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a doornail." - Charles Dickens

     In which I refrain from commenting on the election and instead bring you a lighter post. Here's a list of goofy clichés I've dredged up from all corners of life: from film, books, billboards, packaging, comics, and conversation. Enjoy!

• The ten square foot desert island with the palm tree in the middle. Why do we always see them at low tide?

• Falling anvils and pianos. This is one cliché that never gets old.

• Well... That and grannies armed with rolling pins.

• Happy kids in textbooks. The gal in a turtleneck holding up a graphing calculator with a giant grin. Really? Let's see some groaning, some pain, some agony. Red pen at the least.

• Protagonist in the movie nonchalantly spinning the postcard rack after walking into a store. Bash a window. That would shake things up a bit.

• "I'm glad that 14 terabyte data transfer only took thirty seconds, or else I would have been caught infiltrating this secret compound.

• "Quick! Push the fruit cart into the road so the lead car in the chase will crash into it, sending watermelons and pears skyward in an awesome slow motion collision!"

• "Phew. Reinforcements are just three minutes away..."

• Replies to "how are you today" questions. LOUSY! AND I WON'T BOTHER ASKING YOU BECAUSE I KNOW YOU'LL BE WONDERFUL! Life is a bit to predictable sometimes.

• Rome wasn't built in a day. Yeah, well, they didn't have cranes or front-loaders back then.

• When life gives you lemons, keep them. Because hey, free lemons.

• When it rains, it pours. Or it just sprinkles...

• If you can't judge a book by its cover, hire a new designer.

• All's fair in love and war. Take that Geneva conventions!

• Cereal box characters. I challenge you to find one single box of cereal in the cereal isle who's character doesn't have a the goofiest grin you thought was possible. 

• 50% MORE*

          *Than our half sized product.

• 100% NATURAL! I would pay money to see an orange juice carton with 100% ARTIFICIAL smeared across the front.

• Action hero whips out an arrow from his back quiver and let's it fly into the nearest bad guy within a second and a half. Oh- wait. Hold on. The arrow's stuck in the quiver. My arm's not long enough to get the tip far enough out. Ah. Two hands. There we go. Hold on there, Mr. Orc. The notch isn't clicking onto the string. Darn. The tail feathers are backwards, let me flip this one around. Pull back--boy this bow is stiff--oh, the sights need to be adjusted for this distance...

• The epic battle on the swinging bridge, tall building or freight train. A card table would be just fine, thank you.

• Crumb. My car ran out of gas right in the middle of this intense car chase.

• Soccer ball, saxophone, and a stack of books in the group shot of happy kids on the billboard. The ultimate childhood stereotype.

• That mountain switchback road in all the car commercials that I'm convinced is a soundstage in Hollywood with built-in sunset lighting.

• Riddles that end in "how did he die." No one ever seems to live through story riddles these days.

• Barber shops with pitiful names. I have yet to find a barber shop that has a name that would make me want to get my hair trimmed there.

• Typography. The flowing script font on devotionals, the blocky or pixelated font on all bad guy's computer screens, the serif font on all smart books, the sans-serif font on all books trying to be smart, and the bold, italicized, and non-Times-New-Roman font on the MLA guide.

• Goats don't eat tin cans. Really. They don't. Or shoes for that matter. They just eat grass. Lots of it.

• And last but not least, professors with bow ties.