Oxymoronic Dicks
<!--StartFragment--> Rhetorical devices such as metaphor, simile, alliteration, oxymoron, and allusion are the little frills that make writing interesting. “See Dick play” becomes “See Dick play with himself” using personification (some may think this is a stretch, but personification is defined as “ascribing human qualities to inanimate objects.”) “Play hard, Dick” is an example of a pun (or

I Am What I Eat -- In What Year?
<!--StartFragment--> The Whole Foods on Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta has a sign admonishing its customers to “only eat it if you can read it!” That’s good advice, actually. Those yummy Pepperidge Farm Orange Milano cookies, for example, cookies I have no business eating, contain “interesterified and/or hydrogenated soybean oil.” Now, I’m not quite sure what interesterified oil is, but the

All That Candy is Going to My Head
<!--StartFragment--> The day before Halloween, my niece, Kate, came out of school carrying two bags of candy and the hat to her witch’s costume. She was a cute little witch. But the best part of that costume, according to my sister, was the fact that they didn’t have to fix Kate’s hair that morning. Tangled, matted curls are part of a witch's persona. Kate climbed

A Twist on Happily Ever After
<!--StartFragment--> I have finally figured out the whole Disney formula for happily ever after, and it’s not that complicated. Sitting in Cinderella’s Castle at Disneyworld eating a $150 breakfast one fine morning, I had an epiphany. Cinderella and Prince Charming approached our table, and my friend Ann looked at me and said, “Look at Prince Charming. Isn’t he gorgeous?” “Yeah,

Horny Toads and other Dysfunctional Reptiles
<!--StartFragment--> Not long ago, my nephew Joe asked for a “wizard.” My brother, Beau, understood what Joe was saying, and a few days later, Spike the Lizard was on my sister’s doorstep, accompanied by a glass cage, a warming rock, and a bag full of live crickets.Beau knew what Joe wanted because when he was about Joe’s age, he was fascinated with reptiles. He used to hang out around the