"He stuck out like a zoot suit at a Shaker funeral"

That title is mine, but Raymond Chandler blazed the trail. Here's how he sums up the big ganch Philip Marlowe meets at the beginning of Farewell, My Lovely:

"Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food."

Over in Baltimore, Dave Rosenthal devoted a fill-in-the-blanks quiz to those memorable thunderclaps of over-the-top wordage. Here are his first two questions:

1) "The walls here are as _____ as a hoofer's wallet." Playback

2) "The voice got as _____ as a cafeteria dinner." Farewell, My Lovely

Get the idea?

Now it's your turn. Do what I did in the title of this post, and make up your own Chandleresque description. If it's good enough, I may award a few books as prizes. And my judgment is as good as ____

© Peter Rozovsky 2009