In class today, we went over formal voice, and one of the rules I presented concerned the avoidance of cliche. “Avoid them like the plague” is the old joke — they didn’t get it because they’d never heard the cliche.

Cliches are a little depressing: they’re victims of their own popularity. Someone comes up with a clever metaphor or conceit, then everyone wants to use it. Suddenly, it’s everywhere, and just like that, a clever saying has become a dreaded cliche. Even “tired old cliche” is cliche.

When it came time for creative writing at the end of the day, I gave them a simple prompt: “Based on what we talked about in English, do the opposite. Try to come up with a text (about anything) that is filled with as many cliches and colloquialisms as you can.”

Here was my effort:

So, I lost track of time when thinking about cliches. Initially, I was like a kid in a candy store when the teacher told us, “Try to be like, ‘I’m such a bad writer’ and include a lot of cliches.” But I feel like a fish out of water trying to write badly. I always feel like Big Brother is watching me when I write. (I guess you can read between the lines on that.)

Writing in cliches is a snap in a way because it’s just a matter of time before anything and everything turns into a cliche. Soon it’s going to require nerves of steel to avoid cliches because everything can become a cliche. Sure, it’s likely every saying lives in heart-stopping fear that everyone will fall head over heels for it and use it all the time, thus turning it into a cliche. At that point, the saying, now a cliche, slinks off with its tail between its legs when it should be going around without a care in the world. After all, even if it’s ugly as sin, it’s not the cliche’s fault that everyone uses it. I’m just saying the saying shouldn’t cry over spilled milk. I mean, the writing is on the wall, and it’s the thought that counts.

And I’m sure some sayings just want to go straight for the cliche phase, but better late than never. They want to move right past that fresh-as-a-daisy, I’m-a-new-saying phase and straight to the tired old cliche phase.

Whatever your view on cliches, I guess we should all just live and let live.

That’s 19 cliches and 8 colloquialisms.