How Dow Plunge Is Like Throwing Up in Restaurant Bathroom

The Dow Jones' hair-raising spill of nearly 1,000 points yesterday, quickly followed by a partial rebound, was a frightening jolt with ramifications that we're still sorting out. But there's no controversy about one lesson to draw: the roller coaster metaphor is really, really overused. Gawker's Adrian Chen, tired of seeing that "old amusement park chestnut" trotted out to describe stock market activity, has a better set of imagery to supply, drawing upon both the market plunge and the Greek financial crisis. If nothing else, it's vivid.

Today, the Wall Street went to a strip mall Greek restaurant and ordered the fried calamari. The Greek restaurant, being shoddily-run, undercooked the calamari so it was tough and tasteless. This error was compounded by the fact that, earlier, a sick European banker had sneezed on the raw squid as it sat in the seafood market. So Wall Street caught a virulent European stomach flu and sprinted to the back of the restaurant and began vomiting. Things looked bleak; would Wall Street die in the dingy restroom of the Acropolis off I-9? However, as Wall Street was throwing up in the toilet, the attractive daughter of the Greek restaurant's proprietor knocked on the door: "Is everything alright in there?" she asked with a titillating mix of worry and forbidden longing. Instantly, Wall Street began feeling better and was able to compose itself enough to ask the comely Grecian out on a date. They went on a date and had a pretty good time, but things just didn't work out in the end.

Will vomiting in a restaurant bathroom displace roller coasters as the go-to metaphor for stock market swings? Only time will tell.