A while back, I read this comment on HN that has stuck with me since. Here it is, courtesy of user brightball on HN:

I live in a house with a washer and dryer.

After we had our first child there was a stretch where my wife and I were both sick for about 2 weeks and the laundry ended up building up significantly. We had probably 10 loads worth to catch up on and it was going to take all of at least one day, maybe two.

Threw it all in the car, went to the laundromat and had it done in 2 hours.

Laundromat's are now how I explain "the cloud" to non-technical people.

I've used this metaphor a few times since.

@jess put together a great round-up that links out to a few posts on the subject. I also like @kbk0125's CodeAnalogies.com website (many of which have been cross-posted to DEV).

My Favorite Coding Analogies

Jess Lee ・ Apr 8 '19

#bestofdev

But I'm really interested in your very concise metaphors/analogies, more similar to the one I shared in this post.

Any favorites?