A problem arises when hyperbole becomes cliché. It might be clever to treat a heat wave with references to deceased bad guys of history outside signing autographs, as I did in Dallas in 1980. One day when the temperature reached 105F or so I said something like "Billy the Kid is out signing autographs". (In all likelihood Billy the Kid was illiterate, but that is beside the point). As the temperature got worse and worse I went through a series of evil persons, reaching Benito Mussolini and Hideki Tojo as the outside temperature reached 113F on two separate days. I was saving Stalin for 114F and Hitler for 115F, but the heat wave started to abate some, and the grim contrast between the weather and Hell (it's the Bible Belt) starts to lose its zing.
Yes, that was a brutal heatwave. How bad was it? I wore winter clothing in an effort to protect myself from the heat. It worked surprisingly well, although my dry-cleaning costs skyrocketed.
Paranoid delusions are neither cute nor clever. They are cliché at its worst. "They are spying on me through my TV set" -- maybe the cable TV company is watching what channels receive, and if you are watching HBO without paying the additional charge to see it because you have jimmied the cable box, maybe the cable company can take some retribution. It should be obvious that there is no cable channel that you would watch only if you are a criminal. Wiretapping? It works only because crooks get chatty (bragging about what they got with the loot, trying to talk in code that law enforcement can figure out, or simply forgetting that they are being monitored on the phone as they must be told)... law enforcement needs the warrant.
But, yes, under this Administration I can imagine some effort to determine whether one is preparing some 'unpatriotic' food like hummus or cous-cous in the microwave or the conventional oven. Paranoia often signals personal nastiness.
