I was taking a class on metaphors as an undergraduate. Someone had used an example involving a vulture. Maybe comparing lawyers to vultures. Something of that nature.

“And I imagine none of you can come up with a positive connotation for vultures?” the professor asked rhetorically.

I raised my hand.

“You’ve got a bit of a dark side, don’t you?”

I then proceeded to relay a scene from one of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman graphic novels, wherein someone receives a “burial by air.” Their remains were cut into bite-sized pieces for the vultures of the desert, so the vultures could carry them off into the afterlife.

I think he meant it more as a general observation than a compliment, but it made me very, very happy.