Week 68: Give Us A Sign


Femini -- It is a bad time of the month for you.

Testes -- You have an unlimited amount of gall.

Vertigo -- Cut down on your partying.

This week's contest was suggested by Elden Carnahan of Laurel, who wins a fabulous prank hypodermic syringe. Elden suggests coming up with new astrological signs for the 1990s, together with one day's horoscope. First-prize winner gets a framed painting of the "Abbey Road" album cover, featuring the likenesses of Elvis, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart, purchased from the official Style Invitational art curators, who operate out of the back of a truck on Rockville Pike. Runners-up, as always, get the coveted Style Invitational losers' T-shirts. Honorable mentions get the mildly sought-after Style Invitational bumper stickers. Winners will be selected on the basis of humor and originality. Mail your entries to the Style Invitational, Week 68, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, fax them to 202-334-4312, or submit them via Internet at this address: losers@access.digex.net. Entries must be received on or before Monday, June 20. Please include your address and phone number. Winners will be announced in three weeks. Anurgent message from the Faerie of the Fine Print & the Ear No One Reads: Many alert but confused readers wrote in to observe that something peculiar appears to have happened to Week 64, inasmuch as Week 63 was followed by Week 65, even though we later referred back to Week 64, as though it had existed, and once incorrectly reported the results of "Week 64," which never technically happened. It might have just been a mistake, but who knows? In 30 words or fewer: What happened to Week 64? Winner gets a great $ 40 clock featuring a painting of grazing buffaloes, tepees and a man in a headdress who looks about as much like an American Indian as Lawrence Welk did. Send entries to Style Invitational, Week 64 Special Contest, The Washington Post, etc. No purchase necessary. Employees of The Washington Post and their immediate families are not eligible for prizes. The winner of the contest to come up with snapshots of your pets wearing costumes was Sue Hanson of Montgomery Village, who we are fairly certain cheated by sending in a picture from a post card. But we are choosing to ignore this inasmuch as it is great, and all the other ones bit the braunschweiger. Sue wins a papier-mache duck and a picture of an elephant pooping. Thank you.

Report from Week 65, or possibly 64, in which you were asked to come up with personal classified ads that do not actually lie but creatively stretch the truth a bit.

Third Runner-Up: From a Devil worshiper -- "SWF, willing to make sacrifices . . ." (Cindi Rae Caron, Lenoir, N.C.)

Second Runner-Up: From someone with multiple personalities -- "I am a real people person . . ." (Tom Meyer, Alexandria)

First Runner-Up: From John Bobbitt -- "SWM, recently divorced AND recently separated . . ." (Sue Lin Chong, Washington)

And the winner of the hideous cement lawn sculpture:

From a morbidly obese person: "SWM with an enormous heart . . ." (Nick Dierman, Potomac)

Honorable Mentions:

From Chuck Smith of Woodbridge: "MWM ISO a life. . ." (Linda Bakley, Falls Church)

From a person with split personalities: "Looking for woman interested in multiple organisms . . ." (Dawn-Michele Gould, Germantown)

From a physician -- [scrawls ending in $ 1,000,079.98] (Paul A. Alter, Hyattsville)

From Shane Stant: "Olympic trials participant. Enjoys clubs, swinging and bars . . ." (Larry Gordon, Potomac)

From Jack Kevorkian: "Let me help you see the light . . ." (Steven Dudzik, Silver Spring)

From avant garde director David Lynch: "I want someone to sit on my coffee table and call out the names of the presidents. That would really be great. And a dog. Shouldn't a dog be in here? But he has to be holding a human hand. That would be neat." (J. Calvin Smith, Laurel)

From an asylum inmate: "Are you looking for a committed individual? . . ." (Cindi Rae Caron, Lenoir, N.C.)

From John Bobbitt: "Unattached male seeking companionship . . ." (Peggy M. Hyde, Charlottesville)

From Stuttering John Melendez: "SSSSSSWWWWWMMMMMM, ssseeeks . . ." (Christie Kennedy, Syosset, NY.)

From "desperate": "SMWBPJMF seeks therapist specializing in the treatment of persons suffering from indentity crisis." (Harris Shettel, Rockville)

From Vladimir Zhirinovsky: "Object: adventure, travel, getting a little crazy now and then . . ." (Tom Meyer, Alexandria)

From Jack Kevorkian: "Seeking someone patient, long-suffering, for long drive in your garage . . ." (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)

Next Week: The Son-of-Smith Law.