The Style Invitational Week 909: Reprizing

By Pat Myers

Friday, March 4, 2011; 12:31 PM

lnker

Loser T-shirt

Loser mug

Loser magnet

The FirStink air "freshener"

Pantyhose with a run

Old National Geographics

A handful of pennies

A charger for your previous cellphone

One perfectly good shoelace

Tattered underwear.

Fewer than 5,000 people anywhere in the Milky Way galaxy have won even a single Style Invitational prize in its 18 years - this week! - of existence (the Invite's, that is; the galaxy is dozens of years older).

But a handful of the truly obsessed Style Invitational Losers, reputedly residents of Planet Earth, have accumulated hundreds or more: enough to crash the mantel to the floor, to make the refrigerator door sag on its hinges. While Loser Mike Gips boasts a mere 23 prizes - including the Inker and mug he scored in this week's results - he suggests a contest to make use of these otherwise worthless objects.

We've filled out the list with a few other items that end up lying around the house. This week: Suggest humorous uses for one or more of the items above, alone or in combination. You may use any quantity of each item, except the one shoelace, the pennies and the FirStink for First Ink, since you can win only one of those. If you want to construct some physical thing, send a photo of it as an attachment to your e-mail.

Winner gets the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. Second place receives the Style Invitational Breakfast Set, consisting of Inflatable Toast plus a whole Inflatable Fruitcake all atop a bacon-motif place mat (utterly nonfat). Food donated by Jeff Contompasis, the place mat by Russell Beland.

Other runners-up win their choice of a coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt or yearned-for Loser Mug. Honorable mentions win a lusted-after Loser magnet. First Offenders get a smelly, tree-shaped air "freshener" (Fir Stink for their First Ink). E-mail entries to losers@washpost.com or fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, March 20; results to be published April 3 (April 1 online). Put "Week 909" in the subject line of your e-mail, or it may be ignored as spam. Include your real name, postal address and phone number with your entry. See more rules at washingtonpost.com/styleinvitational. The revised title for next week's results is by Chris Doyle; the honorable-mentions subhead is by Russell Beland.

Report from Week 906, in which we asked for ideas for Loser Mug 2: The Next Generation, a prize for third- and fourth-place finishers that replaces the design we've used since 2007.

The winner of the Inker

My Cup Punneth Over (Mike Gips, Bethesda; Edmund Conti, Raleigh, N.C.; Howard Walderman, Columbia; they also win the mug)

Winners of the mug with someone else's idea on it:

2 One Ounce Short of a Pint: Runner-Up, the Style Invitational (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn; the mug is indeed a 15-ouncer)

3 [Front] Sometimes You Lose . . . [Back] . . . and Sometimes You Lose (Drew Bennett, West Plains, Mo.)

4 Middle-Wit Champion: Runner-Up, the Style Invitational (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village)

More java scripts: Honorable mentions

Model it after those mugs with the pictures of all the presidents - but instead, feature each election's losing candidate. (Drew Knoblauch, Arlington; Seth Tucker, Washingtom)

Genius Is Its Own Reward. I Got This Mug Instead. (Josh Feldblyum, Philadelphia)

Style Invitational Official Travel Spittoon (Kevin Dopart, Washington; Chris Doyle, traveling in Iguacu Falls, Brazil)

If You Don't Get It, You Don't Get This (Craig Dykstra, Centreville)

Graphic with the Robert Indiana square LOVE design, with an S scribbled over the V and an R added to crudely turn it into LOSER - trying to show this as art instead of a description. (Drew Knoblauch; Peter Jenkins, Bethesda; Suzanne Cross, Chantilly, a First Offender)

Cartoon of a man at the supermarket "Self Checkout" line. He's looking down his pants. Caption: LOSER. (Barbara Turner, Takoma Park)

Caution: Contents Tepid. Runner-Up, the Style Invitational (Russell Beland, Fairfax; Martin Bancroft, Rochester, N.Y.)

Sunday DriveL (Tom Witte)

Do you know how many ceramics had to die to make this mug? (Craig Dykstra)

Warning: Content provider may be hot. But we doubt it. (Kevin Dopart)

A Venus de Milo statue looks down at a crouching Thinker, saying, "Loser." Thinker is holding a mug: "Only a mug? But I'm so funny." (Jeff Brechlin, Eagan, Minn.)

Venn diagram: Left oval, "Think"; right oval, "Drink"; in the center, "Ink." (Chris Doyle)

Next week: Naming rite, or Branding irony