Week 38: Ask Backwards II

Mexico, Canada and Burkina Faso

The Fattest Human Being On Earth

Anywhere He Wants To

A Great Big Sucking Sound

Th-Th-Th-That's All, Folks

Sharon Stone's Drawers

The Archbishop of Canterbury, and Beavis.

Goofy

Honk If You Like Feldspar

Yasser Arafat and Me

Yogi Berra and St. Francis of Assisi

My Other Car Is a Giraffe

Nine Janet Renos

Frank Sinatra, Eva Braun and Morley Safer

Ho Ho Ho

Funny You Should Ask

This week's contest: Our first variation on a theme. You are on "Jeopardy!" Here are your answers. What are the questions? Answer one, or more than one. First-prize winner gets a professional magician's guillotine with which to amaze your friends by cutting off your own hand, nose, etc., a value of $80. Runners-up, as always, get the coveted Style Invitational losers' T-shirts. Winners will be selected on the basis of humor and originality. Mail your entries to the Style Invitational, Week 38, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, or fax them to 202-334-4312. Entries must be received on or before Monday, Nov. 29. Please include your address and phone number. Winners will be announced in three weeks. No purchase necessary. The Faerie of the Fine Print wishes to announce that no further entries for the Dorkiest Middle Name Contest will be accepted unless they are really, really funny. The Faerie also wishes to rebuke the reader who identified herself as Etta "Just Give Me the Lawn Pigs and No One Gets Hurt" Saunders, of Culpeper, Va.. Well, we checked with the Bureau of Vital Statistics and learned that her full name is really Etta "Just Give Me the Puke Candy" Saunders, of Culpeper. The Puke Candy is in the mail, Etta. Employees of The Washington Post and their immediate families are not eligible for prizes.

Report from Week 35, in which you were asked to propose a use for the 14-mile-long, 15-foot-wide sausage-shaped tunnel the federal government dug under Waxahachie, Tex., for the Super Collider project scrapped by Congress last month.

Because of the Style Invitational's hallowed reputation for accuracy and integrity, we were forced to disqualify several worthy entries that were based upon the incorrect assumption that the tunnel is a completed circle. The best of these was submitted by John Hoover and Kathleen Akerley of Chevy Chase: "Coat the ground with ice and have National Hockey League players compete to see which of them have a hard enough slap shot to knock out their own teeth from behind." Many of you submitted reprehensible entries that proposed luring various people (Perot, Limbaugh, Stern etc.) into the tunnel, and then sealing it shut. These ideas were far too hostile to dignify by printing, except possibly for the one submitted by Mike Thring of Leesburg, who suggested doing this with a Trekkie convention.

And last, a heartfelt apology to Tom Gearty of Washington, whom we neglected to credit for suggesting last week's contest to come up with a state name, flower, slogan, etc. for the District of Columbia. Tom informed us of this oversight via fax, including a dated and certified copy of his original proposal, and just to be sure, he followed this up with a phone call. No doubt, Tom has by now contacted a squad of copyright-infringement attorneys. And so we wish to announce that Yes, By Jove, It Was Tom's Idea, and Tom's Idea Alone, And Tom Wins a Bottle of Whine. Er, wine.

Third Runner-Up: Tell Ross Perot that the "Mole Men" who tried to disrupt his daughter's wedding live in the tunnel. He'll take it from there. (Robert Walker, Fairfax)

Second Runner-Up: Run a marathon through it, giving new meaning to the phrase "hitting the wall." (Mike Thring, Leesburg)

First Runner-Up: The Texas School Bus Depository. (Kurt Rabin, Arlington)

And the Winner of the Terra Cotta Lawn Pigs:

Rename it the Martha Washington Monument. (Michael Sweet, Rockville)

Honorable Mentions:

Put a goal line at either end. Establish the World Underground Football League (WUFL). Disadvantages: Games would be very long, or there would be a lot of 0-0 ties. Advantages: Field goals would be almost impossible. (Peter Ramsberger, Alexandria)

Draw mastodons on the wall with charcoal. Seal it up and forget it. (Gary Desilets, Woodbridge)

Fill with water and use as Federal Divining Rod Test Facility. (Robin D. Grove, Washington)

"The 19th Hole," a 14-mile, par-500 miniature golf course. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)

Satellite parking for RFK Stadium. (Maggie Wolff Peterson, Winchester, Va.)

Fill it with whipped cream, then stretch a canvas over the entrance, and paint a big tunnel opening, creating the world's largest practical joke. (Mike Thring, Leesburg)

Correctly claim that it was dug by a primitive people, and sell admission tickets. (Forrest L. Miller, Rockville)

Designate the hole as the nation's official place to test glow-in- the-dark watches and vampire teeth. (Chase Squires, Rockville)

Advertise it as a shortcut to Hell and see who shows up. (Mike Thring, Leesburg)

Place giant ben-wa balls in it to appease Mother Nature during earthquakes. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)

Find a "sniper's nest" in it and close the case on JFK's assassination. (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg)

Flood with salt water, fill with galleons and costumed animated figures. Charge admission to "Pirates of Waxahachie." (Sue Lin Chong, Washington)

Use it as a research lab to investigate other burning questions of national importance, such as: Do guns kill people, or do people kill people? Will NAFTA revitalize oureconomyandallowustoshootintothetwentyfirstcenturylikeaspectacularm eteor or will it completelydestroythenationleavingitaruinedshellofamoraldepravity? Is it true that fetuses can play solitaire six weeks after conception? If a tree falls in a tunnel, does it make a noise? (Peter Ramsberger, Alexandria)

Sentence Lorena Bobbitt to 30 years of being chased around the tunnel by Oscar Mayer. (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg)

Roll a 14-foot-diameter steel ball around the track behind a group of marathon runners. The U.S. high-tech version of the running of the bulls in Pamplona. (Stephen Dudzik, Silver Spring)

Convert to "Super Bird and Window Collider." (Bob Zane, Woodbridge)

Give the tunnel its own NFL expansion football team, just to spite Baltimore. (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg)

Offer it for sale to the 37 other states that were willing to beg, borrow or steal to win original congressional approval for the project. (Robin D. Grove, Washington)

An indoor race track for Shriners on tricycles. (Paul Styrene, Olney)

Cut a slot in the top and use it as a suggestion box for how to fix the Redskins. (William Osborn, Alexandria)

Something with Joey Buttafuoco. (Jim Henley, Silver Spring)

And Last:

Fill with ear wax. Offer as Style Invitational prize, valued at $50. (Sue Lin Chong, Washington)

Next Week: Pranks for the Memories.