1940s: The War Years

1950s: The Age of Innocence

1960s: The Flower-Power Decade

1970s: The Me Decade

1980s: The Yuppie Years

1990s: ?

This Week's Contest was sort of proposed by Joseph Romm, of Washington, except we improved on his idea and anyway he is getting too full of himself so he doesn't win squat. Wait, no, we just found something here for him. Joseph wins a photocopy of a photograph of a performance artist lying naked under a heavy lead weight suspended precariously over his face by string attached through a pulley to his private parts. Anyway, the new contest idea is to come up with a catch phrase to describe the 1990s. If it will help, you can explain your entry, but an explanation isn't necessary. First-prize winner receives a Velvis, a genuine framed Velvet Elvis in which the King appears to be crying tears made of half-and-half and glitter, a value of $50. Runners-up, as always, get the coveted Style Invitational losers' T-shirt. 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 96, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, fax them to 202-334-4312, or submit them via the Internet to this address: losers@access.digex.net. Entries must be received on or before Monday, Jan. 23. Please include your address and phone number. Winners will be announced in three weeks. Editors reserve the right to alter entries for taste, appropriateness or humor. No purchase necessary. The Faerie of the Fine Print also solicits ideas for renaming previous decades; winner gets a drinking duck. Employees of The Washington Post and their immediate families are not eligible for prizes.

Results of Week 93, in which we asked you to tell us why you should win the fabulous piece of taxidermy featuring a mongoose killing a snake. We would like to comment first upon the surprising popularity of vomitous stuffed-animal sculptures, judging from the vast numbers of snapshots we received from people like Ted Hirt, of Washington, who owns a pair of stuffed squirrels wearing miniature boxing gloves in a miniature boxing ring; Ellen A. Blackwell, of Washington, who keeps on a table in her rec room a day-old baby donkey; and Pamela King, of Mechanicsville, who displays above her fireplace, mounted on a handsome plaque of burnished wood, a deer's behind. Those three people win T-shirts because we were fresh out of spittoons. Also winning a shirt is Mister Daniel Riley, of Woodbridge, who sent us an elegant hardcover coffee-table book consisting entirely of high-quality photographs of wild animals pooping and peeing.

Second Runner-Up: I need the mongoose because my husband says if I bring one more ugly tchotchke into the house, he's leaving. (Jo Ann York, Germantown)

First Runner-Up: It would be fun to see the kids' expressions when, as they shine a flashlight under the bed to make sure there are no monsters, they see this. (Ann Wilkinson, Upperville, Va.)

And the winner of the mongoose killing the snake:

All I really want is a runner-up T-shirt, but like women everywhere, to get what I want I have to fake it. So let me say I want that repulsive mongoose. Yes, I want it, I need it bad, I love it. Please, please give it to me. Give it to me now, baby, now, ooooooh baby. (Judith Daniel, Washington)

Honorable Mentions

I must have the mongoose because I feel the need to add a luxury high-rise to my maggot farm. (Larry Hinders, Fredericksburg)

I should get the mongoose because this is the first Invitational entry to have a footnote, and novelty must count for something.1

(Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)

I went short on stuffed-mongoose futures and I must have it to cover my position. (Sarah Worcester, Bowie)

The new Contract With America stipulates that I am entitled to it. (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)

I deserve the mongoose because, ah, some day I would like to work with disadvantaged children. (Russ Beland, Springfield)

I should get the mongoose because though I have brushed my teeth every day for 26 years, my dentist no longer gives me toys. (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)

I love Ellen Sauerbrey and for some strange reason this reminds me of her. (Paul Styrene, Olney)

I must have the mongoose because I need a place to mount my stuffed fleas. (Yvonne Easter Driggers, Reston)

I want the mongoose to be used as a hood ornament on my Yugo. (Rosie Connard, Crofton)

I'm building a Morse code key for my ham radio and need a piece of wood about that size. (Martin Schulman, Herndon)

If you give it to me, it will be kept out of the hands of someone who might throw it over the White House fence at the president. (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg)

Sal told me to get it for him by any means necessary. I thought I'd ask first. (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg)

And Last:

I need a thank-you gift for Elden Carnahan, who kindly sends me computer printouts documenting just how far I've fallen behind Tom Witte of Gaithersburg in your overall standings. (Mike Thring, Leesburg)

1. Racial and gender repression, multiculturalism and, of course, sex, as represented by the snake and mongoose thing. Grimm's Journal of Dour American Pop Psychology, Vol. 47, pp. 62-63.