Playgrounds-Plumbing: Make bath time fun every night!
Rental-Reporters: The memo line on Armstrong Williams's pay stub
Paternity-Patio: Where you set up that inviting hammock
This week's contest was suggested by Peter Metrinko of Chantilly, who
gets zero credit because it turns out we've done this contest before. It
was eight years ago, though; let's do it again: Take the two subject
listings at the top of any page of the Yellow Pages and create a
definition for the compound word they form. You may use it in a sentence
if you like. Be sure to tell us which edition of the Yellow Pages you are
using; the examples above are taken from the Verizon 2004 Yellow Pages,
Southern Prince George's County edition. The 
Washington Post's newsroom library has an amazingly
comprehensive set of directories from all over.
First-prize winner receives the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. First runner-up receives "Think You're the Only One? Oddball Groups Where Outsiders Fit In." This new book by Intrepid Loser Seth Brown introduces readers to several dozen unusual organizations, from American Coaster Enthusiasts to the XXX Church ("The Number One Christian Porn Site on the Internet") and including . . . the Losers of The Style Invitational!
Other runners-up win a coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt.
Honorable mentions get one of the lusted-after Style Invitational Magnets.
One prize per entrant per week. Send your entries by e- mail to
losers@washpost.com or, if you really have to, by fax to 202- 334-4312.
Deadline is Monday, Feb. 7. Put the week number in the subject line of
your e-mail, or it risks being ignored as spam. Include your name, postal
address and phone number with your entry. Contests are judged on the basis
of humor and originality. All entries become the property of The Washington Post. Entries may be edited for taste or content.
No purchase required for entry. Employees of The Washington Post, and their immediate relatives, are not
eligible for prizes. Pseudonymous entries will be disqualified. The
revised title for next week's contest is by Tom Witte of Montgomery
Village.
Report from Week 591, our annual obit-poem contest:
{diam}Second Runner-Up:
Answering machine inventor Joseph Zimmerman
"Hi, this is St. Peter. I'm out at the moment
So leave me your name at the bell."
"This is Zimmerman, Joseph. I made this machine,
I'm so glad to reach you and not Hell."
(Scott Campisi, Wake Village, Tex.)
{diam}First Runner-Up, the winner of the Summer 2004 Washington Social Register:
Kinky girls in droves he bunked;
Now Rick James is quite defunked.
(Mark Eckenwiler, Washington)
{diam}And the winner of the Inker:
For Tony Randall, shed a tear;
It seems a tad unjust
That Felix Unger, gone from here,
Returneth now to dust.
(Brendan Beary, Great Mills)
{diam}Honorable Mentions:
Firefighter Red Adair
The fire burned in Red Adair
Tilll well into his eighties;
Now Satan's scared, 'cause Red might care
To douse the fire in Hades.
(Bob Dalton, Arlington)
Arafat once won the Prize
But never won the peace.
Now he might (though not in sight)
Succeed by his decease.
(Luke Currano, Columbia)
Geoffrey Beene's survivors are beset with second-guessing:
"We could have saved him if we'd put him in that silk cravat
And double-breasted linen suit disaster by Armani --
How often he would say we'd never catch him dead in that!"
(Brendan Beary)
Jan Berry of Jan & Dean
Upon the crooked path of life
At last he failed to swerve,
And now Dean's erstwhile partner Jan
Has rounded Dead Man's Curve.
(Mark Eckenwiler)
Marlon Brando
No more tix for new flix can we buy on Fandango,
For Brando has finally danced his Last Tango.
(Manuel Smith, Silver Spring)
To see you in "The Wild One"
I played hooky when 11.
May the angels find a way
To squeeze you into Heaven.
(Howard Walderman, Columbia)
Brando coulda stayed a contenda
If he'd used a little more Splenda.
(Jack Cackler, Falls Church)
Julia Child is dead and gone,
Along with her boeuf bourguignon.
I will miss her cassoulet,
Her light and airy cheese souffle.
I hope that Heaven's security frisk
Will let her keep her wire whisk.
(Ron Mayer, Columbia)
Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer's fish
Granted a paleontologist's wish.
She found a real coelacanth
That made biologists wet their panth.
(Jack Cackler)
One good thing about Alistair Cooke:
You never had to read the book.
(Roy Ashley, Washington)
Rodney Dangerfield
On the stone at his grave
An inscription is cut:
Rodney, Comic and Knave.
R.I.P. (Curb your mutt.)
(Chris Doyle, Honolulu)
Francis Crick
The Wooster to his Jeeves,
The Oscar to his Felix,
Poor Dr. Watson grieves:
He's lost the double to his helix.
(Brian Barrett, New York)
Arthur Hailey
I just loved "Roots," I gotta say,
Your views on Man so true . . .
Oh, wait, that was the other guy?
Well I guess he's dead, too.
(Jeff Brechlin, Eagan, Minn.)
The Treasure House stands empty now; no Moose, no Bunny Rabbit,
No Tom Terrific (or his dog) will there again inhabit.
It seems Bob Keeshan has forever left that famed redoubt;
How sad for Captain Kangaroo: Grandfather Clock's run out.
(Bob Dalton)
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
We can't believe you had to die,
It makes us kind of mad.
Oh, what we'd do to bring you back!
We're really rather sad.
But that's life, I guess. Too bad.
(John Conti, Norfolk, Mass.)
Lipstick, rouge and beauty creams
(for women's dollars vying)
Can do a lot to keep you young
But can't keep you from dying.
(Michelle Stupak, Ellicott City)
Janet Leigh
I tremble at the alchemy, the transcendental
power
That kept you moving 40 years since dying in that shower.
(Jeff Brechlin)
What a family tradition that Janet Leigh started!
She showed how a psycho might hurt us.
Then her kid did the same with that guy Michael Myers.
(Of course, I mean Jamie Lee Curtis.)
(Scott Campisi, Wake Village, Tex.)
Combination
Farewell to Helmut Newton and Richard Avedon,
To Eileen Darby Lester, Henri Cartier-Bresson,
Scavullo, too -- photographers departed left and right,
All exiting the darkroom and heading toward the light.
(Brendan Beary)
More Honorable Mentions appear on washingtonpost.com.
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