WEEK 123: WHY IS poop FUNNY?


1. Why is the sky blue?

2. Now do airplanes fly?

3. Where does dust come from?

4. Where does the sun go when it sets?

5. Where Do Babies Come From???

This week's contest was proposed by Jean Sorensen of Herndon and her 8-year-old son, Bobby. Jean wins a brand new 1995 Toyota Tercel with sunroof and driver-side air bag, and Bobby wins a real live pony named Mike. Jean and Bobby suggested you come up with creative answers to any of the five numbered questions above that might be asked by a 5-year-old. As an example, they quote from a book of Calvin & Hobbes cartoons, by Bill Watterson: "Why is there wind?" Calvin asks. "Trees sneezing," his father answers. Hm. Now that we examine their letter carefully, it would appear that All of Jean and Bobby's examples come from Calvin & H0bbes cartoon books. So, this is not really their idea at all, but Bill Watterson's idea, and he doesn't need a car or a horse, being a famously reclusive megamillionaire. So, in faimess, we need to scale back the prizes a little. Jean wins "Moose Shish-ka-Poop," a plastic meat skewer with an elegant moose-doody motif at the top, and Bobby wins a can of soda made from grass, a fine product of the People's Republic of China.

First-prize winner of Week 123 gets a matching pair of lamps made from genuine used AMF-approved tournament bowling pins, a value of, we don't know, how does $50 sound? 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 123, The Washington Post, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, fax them to 202· 334-4312, or submit them via the Intemet to this address: losers@access.digex.net. Internet users: Please indicate the appropriate Week Number in the "subject" field. Entries must be received on or before Monday, July 31. Please include your address and phone number. Winners will be announced in three weeks. Editor reserve the right to alter entries for tastte, appropriateness or humor. No purchase necessary. The Faerie of the Fine Print & The Ear No One Reads would like to observe that we have begun getting tormented letters from people who don't know what The Ear No One Reads is and want to find out. We feel their pain. The Faerie of the Fine Print & The Ear No One Reads wishes to thank Stephen Dudzik of Silver Spring for today's Ear No One Reads. Employees of The Washington Post and their immediate families are not eligible for prizes.

Report from Week 120, in which we asked you to come up with bad analogies.

The results were great, thugh we feel compelled to point out that there is a ffine line between an analogy that is so bad it is good and an analogy that is so good it is bad. See what we mean:

Fourth Runner-Up: Oooo, he smells bad, she thought, as bad as Calvin Klein's Obsession would smell if it were called Enema and was made from spoiled Spamburgers instead of natural floral fragrances. (Jennifer Frank, Washington, and Jimmy Pontzer, Sterling)

Third Runner-Up: The baseball player stepped out of the box and spit like a fountain statue of a Greek god that scratches itself a lot and spits brown, rusty tobacco water and refuses to sign autographs for all the little Greek kids unless they pay him lots of drachmas. (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)

Second Runner-Up: I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don't speak German. Anyway, it's a dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don't know the name for those either. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)

First Runner-Up: She was as unhappy as when someone puts your cake out in the rain, and all the sweet green icing flows down and then you lose the recipe, and on top of that you can't sing worth a damn. (Joseph Romm, Washington)

And the winner of the framed Scarlet Fever sign:

His fountain pen was so expensive it looked as if someone had grabbed the pope, turned him upside down and started writing with the tip of his big pointy hat. (Jeffrey Carl, Richmond)

Honorable Mentions:

After 15 years of marriage, sex had become an experience devoid of genuine excitement and emotion, like when you're stuck in traffic trying to get downtown on the Fourth of July and have to listen to the announcer describe the fireworks on the radio. (Joseph Romm, Washington)

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)

The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. (Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring)

The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can. (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. (Joseph Romm, Washington)

She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open. (Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station)

She was sending me more mixed signals than a dyslexic third-base coach. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)

She was clever all right, like a woman who is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as having the world's highest IQ and whose last name just happens to be "Savant." Yeah, maybe too clever by half. (Joseph Romm, Washington)

He was developing a reputation in the world of lint-collecting, which was kind of like being the most famous man in Woodbridge. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup. (Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring)

Having O.J. try on the bloody glove was a stroke of genius unseen since the debut of Goober on "Mayberry R.F.D." (John Kammer, Herndon)

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy!" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30. (Roy Ashley, Washington)

Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)

Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)

Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid 55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quid \aaakk/ch@ung by mistake. (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)

Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man." (Russell Beland, Springfield)

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph. (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)

Upon completing kindergarten, Lance felt the same sense of accomplishment the Unabomber feels every time he successfully blows up another college professor. (Anonymous, No City Please)

They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth. (Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.)

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play. (Barbara Fetherolf, Alexandria)

He was the size and shape of a man much larger than him. (Sarah Worcester, Bowie)

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)

The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon. (Jennifer Frank and Jimmy Pontzer, Washington and Sterling)

After sending in my entries for the Style Invitational, I feel relieved and apprehensive, like a little boy who has just wet his bed. (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)

Winning the Style Invitational is sort of like finding a flaming bag of dog poop on your porch. In fact, some weeks it's EXACTLY like that. (Elden Carnahan, Laurel)

That Chuck Smith! He slays me! He's a regular O.J. (Tom Witte, Gaithersburg)

And Last:

Sometimes I get really annoyed when entries get published and they don't even follow the rules of the contest. (Joseph Romm, Washington)

Next Week: It's No Use