Week 576: Well, Excuuuuse Us!


Being short: "That's just because I'm a twin. My brother stood on my head for nine months."

Being stingy: "You see, I need to save all my money so that when I die, my estate can pay for a really lavish funeral, for the comfort of my many mourners."

This week's contest was suggested jointly by Margaret Bechtel of Annandale and Russell Beland of The Pool Margaret Goes To. The idea is to come up with new excuses for any common human shortcoming or imperfection.

First-prize winner receives the Inker, the official Style Invitational Trophy. First runner-up wins a board game named Loser, "for people who aren't afraid to laugh at their mistakes. And their friends." Donated by Erika Reinfeld of Somerville, Mass., who readily admits that it "seems pretty lame," it includes a stack of cards, each asking if the player has done some loserly thing (e.g., lost his wallet, failed to vote, "had a monster hickey you couldn't hide").

Runners-up all win the 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 by fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, Sept. 27. 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. Results will be published Oct. 17. 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 572, in which we asked for limericks based on words beginning with ai- to ar-, to contribute to the very-long-term "Omnificient English Dictionary in Limerick Form" project.

You can soon see many of the entries to this contest, in addition to the winners, at www.oedilf.com. They will no doubt include the several fine verses about the word "anus" that the Empress didn't even try to include here, because the Empress would like to remain an employee of The Washington Post Co.

Fourth runner-up:

To shoot with a bow with the best,
Ancient maids cut off part of the chest.
Now their mythical name
Means a strong, warlike dame:
An amazon (Greek for "no breast").

(Louis Spector, Winnetka, Ill.)

Third runner-up:

Warmongers step up, take a bow,
The world's in an unholy row.
The big guns are booming
And mushroom clouds looming.
You've created apocalypse now.

(Ross Elliffe, Picton, New Zealand)

Second runner-up:

Now these beetles are marvelous things,
In the kingdom of bugs, they're the kings.
This is true of them all
Except ex-Beatle Paul,
Who is apterous now -- without Wings.

(Scott Campisi, Wake Village, Tex.)

First runner-up, the winner of the alligator-claw back scratcher and alligator-head letter opener:

When Reagan and Thatcher shared glory,
The press back then missed their love story.
Ronnie said she was hot,
And believe it or not,
Maggie said to him, "I, amatory."

(Dave Zarrow, Herndon)

And the winner of the Inker:

It's in vain that the teenagers try
All their algebra skills to apply.
Though they can, on occasions,
Solve x in equations,
They still haven't figured out y.

(Brendan Beary, Great Mills)

Honorable Mentions:

A sentence begins on a track
But suddenly changes its tack.
Let's put a sleuth on
This anacoluthon
And -- whoa, get a load of that rack!

(Chris Doyle, Forsyth, Mo.)

There's a type of bird men used to hail
As a burden that meant you would fail.
It was called albatross,
But with Bush Senior's loss,
Some have said that it should be named quayle.

(Seth Brown, North Adams, Mass.)

Just as baby gets bigger each day,
So the grocery list grows the same way:
It starts off with "Pampers &"
Often that ampersand
Leads to more money to pay.

(Bill Spencer, Exeter, N.H.)

Said the frog to the princess from Texas:
"Would you care for amplexus, Alexis?
Though I cannot convince
You that I am a prince,
Still frogs know how complex human sex is."

(Mary Ann Henningsen, Hayward, Calif.)

When the windflower wilts in Gethsemane
And the weeds are regaining hegemony,
The gardener will turn
To the maidenhair fern,
With a frond like this, who needs anemone?

(Chris Doyle)

His CDs are arranged A to Z
And he numbers his clothes 1-2-3.
Everything in his mind
Is precisely aligned;
He is anal-retentive, you see.

(Jon Reiser, Hilton, N.Y.)

Now you know I won't slip you no jive,
But that andalusite, man alive!
There's no ifs, ands or buts --
I've completely gone nuts
For this Al2SiO5!

(Brendan Beary)

Pythagoras, rod and reel dangling,
Couldn't keep all his tackle from tangling.
His plight he lamented
Until he invented
A theorem to simplify angling.

(Tim Alborn, Washington)

I ask what the deal with my toes is,
The doc says it is ankylosis.
But toes are in front!
To be really blunt,
This doc don't know ankles from noses.

(Mike Connaghan, Alexandria)

Church and state are like light in a prism:
Far more beautiful after the schism.
Some take issue with this,
And promote antidis-
Establishmentarianism.

(Dan Seidman, Watertown, Mass.; Seth Brown)

You've got funny stuff right in your eye.
You can't clean it out -- don't even try!
It's just goo, not a tumor,
Called the aqueous humor.
(What a cornea jokester am I!)

(Dave Zarrow)

Lawyers' archives hold motions and pleas;
Bankers' archives store records of fees.
A Realtor's, deeds;
A botanist's, seeds;
Noah's ark-hives: just one pair of bees.

(Paul Cowan, Greensborough, Australia)

Archnemesis
I'll bash in his bwains with a thud
Then I'll bathe in his wascally bwud.
Then you can constwue
That I made bunny stew
Or my name is not Elmer Q. Fudd.

(Dan Nooter, Washington)

With arithmetic clearly you see
What the sum of two numbers will be.
With logic it's rife
(Unlike in real life,
Where one and one tend to make three).

(Chris J. Strolin, Belleville, Ill.)

A fleet can be called an armada.
The big one from Spain was tostada.
The wind and the Brits
Pounded Spain's into bits.
It won a big zilch (which means nada).

(John Held, Fairfax)

Arrangement can be first to last,
Or future, then present, then past.
It's the order that matters:
Left to right; formers, latters;
Or sober, then tipsy, then gassed.

(Hamdi Akar, Broad Run)

That gray metal arsenic is best
To bump off an unwanted pest.
Whether rat, bird or mouse,
Beetle, cricket or louse . . .
Or welcome-outstaying houseguest.

(Paul Cowan)

More Honorable Mentions appear on washingtonpost.com.

More Honorable Mentions From Week 572

The Washington Post

Sunday, September 19, 2004

We had more good limericks than we had room for in the paper for Week 572 of The Style Invitational. Here are some more Honorable Mentions.

Letter aitch, in some tongues, you can tell,
Is pronounced not at all, or not well.
By the Brits it is rated
Their second most hated,
Right after, of course, “bloody ell.”
(Brendan Beary, Great Mills)

With delusions phencyclidine hit me.
Coulda sworn they were all out to git me.
But I’ve learned to adjust
When I’m on angel dust …
Holy smokes! That big unicorn bit me! (Scott Campisi, Wake Village, Tex.)

air ball
In basketball, any quintet
I play for expresses regret.
"What a jerk," they say, "this is!"
As every shot misses
The backboard, the rim and the net. (Chris J. Strolin, Belleville, Ill.)

She had eyes of a glorious blue,
She seemed strikingly elegant, too.
But when I asked her out
She shot back with a shout:
“I ain’t datin’ no egghead like you!” (Bill Spencer, Exeter, N.H.)

Algophobia, let me explain,
Is an abnormal fearing of pain
Like when candy-asses
Are fitted for glasses
And insist that they need Novocain. (Chris J. Strolin)

All your food and your drink and your beer
Will end up coming out of your rear.
What goes on in between
We should just leave unseen:
It is all alimentary, my dear. (Jon Reiser, Hilton, N.Y.)

Some males who are alpha appear
To lead by derision and fear.
There’s Ashcroft and Donald
And Dubya and Ahnold.
We girlie men bring up the rear. (Chris Doyle, Forsyth, Mo.)

“To be, or not to be.” Damn!
Is humanity merely a sham?
Hamlet had the last word
(And Popeye concurred):
I am what I am what I am. (Danny Bravman, St. Louis)

We’re dashing when dressed in our camo,
Our guns go off with a big whammo.
We’re stuck in Iraq
With no turning back,
So please keep on sending the ammo. (John Cushing, Arlington)

Anabatic refers to the rush
Of air lifting eagle or thrush
Or that windy express
Raising Marilyn's dress
That made Joe DiMaggio blush. (Chris J. Strolin)

Here’s a sample example concrete:
When a verse uses anapest feet,
Then its syllables race
At a furious pace
With a vigorous galloping beat. (Louis Spector, Winnetka, Ill.)

This sausage is smoky and chewy.
Adds spice to a bland ratatouille.
But it’s made out of pork,
So put down that fork.
It’s not kosher to nosh on andouille. (Chris Doyle)

Saying “angiosperm,” you have stated
Of a plant, where its seeds are located.
I should add, all the same,
It recalls the nickname
Of a girl that I formerly dated. (Brendan Beary)

He thought her as fair as a willow
And dreamed, as he lay on his pillow,
Of young skin as tender
As cream in a blender.
But alas! ’Twas more like armadillo. (Susan Matson, Highstown, N.J.)

Our beautiful anthem arose
From our nation’s great culture. It goes:
“We shall cherish our peace
And our joy will increase
As we dance in the blood of our foes.” (Virgil Keys, Mount Waverly, Australia)

An aoudad – yeah, that’s what I am
And I’ve been once since I was a lamb.
I’m a big-horny dud;
All the ewes that I’ve wooed
Call be baa baa baa Barbary ram. (Virgil Keys)

Whatever. No interest is there,
I have no opinion to share.
Ho-hum, I suppose
That my apathy shows.
So what? Eh, I really don’t care. (Mark Hagenau, Derry, N.H.)

In the midst of all chaos, there’s some
Who are poised while the rest are struck dumb;
While we’re all going nuts
With our thumbs up our butts,
There's a few who can pull out aplomb. (Brendan Beary, Great Mills)

Apnea
In order to slow one’s demise,
Keep breathing while sleeping – it’s wise.
Should one be supposing
One’s snoring is closing
One’s airway, get checked ’fore one dies. (Jane Auerbach, Los Angeles)

“You’ll never get me to the chapel
If you never stop eating that scrapple,”
Said Eve to her Adam.
“Get abs of macadam.
Here, have some fresh fruit, eat an apple.” (Roy Ashley, Washington)

Said the governor, “Come here and see
What it takes to be my appointee.
Don’t be a naysayer,
Just be a team player:
I’ll play you and then you play with me.” (Harvey Smith)

Aqua vitae you should also keep handy,
It’s simply an old name for brandy.
Whereas aqua fortis
Will cause rigor mortis
(Nitric acid: It’s nowhere so dandy.) (Robert Hale, Bilston, England; Brendan Beary)

You think of your nose as a beak?
It juts out too far from your cheek?
It’s aquiline, dear,
But don’t come too near …
I don’t want to be stabbed by some freak! (Jim Mall, Chicago)

A modern-day Little Miss Muffet
Who made her own whey and could tuffet
Wasn’t frightened at all
By bugs big or small.
If she’d spy an arachnid, she’d sniff it. (Carole Lyons, Arlington)

On vacation, he wrote from Manila:
“I don’t care for this place one scintilla.
I detest the cuisine,
And the whole Philippine
Archipelago I’ve had my filla.” (Brendan Beary)

Oh, our sweet Cockney neighbor, Miss Carter,
Thought that sex for love made a good barter.
Or that’s what we inferred
Every night as we heard
Her beseeching aloud, “Ardor! Ardor!” (Brendan Beary, Great Mills)

Artificial: not natural or real,
Like a flower that’s made out of steel,
Or pink nylon slacks
Or that fruit made from wax
Or McDonald’s new hamburger meal.

(Richard English, Reigate, England)