Week 641: Dreck Of All Trades


On a visit to her parents in Falls Church, aspiring Loser Elizabeth Molye
passed an establishment that served as both laundromat and check-cashing
service. Obviously, she said, the place should call itself Money
Laundering. This week's contest: Come up with a business that combines
two or more disparate products or services, and tell us its name and/or
something else funny about it.

Winner gets the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. First
runner-up wins, discourtesy of The Post's own shopping maven Janelle
Erlichman Diamond, a CitiKitty, which is a plastic thing that you put
over a toilet seat in an effort to train your cat to pee and poop in your
toilet. Because, face it, your toilet is just too clean right now. What
it needs is some cat excrement.

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
tolosers@washpost.comor, if you really have to, by fax to 202-334-4312.
Deadline is Monday, Dec. 26. Include "Week 641" 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 humor
and originality. All entries become the property of The Washington Post.
Entries may be edited for taste or content. Results will be published
Jan. 15. No purchase required for entry. Employees of The Washington
Post, and their immediate relatives, are not eligible for prizes.
Pseudonymous entries will be disqualified.


Report From Week 637, in which we sought steamy scenes in novels as penned by your choice of
people who aren't best known for being novelists.

A whole anthology could have been compiled of Iraq-metaphor entries whose punch line was "pull
out now."

4 Did you ever notice how, when a woman is seductively removing her
undergarments, all you can think about is how Lois Lane might look doing
the same thing?

-- Jerry Seinfeld (Eric Murphy, Ann Arbor, Mich.)

3 With a twinkle in his eye, he beckoned her to the bedroom.

"But why?" she asked. "It's too early to go to sleep."

As he put his arm around her he said, "No, my dear, I've invented a
wonderful new thing for two people to do together in bed. Come with me
and I'll show you."

-- Al Gore (Jonathan M. Guberman, Princeton, N.J.)

2 The winner of the hollow ceramic potato: "I like to watch," Margaret
said . . .

-- Eleanor Holmes Norton (Brendan Beary, Great Mills)

1 And the winner of the Inker:

The marble rolled down the chute, striking the lever that turned on the
fan. Angela looked up at him, then back at the device, breathing heavily.
The dart flew in a perfect arc, as he knew it would, ultimately
propelling the two catcher's mitts toward her chest. It was perfect.
Embraced by the mitts, she turned her attention to the second device
waiting below, and as the next marble started its journey, she moaned
softly.

-- Rube Goldberg (Jeff Brechlin, Eagan, Minn.)

Honorable Mentions

The pusillanimous prattling of his advance was pathetic -- bearing no
resemblance to his carnal conquest of the erstwhile pristine Janelle at
Notre Dame in 1968; and yet the expression in Rachel's pulchritudinous
orbs supported the conclusion that in fact, he-could-go-all-the-way! --
Howard Cosell (Jeff Brechlin)

On or about June 11 or 12, 2003, Person A had sex with Person B . . .

-- Patrick Fitzgerald (Joseph Romm,Washington)

As Brad eyed Amber's assets, the old volatility in their relationship was
running high, and he was hoping for a quick upturn, a good rate of growth
and an eventual merger. But Amber was concerned about his performance,
particularly his penchant for short-term, rather than long-term,
investments, and the inevitable deflation that followed.

-- Alan Greenspan (Marty McCullen, Gettysburg, Pa.)


Frank stared into her eyes. Time seemed to stand still, although, as the world's foremost authority on time and
space, Frank knew this was impossible, and what seemed like an eternity was in fact only a second, or 1/141,912,000,000,000,000th of the time since the Earth's crust had cooled.

-- Stephen Hawking (Andrew Hoenig, Rockville)


The table was cleared, and he gazed adoringly into her eyes. "Issue 17,"
he announced. "Your place or mine?"

"I think -- "

"Question: Tonight was (a) very romantic, (b) supremely enjoyable, or (c)
the most wonderful night of your life? Eleanor!"

"Really, it -- "

"Well, that settles it -- my place. Issue 18: Your car or mine?"

-- "Date, Interrupted" by John McLaughlin (Martin Bancroft, Ann Arbor,
Mich.)


Before the engaging by John in the carnal reproductive enjoyment that
occurs between a man and a woman of certain ages upon the precondition of
the forthright giving of consent by both parties, he had to first be sure
that Jane was going to be receptive to his linguistic and not
dispassionate requests for such behavior by him.

-- Harriet Miers (Marc Leibert, New York)


He hit the ground running, opening a gap in her already flimsy defense.
Bottom line? It was crunch time. Lex left nothing on the field. He split
the uprights, and they finally came together as a team.

-- From "Two-Minute Drill," by Joe Gibbs (Steve Fahey, Kensington)


She lay languorously on the satin sheets, misting her nude body with a
special mixture of Chanel and Lysol; she tugged on the guardrails
alongside the bed -- one can't be too careful when romping about on
slippery satin, she thought. As her man approached, she gave her throat a
quick spritz of zinc gluconate. Suddenly, nostrils flaring, she demanded:
"Why isn't your surgical mask in place?"

-- Sally Quinn (Peter Metrinko, Chantilly)


His lovemaking was intoxicating -- Ann felt like a prairie dog trapped in
a moonshine still at an Amarillo tractor pull. But what she truly
marveled at was Kenneth's frequency.

-- Dan Rather (Brendan Beary)


He ran his towel up and down the sculpted legs. Then he let his fingers
wander across the arms and up to the lovely shoulders. He was aching to
kiss that magnificent neck, but realized he never could. A tear welled up
as his gaze wandered to the hands of his beloved. The hands that could
catch anything except his tongue. . . . He pressed his hand against the
mirror and sighed.

-- From "I Love T.O.," by Terrell Owens (Steven King, Vienna)


Like unto 40 years had he pursued her; and when at last she graced his
bed, he finally gazed upon the Promised Land. "Holy me!" he shouted.

-- Moses (Jeff Brechlin)


Maybe it was the peyote messing with my brain, but Rosie O'Donnell looked
awfully good to me right then. She winked one hooded, reptilian eye and
flicked her long, bifurcated tongue at me. If only the stadium weren't
full of careening vampire bats, I would have leapt out of my box seat and
taken her right there at home plate.

-- Hunter S. Thompson (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)


Mmmmmmm, breasts.

-- Homer Simpson (Peter Metrinko)


"Wow, Bob, wow!" Anna murmured hungrily.

"Tuna roll, or a nut?" I offered. She shook her head. "Wonton?"

"Not now!" She seemed to be getting a bit testy.

"Xanax?" I suggested.

"Dammit! I'm mad!" And then she was gone.

"Huh?"

-- From "My Palindrama," by Robert Trebor (Katherine Hooper, Jacksonville)


I gazed longingly at his muscular calf, glistening with a film of manly
sweat after his mountain bike ride. The tightness of his cycling shorts
around that firm thigh sent shivers through my loins. I could not resist
any longer -- I must take the plunge and slake the thirst of my lust . . .

"Hey, get off my leg!" George yelled.

-- Barney the Scottie (Chris Parsons, Gaithersburg)

And Last: Said a lecher who leered at his guest:

"With your cleavage I'm truly obsessed."
"You should move," she did say,
"And right there you may stay.
Due south, that is where I suggest."

-- Chris Doyle (Kevin Dopart, Washington)


Next Week: The Little Bummer Boy, or Nightmare on 34th Street