Week 698: Let's Get Personnel


Willingly or not, many of us have found ourselves in the job market of
late, the luckier ones finally cadging an invitation into that little
chair on the other side of the big desk for the sweat-buckets ritual of
the job interview. Often, interviewers pull out some favorite questions
they offer to every applicant, in hopes of revealing some undiscovered
corners of the job-seeker's personality, or maybe just to make him
squirm. This week: Send us some humorously creative questions that a job
interviewer would ask an applicant. Or conversely, send some questions it
might be fun to ask the interviewer.

Winner gets the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. First
runner-up receives one of the stupidest gadgets we've ever come across: a
battery-powered pink plastic fan in the shape of a pig that uses
virtually all its power to make noise, because you literally can't feel
the air blow on your neck if you hold it up to your chin.

Other runners-up win a coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt.
Honorable Mentions (or whatever they're called that week) 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, Jan. 29. Put "Week 698" 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 Feb. 18. No purchase required for
entry. Employees of The Washington Post, and their immediate relatives,
are not eligible for prizes. Pseudonymous entries will be disqualified.
This week's Honorable Mentions name is by Dave Prevar. The revised title
for next week's contest is by Kevin Dopart.

Report From Week 694, in which we asked readers to supply a downbeat interpretation of a not
especially downbeat piece of writing.

Elizabeth Kolbert of the New Yorker, who inspired this contest by lamenting the tragic fatalism of
"Goodnight Moon," eat your heart out, dear.

4 "If You're Happy and You Know It" is an unconscionably thoughtless
insult to toddlers around the world who have neither hands nor feet.
(David Kleinbard, Jersey City)

3 "The Secret Garden": Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but not always:
Anyone with a moral compass must agree that young Colin should not be
messing around in his mother's "secret garden," symbolically or
otherwise. (Jeff Brechlin, Eagan, Minn.)

2 the winner of "The Ultimate Guide to Prank University," a book of
juvenile practical jokes: In the nihilist world of Peter Rabbit,
McGregor's garden is the anti-Eden -- where food equals death. McGregor
is the wrathful God who, having expelled his children from the garden,
would destroy any who attempt to return. Peter enters the garden clothed
and exits naked in a symbolic unbirthing, but there is no salvation for
him, nor for any of us. (Brendan Beary, Great Mills)

And the Winner of the Inker

Yes, Annie, the sun will come out tomorrow. And tomorrow and tomorrow
creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of
recorded time. Duh-uh! And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way
to dusty death. Thanks for reminding me, you chirpy little pisher. (Cy
Gardner, Arlington)

The Bummer Crop

"The Sound of Music": In this tragic tale, the church is deprived of the
services of a musically gifted nun who could have brought more people to
God, all because an oversexed man made her hear the call of the flesh and
the allure of the stage. (Stephen Dudzik, Olney)

A Cinderella story, indeed! A mentally abused woman finally is able to
escape the sadistic whims of her stepfamily and marry a wealthy man -- a
man who, after hours of intimate contact, by the next morning has no idea
what she looks like. Their relationship is destined to be as fragile as a
glass slipper. (Allison Bucca, Beltsville)

What mother would sing death threats to her baby? Yet how many moms --
night after night, in deceptively soothing tones -- threaten to stick
their infants in a tree, and then casually hint of the impending doom
from the dangerously overloaded bough? It's no wonder that the lyricist
wishes to remain anonymous. (Jeffrey Martin, Rockville)

We used to cluck indulgently about Henny Penny's frantic doomsaying. But
it was all too prophetic: Now the ocean is rising four feet every year --
so the sky IS falling! (Marty McCullen, Gettysburg, Pa.)

It is obvious that Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel are digging their
own graves. And yet they live on, serving the world above while trapped
perpetually underground. What is life? What is death? This book leaves
these enigmas unanswered, observing only that one's work is merely a
march to the tomb. (Brendan Beary)

But in the end, it is all an illusion: George Bailey isn't saved; his
inevitable end is only delayed. For where is George now? Dead. Mary?
Dead. Uncle Billy? Dead. Mr. Potter? Dead. Harry? Dead. The men on the
ship Harry saved? Dead. Marty, Bert, Ernie? Dead, dead, dead. Violet
Bick, dead, too. Life is only a brief spark that separates two dark
abysses. Merry Christmas. There's the bridge, right over there. (Phil
Battey, Alexandria)

"Little House on the Prairie" books: Impelled by the arrogant mentality
of Manifest Destiny, a family leaves behind a swath of death and
destruction: slaughtering the wildlife, trampling the prairies and
displacing indigenous peoples. (Lois Bagniolo and Melissa Yorks,
Gaithersburg)

Paddington Bear illustrates the trouble with the British immigration
system. Not only in the United States, it seems, can an illegal Hispanic
immigrant be taken in by a local family, remain unemployed, survive on
handouts, cause local destruction, and still avoid deportation. -- Lou
Dobbs (Richard Wong, Derwood; Martin Bancroft, Rochester, N.Y.)

"The Gift of the Magi": These young marrieds, despite their financial
woes, are unable to control their frivolous spending habits, and also
fail to communicate effectively. They should seek counseling immediately.
-- Amy Dickinson (Peter Metrinko, Chantilly)

The decision in "The Joy of Sex" to depict only heterosexual acts conveys
a simmering contempt for the gay lifestyle and is a slap in the face of
tolerance and diversity. Consigning it to a separate volume demonstrates
that to the author, gay sex is not true sex, but something inferior --
joyless. Hatred is NOT sexy. (Jon Milstein, Falls Church)

Euclidean geometry describes a soulless world bereft of the milk of human
kindness, a world devoid of a Creator's presence. It should not be taught
in our public schools. -- Kansas State Board of Education (Wilson Varga,
Alexandria)

"Norma Rae": An aging textile factory, already faced with foreign
sweatshop competition, struggles to stay in business despite an attempt
at union organizing that could send it under and ruin the town. Sure,
let's applaud once again at that big scene. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

"The Cat in the Hat": An apparently single mother abandons her small
children for hours. (Scoring drugs? Fornicating?) The children
immediately admit a pandering pleasure-seeker into the home, supervised
only by a weak Conscience-figure -- a fish, the symbol of Christ! -- who
can barely inspire the children to engage in a massive coverup moments
before Mother's return. The narration concludes by suggesting the option
of lying to her about the day's events. Pure Satan-inspired trash, and I
do not like it, not one little bit. (Combined from entries by Bob Dalton,
Arlington; Michael Levy, Silver Spring; Brendan Beary)

"As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without
end." And you thought religion would offer you a way out of your bleak,
dark, miserably hopeless existence? Amen to that. (Kevin Dopart,
Washington)

Next Week: Dead Letters, or Decompoesy