Week 739: Lies, All Lies


Dan Quayle was second runner-up in the 1959 Greater Indianapolis Spelling Bee.

So many candidates, so little scandal! Instead of chasing the trail of White House-hired burglars, political reporters have been reduced this year to spinning out stop-the-presses controversy stories over John Edwards's haircut and Hillary Clinton's millimeter of cleavage. Beyond the campaign, to be sure, the Invitational has profited handsomely from one person's tragic men's room misadventure (see numerous examples below).

But it's time for some new revelations, suggests Emerging Loser Chuck Koelbel of Houston. And if these politicians won't furnish them, we'll have to make them up ourselves. This week: Give us some humorous fictional revelation about a current or past political figure.

Winner gets the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. Second place gets a presumably somewhat old "Politics Is a Drag" refrigerator magnet set featuring Bill Clinton's head on a youthful undressed body (nuhnuhno! We mean there's this undressed male body with Bill Clinton's head Photoshopped onto it. You people!) along with a variety of dresses, high heels, handbags and frilly hats.

Other runners-up win their choice of a coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt or yearned-for Loser Mug. 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, Nov. 19. Put "Week 739" 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 Dec. 8. 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 Kevin Dopart. This week's Honorable Mentions name is by Russell Beland.

Report From Week 735, in which we invited you to enter any Invitational contest from Week 681 to Week 731, but were restricted to only one entry per contest. Not surprisingly, it was mostly the maniacally obsessive Invitationalists who methodically perused these old contests and sent in entries for dozens of them.

4. Week 684: Spell a word backward and define the result:
S.T. Eliot: A poet known for his scatological humor (e.g., "Let us go now, you and I, but not standing right next to each other") (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village)

3. Week 724: Brief verses summing up books, plays or movies: "The Canterbury Tales":
Whan that Aprill with rain makes England mossy,
'Tis good to make a road trip with one's posse. (Brendan Beary, Great Mills)

2. the winner of the horny-goat-weed tonic and tea: Week 688: Six-word stories:
"Goodbye, John. I believe the dog." (Jeff Brechlin, Eagan, Minn.)

And the Winner of the Inker

Week 707: Write something using only words used in "The Cat in the Hat":
I sat on the pot. I gave that man a bump -- kind of little kicks -- and then bent to show my hand. He said I looked for bad tricks. In my fear I said yes so that they would tell nothing and my mother would not know. Now I stand in shame. But I did not want to hook up! I do not do you-know-what! Man, I wish I had gone at home. -- L. Craig, Washington (Anne Paris, Arlington)

A Long List of Priors

684: Spell a word backward and define the result:
Frawd: A man with elevator shoes. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

686: Things to be thankful for:
Be thankful people don't have tails, or you'd have to wag every time the boss walked in. (Martin Bancroft, Rochester, N.Y.)

688: Six-word stories:
"Hear tell you're the fastest gunsli -- " (John Shea, Lansdowne, Pa.)

I've never had a fourth date. (Tom Witte)

691: New clues for a filled-in crossword puzzle we supplied:
AUDI: _____ doody, the pile of scrap left after a crash on the Autobahn. (Kevin Dopart, Washington)

698: Job interview questions:
From the applicant: "So what would you say if I told you my 'green card' has a picture of President Franklin on it?" (Russell Beland)

From the applicant: "So on my time card, would March Madness count as sick leave or religious observance?" (Howard Walderman, Columbia)

700: Presidential candidates' slogans:
Jeb Bush: Mom Says I Get to Go Next (Mike Cisneros, Centreville)

702: Unreal facts:
The spoon and the fork were both adaptations of the previously invented spork. (Russell Beland)

In addition to fear, dogs can also smell unresolved control issues with your mother. (Brendan Beary)

A camel can actually pass through the eye of a needle when cut into 2.4 billion individual pieces. (Doug Pinkham, Oakton)

704: Celebrity license plates:
Larry Craig: TRAPRJON (Don Kirkpatrick, Waynesboro, Pa.)

Larry Craig: FOOTLOOS (Edmund Conti, Raleigh, N.C.)

705: Analogies:
Jim's prospects were bleak, like a Miss America contestant whose talent was gangsta rap. (Brendan Beary)

708: "Breed" two Triple Crown-eligible horses and name their offspring:
Giant Sequoia x Deliberately = Tree to Get Ready (Brendan Beary)

Seeking Affairs + Take It All Back = Senator Larry (Laurel Gainor, Great Falls)

Saint Paul + Seeking Affairs = EpistleInHisPocket (Chris Doyle, Ponder, Tex.)

710: A photo featuring household gadgets:

"Good night, Mr. and Mrs., Mrs., Mrs. and Mrs. Warren Jeffs." (Kevin Dopart, Washington)

712: "Breed" two of the horses named in Week 708:
Creme de Meth + Popular Mechanics = Plumber's Crack (D.L. Williams, Bethesda)

Wyatt AARP + Orion's Belt = Old Man Quiver (Roy Ashley, Washington)

714: Company "mergers":
Halliburton merges with Blackwater to form Allied Casualty. (Ira Allen, Bethesda)

719: International sports team names:
The Barlow (Canada) Underachievers (Russell Beland)

723: Cocktails:
The Kerrigan: Nehi and club soda on ice. (Eric Murphy, Ann Arbor, Mich.)

724: Brief verses summing up books, plays or movies: The Crying Game:
Kill a soldier, woo his girl -- it really isn't cricket.
He bowls the maiden over, and then finds her middle wicket (Andy Bassett, Picton, New Zealand)

727: The effects of moving The Style Invitational to Saturdays:
What had been a friendly rivalry between Bob Staake and Richard Thompson degenerates into a downward spiral of betrayal, revenge and death. (Perry Beider, Silver Spring)

729: Sentences in The Post translated into "plain English":
Original: "Isn't it better to tell you what I really believe than to change my positions to fit the prevailing winds?"

Plain English: In the latest poll, 53 percent listed "sincerity" as "very important." (Mae Scanlan, Washington)

730: Ways to waste time:
Walking the length of the Great Wall of China while singing "99 Billion Bottles of Beer on the Wall." (Drew Bennett, traveling in Beijing)

Primaries. -- H.R. Clinton (Kevin Dopart)

731: Ridiculous food preparation methods:
Freeze slices of pimiento with liquid nitrogen, load them into bullet casings, and use them to shoot the pits out of green olives. (Eric Murphy)

Read more Honorable Mentions.

More Honorable Mentions from Week 735 of The Style Invitational, which invited readers to enter (or reenter) any or all contests from Week 681 to Week 731:

Week 683: String together words from "Hamlet" to create a new passage:
"Before you, sir: Paris. Take heed of that wanton flash. No under-where! Heavens, she hath shown me her privates! O what a piece of work. This woman is a tragical-comical treasure!"

"So the lady be no lady. That be news?" (Kevin Dopart, Washington)

692: Enter Week 640 through Week 688 ( Entry for Week 662, humiliate yourself for ink):
I am the very model of a Loser who is pitiful.
I send the Empress entries that seem clever and quite wittiful.
She just rejects them -- one, two, three -- it makes me feel so dull, in fact,
To enter this week's contest is undignified, a stupid act. . . .
And still I beg, and grovel and would kiss the royal Empress rump
To even get an HM that would end my endless inkless slump.
In short, I beg the Empress to declare my work adorable,
I am the very model of a Loser who's deplorable. (Phyllis Reinhard, East Fallowfield, Pa.)

693: A fanciful sequel to a well-known movie:
"Brokeback II: The Foot Fetishists": Two men find out the hard way that some people are just lick-toes intolerant. (Peter Metrinko, Chantilly)

694: A gloomy interpretation of an ungloomy piece of writing:
"The Runaway Bunny" by Margaret Wise Brown: You can run, little bunny, but you can never hide, because your mother is going to HUNT YOU DOWN. (Anne Paris, Arlington)

696: "Joint legislation" by incoming congressional freshmen:
The Cardin-Casey-Sires Act: Resolution to promote Father's Day preparedness. (Russell Beland)

705: Analogies:
Bob was sweating like a colander with some sort of perspiration disorder. (Eric Murphy, Ann Arbor, Mich.)

706: A question that a sentence in that week's Post could answer:
A: Shooters have awful, obscene names that involve body parts and sex acts that cannot be printed in a family newspaper.

Q: Why does The Washington Post identify [Richard] Cheney only as "the vice president"? (Kevin Dopart)

712: "Breed" two of the horses named in Week 708:
Post Dock + We'llKeepOrionYou = Pier Review (Chris Doyle)

Halitosis + Savior Breath = SacraMentos (Kevin Dopart)

717: Googlenopes, phrases heretofore not on Google:
"Tehran Judy Garland Fan Club" (Kevin Dopart)

722: "Jeopardy"-style "questions" for 12 Googlenope phrases:
A: Museum of Suburban Culture

Q: Whose centerpiece is the fabled Ark of the Homeowner's Covenant? (Brendan Beary, Great Mills)

724: Brief verses summing up books, plays or movies:
A girl has got to earn a dollar:
It's the plot of "Secretary," where
The worker's pink is not the collar
But the color of her derriere. (Ira Allen)

"Shall We Dance?": Commie Ginger Rogers flew the coop from nasty SMERSH when/Fred Astaire taught roller skating, set to tunes by Gershwin. (Randy Lee, Burke)

730: Ways to waste time:
Organizing a petition drive to have "It's a Small World" added to Rolling Stone's Greatest Songs of All Time list. (Paul VerNooy, Hockessin, Del.)


Next Week: So, Should I Drive Like Your Brother? or Car and Drivel