Week 885: Spoof a Post headline


New Lawsuit to Challenge Laptop Searches
'I Beg Your PARDON!' No Longer Seen as Effective Deterrent to Gawking Co-Worker

The return of this week's contest -- a hardy perennial -- was prompted by a headline in last Sunday's Post: "Atlanta copes with becoming a one-race town." We were concerned for a moment that the Paragon of the New South had, overnight, undergone some horrible ethnic purge, until we realized that there will now be only one NASCAR Sprint Cup race in Atlanta every year, instead of two. This week: Take any headline, verbatim, appearing anywhere in The Post or on washingtonpost.com from Sept. 10 through Sept. 20 and reinterpret it by adding a "bank head," or subtitle (like the joke bank head offered under the actual Post headline above). You must include the date and page number of the print-paper headline; for Web articles, give the date and copy a sentence or two of the story (even better, just copy the URL). You don't have to use the entire length of the headline, but don't skip words or use misleading snippets; for example, you can't change "Teachers Pass Out New Assignments" to "Teachers Pass Out." Headlines in ads and subheads within an article (as well as actual bank heads) can be used, too, as can the one-line links on the home page to the articles.

Winner gets the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. Second place wins a vintage-looking dispenser of Executive Red Tape, a little roll of actual red tape, helpfully imprinted with "RED TAPE" throughout, donated by Kenneth Harkavy of Potomac. This item will surely be useful in any number of Losers' offices; to claim it, the winner need only submit a notarized Runner-Up Requisition 34(b) in triplicate. Photocopies will not be accepted.

Other runners-up win their choice of a coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt or yearned-for Loser Mug. Honorable Mentions get one of the lusted-after Style Invitational Loser Magnets. First Offenders get a smelly, tree-shaped air "freshener" (Fir Stink for their First Ink). One prize per entrant per week. Send your entries by e-mail to losers@washpost.comor by fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, Sept. 20. Put "Week 885" 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 to be published Oct. 9. 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 results is by Kevin Dopart; this week's honorable-mentions subhead is by Brad Alexander.

Report from Week 882, our annual contest in which we ask for limericks featuring words from one sliver of the dictionary, this time words beginning with dr-.

We received about 1,000 limericks, of which about 850 didn't contain the requisite hickory-dickory-dock/dickory-dock rhythm, didn't rhyme properly, and/or weren't very funny or witty. Fortunately, some of the greatest limericians on Earth are Style Invitational Losers.

The winner of the Inker:

A line, hint or clue; to my knees;
A subject, a bomb and my fees;
Off or out, in or by;
The ball and my guy --
Droppin' everything, even my g's.
(Carole Lyons, Arlington)

2. the winner of the pair of Handerpants tighty-whitey-motif gloves:
When a mathematician named Lind
Was informed he looked pie-eyed, he grinned:
"I shan't drink anymore
Since I'm 3.14
15926 sheets to the wind."
(Chris Doyle, Ponder, Tex.)

3. In feudal times, droit du seigneur
Meant a lord could "invade" (filthy cur!)
The bride of his vassal
Right there in the castle!
Predictably, no one asked HER.
(Mae Scanlan, Washington)

4. The AAA-AA, I think,
Is a merger -- two clubs got in sync.
(AAA is for cars;
AA, too many bars.)
It's for folks who are driven to drink.
(David Goldberg, Pinckney, Mich., a First Offender) Goldie

AABBA dabbling: Honorable Mentions

When invited to dine with Count Dracula,
I expected a menu spectacula;
But d'you know what I got?
Merely blutwurst, that's what!
(I.e., "blood sausage" -- that's the vernacula).
(Hugh Thirlway, The Hague)

While the airlines denounce him emphatically,
Seems the blogosphere lauds him fanatically:
Steven Slater (with brewski).
Bid a fond "toodelooski"
And then exited rather dramatically.
(Craig Dykstra, Centreville)

By chance, a tattooist named Scotty
Encountered his client (a hottie!).
He had to think fast,
So he drew from the past,
Saying, "I have designs on your body!"
(Beverley Sharp, Washington)

Ground Zero should hallow the dead,
So Muslims now fill us with dread
By expecting to pray
At a mosque blocks away.
We should build a new strip club instead!
(Chris Doyle)

When Roy Pearson dropped off his dry-cleaning,
No one knew what a tale we'd be gleaning.
But with each new report
Of his chutzpah in court,
The word "pant-a-loon" gained a new meaning.
(Nan Reiner, Alexandra)

As memories pass of the spill
A BP executive, Phil,
Became a new dad
Of a promising lad
He aptly named Drill -- Baby Drill.
(Rob Cohen, Potomac)

My name's Friday. I carry a gun.
And a badge. I'm a cop. It's no fun.
I take calls at my desk.
My talk's Hemingwayesque.
"This is Dragnet. You're busted." (I'm done.)
(Brendan Beary, Great Mills)

In the Draize test, a drug costing money
Is put in the eyes of a bunny
In numerous spurts
To see if it hurts.
(This lim'rick's not going to be funny.)
(Mae Scanlan)

As Rush Limbaugh's fourth wedding drew near,
In a liberal show of good cheer,
He shelled out a million
To rock crocodilian --
A choice that his listeners thought queer.
(David Lewis, Jeffersonville, Ind., a First Offender) Jeter Coffee

Are you feeling too focused while driving?
Well, help from your dashboard's arriving:
Use the Net in your car.
Yes, wherever you are
You can surf. But good luck with surviving.
(Madeleine Begun Kane, Bayside, N.Y., a First Offender)

When she left me, I felt a great void,
So I bought a new smartphone, a Droid.
Would it cook, make the bed?
I beseeched it. It said,
"Not right now!" and it sounded annoyed.
(Kannan Thiruvengadam, Boston, a First Offender) limarico & Rudi

More dr- limericks will be published Sept. 24.

Next week: Same difference, or Correspondence coarse.

Lim Pickings: More limericks from Week 882

A druidic magician named Matt
Makes a nun disappear just like that.
Then he opens a trap
Holding rodents, and zap!
Pulls a habit right out of a rat. (Chris Doyle, Ponder, Tex.)

Direct from the bar Pa came slinking;
Ma noticed his breath was still stinking.
When she said he was drunk,
He declared, "That is bunk!
"It was I who was doing the drinking!" (Erik Wennstrom, Bloomington, Ind.)

I'm shocked that the public ignores
What goes on in our furniture stores,
Where chests get caressed,
Kings and queens stand undressed,
And there's regular dropping of drawers. (Chris Doyle)

John Cleese, from his very first role,
Knew the way to America's soul:
Though a joke may be crude,
Obnoxious and rude,
In a posh British accent, it's droll. (David Smith, Santa Cruz, Calif.)

When feeding your baby a nibble,
The chances are great he will dribble.
Although he might scowl,
Just wipe with a towel.
And if that won't work, maybe a bib'll. (Mae Scanlan, Washington)

His daughter is dead, the poor lamb;
When his wife says, "I'm sorry, I am --
Now, dear, pour me a drink
So I don't have to think,"
Rhett says, "Frankly, I don't give a dram." (Ann Martin, Bracknell, England)

The princess, allergic to hay,
Has been sniffling and sneezing since May.
Now she's wooed by a knight
With a potion that might
Have Isolde on Dristan all day. (Chris Doyle)

An acrobat, cream of the crop,
Karl Wallenda rose fast to the top --
This aerial king
Had the world on a string.
Life was good to the very last drop. (Chris Doyle)

Read more limericks.

Next week: Rekindling the spork, or Whybrids

Dribbling on: More "dr-" limericks from Style Invitational Week 882


More honorable-mention limericks from Week 882, a contest seeking limericks featuring words beginning with dr-:

My drosophila photo you buy
Has a pixel count terribly high
I will mail it compressed,
So to view it, you'd best
Have a tool for un-Zipping my fly. (Craig Dykstra, Centreville)

Planned a party as big as they get;
Went in hock for a band and Joan Jett.
Sent out invites -- a ton.
The replies? Not a one!
Now I'm dreading a fête worse than debt. (Chris Doyle, Ponder, Texas)

When the queen bee insists that they date,
The drones try to pass, citing fate:
"While we'd love to have sex,
We know we'll be wrecks
Since you rip out our organs to mate." (Jane Auerbach, Los Angeles)

Some married men can't help but drool
When a hottie walks by at the pool.
They must tell their mate, "Deah,
I've got sialorrhea"
And just hope that the wife plays the fool. (Edmund Conti, Raleigh, N.C.)

For your boy, who consoled you, a dreidel.
For your mom, who made soup, a new leidel.
For your husband who swore
He'd stop seeing that whore,
What'll even the score? A greneidel! (Chris Doyle)

There's romance with singing and crying;
There's fighting and scheming and dying --
My day's full of drama
Till my wife or my mama
Gets home, flips the channel, starts buying. (Kannan Thiruvengadam, Boston)

The twin playmates whom I'm double-teaming
With their passionate moaning and screaming
Could have woken the dead,
But they woke me instead --
Not surprisingly, I was just dreaming. (Craig Dykstra)

Fifty channels, and none of them free.
So you'd think there'd be something to see
But alas it's such crap,
I prefer a good nap.
Apropos that it's called DreckTV. (Craig Dykstra)

There once was a debutante's Dr.
Who'd rest not until he'd defr.
For her honor's safe guard
She did try (but not hard),
It was what she'd been missing that sho. (Doug Harris, Stockton-on-Tees, England)