Style Invitational Week 1234: Just-Not-So Stories — winning tales of
critter creation




Whale on a stick — because everything’s better on a stick. For this
week's fourth-place entry. (Bob Staake for The Washington Post)
By Pat Myers By Pat Myers

Entertainment
June 29

//

REPORT FROM WEEK 1230:
In *Week 1230,* we expanded on a Twitter thing from a while back in
which a Creator plans one biological oddity or another.

Most frequent
among them in this week’s entrysphere: the platypus and Donald Trump.

4th place

ANGEL: So what’s up with the *narwhal*?
GOD: It’s a whale on a stick.
ANGEL: But why?
GOD: Everything’s better on a stick. (Bird Waring, Larchmont, N.Y.)

3rd place

*Creating black widow spiders:*
GOD: The female will be a beautiful glossy black with a fetching red
hourglass figure on her abdomen.
ANGEL: Splendid — how lovely the males and females will look together!
Will they mate for life?
GOD: Well, sorta . . . (Rob Huffman, Fredericksburg, Va.)

2nd place and the plush strep throat microbe:

*Creating the rabbit:
*GOD: I’ll make it look like a furry little meatloaf with a wiggly nose
and big floppy ears.
DEVIL: And I’ll spread rumors that its amputated limbs bring you good
luck. (Joe Neff, Warrington, Pa.)

And the winner of the Inkin’ Memorial:

*Creating the pigeon:*
GOD: We need to discourage false idols.
ANGEL: How about creating a bird that eats statues?
GOD: Let’s use the other end. (Drew Bennett, West Plains, Mo.)

Left: Pancake fish bee with silky belly. Right: Unidentified
two-dimensional blob. (Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images)
South of Eden: honorable mentions

*Creating the cat:
*GOD: Let’s see . . . four legs, soft fur, long tail, and a pleasant,
oddly comforting rumbly sound when it’s happy.
ANGEL: Sounds great. Where does it live?
GOD: Inside. No — outside. Inside. Definitely inside. Wait . . .
outside. Just leave the door open. (Molly Elizabeth Haws, Martinez,
Calif., a First Offender)

*Pine tree:
* GOD: Hey, what if instead of leaves, we had needles and cones and
stuff and they stayed green all year? That’d be cool.
ANGEL: Marketing says people will chop them down and drag them inside at
Christmas.
GOD: What the. . . Why . . . never mind. Make the needles really sharp,
and have them fall out, like, the day after the tree’s chopped down.
That should stop ’em. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

*Mammoth:*
CREATOR: Giant hose nose needs to be cuter. Make it fluffy.
LABOR: It’ll run way too hot that way.
CREATOR: Then turn the temperature down.
LABOR: But . . . the biosphere!
CREATOR: Fluffy hose noses. (David Friedman, Santa Clara, Calif.)

*Centipede:
*GOD: Start with a worm. Give it 20 legs.
ANGEL: That’s ridiculous.
GOD: Okay, then. Fifty legs!
ANGEL: You’re drunk.
GOD: Dude, I’m /God./ I’ll give it a hundred legs if I want and I’ll
make it the creepiest thing you ever saw. (Frank Mann, Washington)

*Panda: *
GOD: Make them really socially awkward.
ANGEL: If they’re that awkward, how will they find a mate?
GOD: Make them so cute that humans will handle their mating for them.
(Todd DeLap, Fairfax, Va.)

*Giraffe: *
ANGEL: Why is his head way up there?
GOD: I guess we better give him a long neck. (Edmund Conti, Raleigh)

*Platypus (I):*
ANGEL: Okay, looks like we’re about done here. What do you want to do
with these extra parts?
GOD: What have you got?
ANGEL: A duck’s bill, some flippers, a rejected otter body prototype,
misshapen beaver tail . . .
GOD: I got an idea. Throw all those together and add venomous claws!
(Jon Spell, Orem, Utah)

*Platypus (II):*
GOD: Hey, I have some leftover parts here.
ANGEL: Shoot, I already took out the trash.
GOD: Meh, just throw them together and put it on the weirdo island.
(Danny Wysong, Crozet, Va., a First Offender)

*Flamingo: *
GOD: Make a swan on stilts. And put it in a pink tutu. (Beverley Sharp,
Montgomery, Ala.)

*Mantis: *
GOD: Make a bug that looks like it’s always praying, so that all who
look upon it will see how all Creation praises the Creator.
ANGEL: You got it, Boss.
GOD: It will be an example for everyone.
ANGEL: Great idea.
GOD: When it mates, the female will tear the male’s head off and eat it.
ANGEL: Rode that one right off the rails, didn’t You? (Molly Elizabeth Haws)

*Geoduck:*
GOD: Okay, all done with Adam.
ANGEL: Uh, he doesn’t need two of /those./
GOD: He doesn’t? I mean, you never know.
ANGEL: They’ll get in the way, and he’ll be comparing them all the time.
GOD: So what am I going to do with the other one?
ANGEL: Just give it to me. I’ll put it insidea big clam
,
let it hang out . . . (Duncan Stevens)

*Chicken:
*CREATOR: Humans are too lazy — I’ll make some Morning Motivational
Birds for them: The male can wake them up, and then the female can
produce breakfast from her bottom. (Jennifer Dickey, Silver Spring, Md.)

*Otter:
*GOD: Let’s go with a nice, small mammal.
ANGEL: Okay . . .
GOD: Make it an excellent swimmer.
ANGEL: Interesting . . .
GOD: And I want it to be really cute and lovable. Oh, and make it so it
gets to enjoy a life with plenty of fun, playing and frolicking in the
water.
ANGEL: Er, God?
GOD: Yes?
ANGEL: Would you please turn me into one of these? (Tom Witte,
Montgomery Village, Md.)

*Stingray: *
GOD: So, it’s going to be like a bee.
ANGEL: In the ocean?
GOD: Yeah, like a pancake fish bee.
ANGEL: That can’t be a thing.
GOD (giggling): Make its belly silky. (Lauren Edmondson, Herndon, Va., a
First Offender)

*Elephant: *
GOD: “Oops, I promised this one I’d give him cool stripes like the
zebra. Oh well, he’ll never remember . . . ” (Hildy Zampella, Falls
Church, Va.)

*Three-toed sloth: *
ANGEL: What, is there a toe shortage all of a sudden?
GOD: I gave it five, but it was too Me-damned lazy to pick up the last
two. (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)

*Sponge: *
GOD: Okay, who spilled the wine over here?
ANGELS: [silence]
GOD: Fine, be that way. One of you make something to clean it up! (Mark
Raffman, Reston, Va.)

** *Blue whale:
*GOD: We’ll make them the largest creatures on Earth, maybe 300,000 pounds.
ANGEL: Gosh, what an appetite they’ll have! Will they eat whole forests
or herds of beasts?
GOD: Nah, I’m thinking a diet of microscopic fish . . . (Rob Huffman)

*Buffalo: *
“Oh for My sake, get those wings off that thing!” (Hildy Zampella)

*Kim Kardashian:
*GOD (on the busy factory floor): Hey, I like the looks of this one —
make sure you add lots of delicacy and refinement!
ANGEL: Sorry, what’s that? Can’t hear you!
GOD (as the background noise gets louder): GIVE HER A LOT OF CLASS!
ANGEL: [pause] A lot of . . . okayyy. (Duncan Stevens)



/More honorable mentions later this month. /

WEEK 1234: IT’S INCONTESTABLE

Four weeks from now, the Empress will have just placed her dainty
imperial toe back on our glittering shores. Which means that for the
first time since January 2002, almost 800 contests ago — back during the
late reign of her predecessor, the Czar — the Invitational will skip two
contests in a row. Seismologists are standing by to measure the effect
of this event, er, unevent. Anyway, later this month we’ll run more
inkworthy entries from previous contests. Meanwhile, the Style
Invitational Devotees group on Facebook — with
no contest to obsess over — will presumably head full force into writing
immediate postgame limericks about the Nationals’ bullpen.

*The Style Conversational *This week, the Empress’s online column —
published late Thursday afternoon, June 29 — features an entry for Week
1230 that’s a great read but too long for the Invite. Check it out at
wapo.st/styleconv
.

/The headline “Just-Not-So Stories” is by Gary Crockett, the
honorable-mentions subhead by Kevin Dopart. /