Style Invitational Week 1276: What 4 — a limerick contest
Plus winners of our contest for creative curses
(Bob Staake for The Washington Post )
By Pat Myers By Pat Myers Email the author
Entertainment
April 19 Email the author
Follow @patmyersTWP //
(Click here to skip down <#report> to the inking curses.)
*Obamian health care is dead.*
*No prostitutes peed on a bed.*
*There was no collusion,*
*Trump’s invented cold fusion!
* *(Well, that’s what the president said.)*
*— Well, that’s what the president said.*
*— If only I’d listened to Mother (or Mom).*
*— But now I have found fifty-one.*
Win second place and you can get this Si from the SI.
*— A strategically placed Oxford comma.*
*— Somebody please take me home.*
*— I just like to do things in style.*
*— And they never saw (him/her/name) again.*
Today’s contest was suggested by John “Ed” Edwards of the Style
Invitational Southwest London Suburbs Bureau. John/Ed didn’t feel like
waiting for our annual Limerixicon contest in August, so he suggested
something to tide us over: *This week: Write a limerick using one of the
above lines as Line 5,* as in the example above by Gene “Not John OR Ed”
Weingarten of Washington. See *wapo.st/limericks2017
* for our fairly strict rules on limerick
rhyme and meter (in a nutshell: “perfect” rhyme, and a strong
“hickory-dickory-dock” rhythm in Lines 1, 2 and 5; a “dickory-dock” in
Lines 3 and 4; plus “weak” syllables on either side).
Submit entries at the website *wapo.st/enter-invite-1276*
(all lowercase).
Winner gets the *Lose Cannon,
* our Style Invitational trophy. Second place receives a genuine *Chia
Uncle Si,* a “decorative planter” in the shape of “Duck Dynasty’s”
long-bearded Si Robertson; you rub the seeds on the little Uncle and
he’s supposed to get some bushy green facial foliage. We’re thinking
that with a name like “SI,” he ought to be the Style Invitational’s
official beardmaker. Donated by Loser Pie Snelson.
*Other runners-up *win our “You Gotta Play to Lose”
Loser
Mug or our Grossery Bag, “I Got a B in Punmanship.”
Honorable mentions get one of our
lusted-after Loser magnets, “We’ve Seen Better”
or
“IDiot Card.”
First Offenders receive only a smelly tree-shaped air “freshener”
(FirStink
for their first ink). *Deadline is Monday night, April 30; *results
published May 20 (online May 23). See general contest rules and
guidelines at wapo.st/InvRules . The headline
for this week’s results was submitted by Jon Gearhart; Tom Witte wrote
the honorable-mentions subhead. Join the lively Style Invitational
Devotees group on Facebook at on.fb.me/invdev .
“Like” Style Invitational Ink of the Day on Facebook at bit.ly/inkofday
; follow @StyleInvite on Twitter.
*The Style Conversational *The Empress’s weekly online column
isn’t so weekly this
week; it’ll be back next Thursday. You can reach her at
pat.myers@washpost.com or in the Facebook group.
And from The Style Invitational four weeks ago . . .
*HAR FOR THE CURSE: THE RESULTS OF WEEK 1272*
In *Week 1272* we asked for updated curses in the Yiddish tradition.
Sent by a host of Losers among the thousands of entries: May you get the
middle seat between two sumo wrestlers. And may you get to be the next
presidential press secretary.
Clever but too death-wishy: “May you confuse your liquid antacid with
your liquid ant acid.” No ink for you, Ellen Raphaeli.
4th place:
As you travel through barren wilderness, may you find an oasis, only to
discover that it is the Sbarro at the Joyce Kilmer Service Plaza at 3
a.m. (Noah Meyerson, Washington)
3rd place
May you and your HOA disagree about the definition of “taupe.” (Dudley
Thompson, Cary, N.C.)
2nd place
/and theelectric baseball-mitt chip-and-dip bowl:
/May you forever see those three little dots indicating that someone is
typing but never get a message. (Jesse Frankovich, Grand Ledge, Mich.)
And the winner of the Lose Cannon:
May Hillary Clinton hear about your problems and think, “Wow, I’m glad
nothing that frustrating has ever happened to me!” (Danielle Nowlin,
Fairfax Station, Va.)
Dry spells: Honorable mentions
May you on some enchanted evening see a stranger across a crowded room,
and somehow you know, you know even then, they’re here to serve you a
subpoena. (Brendan Beary, Great Mills, Md.)
May your new parrot be the former pet of Anthony Scaramucci. (Jeff
Shirley, Richmond, Va.)
May President Trump insist that you’re doing a fabulous job. (Roy
Ashley, Washington)
May you always find an error in your sudoku when you are two boxes from
completion. (Steve Brevig, Springfield, Va.)
May you be coming out of the strip club just as the Google Street View
car goes by. (David Young, Falmouth, Mass., a First Offender)
May you get trapped in a gondola at a ski resort and have to share body
heat to survive and the only other passenger is Harvey Weinstein. (Bird
Waring, Larchmont, N.Y.)
May you never figure out where that beeping’s coming from. (Daniel
Galef, Montclair, N.J.)
May you scratch your phone screen just enough for it to be annoying, but
not enough to justify replacing it. (Matthew Zimmer, New York)
May your bare foot always find the Lego. (Warren Tanabe, Annapolis, Md.)
May your dentist be behind in paying his gambling debts to the mob.
(Jeff Hazle, San Antonio)
May your family always use air quotes when describing your profession
(e.g., “Our son Johnny, the ‘writer’ ” . . . ). (Rivka Liss-Levinson,
Washington)
On that special first date, may the waiter return and ask if you have a
different credit card. (David Young)
May the TSA bomb-sniffing dog be especially interested in the suitcase
your cat curled up in right before you left for the airport. (Drew
Bennett, West Plains, Mo.)
May your mama hear all those nasty things you have been saying about
other people’s mamas. (Kel Nagel, Salisbury, Md.)
May your dog develop commitment issues. (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)
May Trump’s lawyer use your name as a pseudonym in his next
non-disclosure agreement. (Frank Osen)
May all your Amazon purchases be ineligible for Prime shipping. (Gary
Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)
May each of your days be better than the next. (Tom Witte, Montgomery
Village, Md.)
May that girl you loved all through high school get you fired as
principal, you perv. (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)
May the only seats left at your movie theater be in the front row, on
the far side. (Matthew Zimmer)
May the only thing you have to read during your filibuster speech be
Sean Penn’s novel (actual excerpt: “Behind decorative gabion walls, an
elderly neighbour sits centurion on his porch watching Bob with
surreptitious soupçon”). (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)
May the paths of your life run as straight and true as the outlines of
Maryland’s congressional districts. (Nan Reiner, Boca Raton, Fla.)
May you always have spinach in your teeth — and teeth in your spinach.
(Liv Johansson, Alexandria, Va.)
May you be cuckolded before your very eyes. Unless you’re into that sort
of thing. (Tom Witte)
May Taylor Swift write a song about you. (Larry McClemons, Annandale,
Va.; Kevin Dopart, Washington)
May you finally get “Let It Go” out of your head by replacing it with
“It’s a Small World.” (Jesse Frankovich)
May you go bald during your vacation in Mexico, to find that the only
available head covering is a “Make America Great Again” hat. (Mark
Raffman, Reston, Va.)
May you take a long car trip and find that every single public radio
station on your route is having a pledge drive. (John Kupiec, Fairfax, Va.)
May your child finally win a first-place trophy — in the condom-snorting
challenge. (Nan Reiner)
May your health plan provide only thoughts and prayers. (Frank Mann,
Washington)
May your inner monologue take place in Roseanne Barr’s voice. (Mark
Calandra, Sudbury, Mass.)
May your new in-laws show up at the wedding reception with matching
ankle monitors. (Jeff Shirley)
May your TV broadcast only the disclaimers from prescription drug
commercials. (Jim Sullins, Ahoskie, N.C., a First Offender
May the Empress mistake your sincere declaration of love for her as a
funny entry and print it. (Tom Witte)
*And Last: *May you get just barely enough Style Invitational ink to
keep you entering. (Peter Jenkins, Bethesda, Md., who has won between
one and three blots of ink for 15 of the past 16 years)
*Still running — deadline Monday night, April 23: our contest to choose
a line from Shakespeare and pair it with a question that the line could
answer. See wapo.st/invite1275 . *
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