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Bulwer-Lytton 2010 Contest Winners

2010 CONTEST RESULTS

For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity's affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss--a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity's mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world's thirstiest gerbil.

Molly Ringle
Seattle, WA

The winner of the 2010 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is Molly Ringle of Seattle, Washington. The author of one published and two soon-to-be-published novels, Molly Ringle only writes bad fiction when she fails at good fiction. She'd rather not say how often this happens. She lives in Seattle with her family, and her vices include uncalled-for moments of sarcasm, excessive consumption of Nutella, and an unladylike avidity for the raunchy films of Mel Brooks

Molly Ringle is the 28th grand prize winner of the contest that that began at San Jose State University in 1982. She is also the second consecutive Washingtonian to win the contest, last year’s being David McKenzie.

Runner-Up:

Through the verdant plains of North Umbria walked Waylon Ogglethorpe and, as he walked, the clouds whispered his name, the birds of the air sang his praises, and the beasts of the fields from smallest to greatest said, "There goes the most noble among men" -- in other words, a typical stroll for a schizophrenic ventriloquist with delusions of grandeur.

Tom Wallace

Columbia, SC

Winner: Adventure

The blazing equatorial sun beat down on Simon’s head and shoulders as he dug feverishly in the hot sand with the ivory shoe-horn his mother had given him before the homecoming game with Taft, when the field was so wet that he’d lost his low-tops seven times in the cold sucking mud.

Adam McDonough

Reedsburgh, Wi

Runner-Up:

When Hru-Kar, the alpha-ranking male of the silver-backed gorilla tribe finished unleashing simian hell on Lt. Cavendish, the once handsome young soldier from Her Majesty’s 47th Regiment resembled nothing so much as a crumpled up piece of khaki-colored construction paper that had been dipped in La Victoria chunky salsa.

Greg Homer

Placerville, CA

Winner: Children’s Literature

“Please Mr. Fox, don’t take your magic back to the forest, it is needed here in Twigsville!” pleaded little Isabel, but Mr. Fox was unconcerned as he smugly loped back into the woods without answering a word knowing well that his magic was only going to be used to make sure his forest would be annexed into the neighboring community of Leaftown where the property values were much higher.

Pete Watkins

Broken Arrow, OK

Winner: Detective

She walked into my office wearing a body that would make a man write bad checks, but in this paperless age you would first have to obtain her ABA Routing Transit Number and Account Number and then disable your own Overdraft Protection in order to do so.

Steve Lynch

San Marcos, CA

Runner-Up:

As Holmes, who had a nose for danger, quietly fingered the bloody knife and eyed the various body parts strewn along the dark, deserted highway, he placed his ear to the ground and, with his heart in his throat, silently mouthed to his companion, “Arm yourself, Watson, there is an evil hand afoot ahead.

Dennis Pearce

Lexington, KY

Winner: Fantasy Fiction

The wood nymph fairies blissfully pranced in the morning light past the glistening dewdrops on the meadow thistles by the Old Mill, ignorant of the daily slaughter that occurred just behind its lichen-encrusted walls, twin 20-ton mill stones savagely ripping apart the husks of wheat seed, gleefully smearing the starchy entrails across their dour granite faces in unspeakable botanical horror and carnage – but that’s not our story; ours is about fairies!

Rick Cheeseman

Waconia, MN

Winner: Historical Fiction

In Southwestern Germany just east of the Luxemburg border and north of France where history pitted various related Hapsburg Royals against each other and the Archbishops of Trier, the Abbots of St. Maximin, various members of the nobility, and mobs of axe-bearing villagers, there stands a ruin whose building stones mostly were carted off to build other buildings.

Mary Ann R Unger

Ewing, NJ

Runner-Up:

The band of pre-humans departed the cave in search of solace from the omnipresent dangers found there knowing that it meant survival of their kind, though they probably didn't understand it intellectually since their brains were so small and undeveloped but fundamentally they understood that they didn't like big animals that ate them.

Mike Mayfield

Austin, TX

Winner: Purple Prose

The dark, drafty old house was lopsided and decrepit, leaning in on itself, the way an aging possum carrying a very heavy, overcooked drumstick in his mouth might list to one side if he were also favoring a torn Achilles tendon, assuming possums have them.

Scott Davis Jones

Valley Village, CA

Runner-Up:

The wind whispering through the pine trees and the sun reflecting off the surface of Lake Tahoe like a scattering of diamonds was an idyllic setting, while to the south the same sun struggled to penetrate a sky choked with farm dust and car exhaust over Bakersfield, a town spread over the lower San Joaquin Valley like a brown stain on a wino’s trousers, which is where, unfortunately, this story takes place.

Dennis Doberneck

Paso Robles, CA

Dishonorable Mentions:

Elaine was a big woman, and in her tiny Smart car, stakeouts were always hard for her, especially in the August sun where the humidity made her massive thighs, under her lightweight cotton dress, stick together like two walruses in heat.

Derek Renfro

Ringgold, GA

The Zinfandel poured pinkly from the bottle, like a stream of urine seven hours after eating a bowl of borscht.

Alf Seegert
Salt Lake City, UT

Winner: Romance

"Trent, I love you," Fiona murmered, and her nostrils flared at the faint trace of her lover's masculine scent, sending her heart racing and her mind dreaming of the life they would live together, alternating sumptuous world cruises with long, romantic interludes in the mansion on his private island, alone together except for the maids, the cook, the butler, and Dirk and Rafael, the hard-bodied pool boys.

Paul Chafe

Toronto, ON

Runner-Up:

She purred sensually, oozing allure that was resisted only by his realization as an entomologist that the protein dust on the couch from the filing of her crimson nails was now being devoured by dust mites in a clicking, ferocious, ecstatic frenzy.

Jonathan Blay

Bedford, Canada

Dishonorable Mention:

Cynthia had washed her hands of Philip McIntyre - not like you wash your hands in a public restroom when everyone is watching you to see if you washed your hands but like washing your hands after you have been working in the garden and there is dirt under your fingernails -- dirt like Philip McIntyre.

Linda Boatright

Omaha, NE

Winner: Science Fiction

t'Bleen and Golxxm squelched their way romantically along the slough beach beneath the three Sommodian moons, their eye-stalks occasionally touching, and tenderly belched sweet nothings like, "I don't think I've ever had such a charming evening," and, "Say, would you like to gnaw that hunk of suppurating tissue off my dorsal appendage—it really itches."

Bryan Olive

Tustin, CA

Winner: Vile Puns

It was a risky production unlike any mounted prior on the Met stage, the orchestra first imitating the perpetually beating heart of a man walled-in while in pursuit of wine , and then a soprano singing the plaintive aria of a barely alive woman stuffed up a chimney as her ancestral home was destroyed; however, it certainly was Opera Poe.

Amy Torchinsky
Greensboro NC

Runner-Up:

As Jeffrey Hicks, the event safety coordinator for the Renaissance Festival finished posting the revised standards for weaponry, he thought of the day an unleashed dog wandered onto the jousting field, causing the rider from Indianapolis to stop short, impaling himself on the butt of his spear, and the following day’s newspaper headline which read: “Stray Injures Indy Knight, Hicks Changing Lances.”

Brad Taylor

Iowa City, IA

Dishonorable Mention:

Wearing his new slacks from L.L. Bean, and entering the pen to feed his three big dogs their usual three cans of dog food, some of which ended up on his new pants, Kevin then left the house to attend a revival screening of ‘Serpico’ with Alpo chinos.

Greg Homer

Placerville, CA

Winner: Western

He walked into the bar and bristled when all eyes fell upon him -- perhaps because his build was so short and so wide, or maybe it was the odor that lingered about him from so many days and nights spent in the wilds, but it may just have been because no one had ever seen a porcupine in a bar before.

Linda Boatright

Omaha, NE

Miscellaneous Dishonorable Mentions:

His chest glistened like a pumpkin seed, either one fresh out of the pumpkin but with all the orange strands of pumpkin flesh removed, or one straight out of the oven after being coated in just the right amount of oil and then baked; the point is that it was smooth, fairly shiny, and that color.

Jesse Kolman

Phoenix, AZ

The life-saving salve had not arrived to help Dr. Sybil Carter dress the mutant killer bee wounds because landslides blocked roads, the rivers were jammed by earthquake debris, and even the jungle foot paths were clogged with dead bees and their victims, yet without the medicinal unguent, many more would die, so reluctantly giving in to her promise never again to speak to her aviator ex-boyfriend, she picked up the radio and begged him to fly in the ointment.

David K. Lynch
Topanga, CA

Faintly silhouetted against the shadowy murk of a nameless Devonian sea, the Megalodont shark was unaware of trilobites foraging in the primordial ooze not far below, trilobites that unlike the shark’s cartilaginous being would become part of the fossil record of an ancient seabed that would in time heave up, dry out and go through the crusher at the Marulan Cement Works somewhere north of Sydney, Australia.

John Mackesy

Victoria, Australia

Leaning back comfortably in a plush old chair, feet up, fingers laced behind his head, Tom Chambers inventoried his life and with a satisfied grin mused, “Ah, marlin fishing off the coast of Majorca, a bronze star for that rescue mission in Jamir, the unmatched fragrance of pastries fresh out of the oven at Café Legrande, two sons who would make any father proud . . . I’ve never done any of that.”

Ernie Santilli

Drexel Hill PA

Living next door to the Lesters for nearly twelve years now, Mrs. Nestor, fully aware of her husband’s fondness for pulchritudinous posteriors, was unable to deter Chester Nestor’s constant quest for Mr. Lester’s sister Hester’s monster keister.

Jeff Flegel

Racine, WI

As Ethel arranged the list of company phone numbers under her clear plastic desk cover, perfectly aligning the lower right corner of the list with the lower right corner of the plastic, then swiveled her chair to file one more inter-office memorandum on trimming the budget, she considered how different her life might have been if her parents had named her Tiffany.

Judy Fischer

Prospect, KY

As the under-appreciated autumn evening faded into yet another soft black velvet fall night, all creatures large and small had settled in except for one, Loupy, the Schipperke, whose job was to keep Anatoly, the night watchman, informed of all things pertaining to the property with her signature uninterrupted warning barks which at this very moment would not subside until her master explained, "We don't know anyone named Timmy and we don't have a well."

Karen Arutunoff
Tulsa, Oklahoma

"You ask me, ‘Why did you do it, Charlie, I could've been a contender?’ -- I'll tell you why: you worked your fights in too close, taking blow after unnecessary blow; I knew you were going to end up punchdrunk and need money for a nurse, and you were never a contender, you were only a referee."

Charles Alworth

Port Aransas, TX

After launching the last brown lump of chewing tobacco from his bulbous and stained lower lip to its new landing on the Main Street pavement below, Billy Bob couldn’t believe that what lay before him, was a spitting image of George Washington.

Heidi Vazquez
Bellevue, NE

Oneida Revere picked at her meal and stared dully across the table at the charismatic charlatan who had seduced her with the illusion of love and tarnished her family's sterling reputation; she was wise to his bent mind games and though it felt like a knife through her heart, she knew it was time to stick a fork in it and call it done - her days of spooning with Uri Geller were over.

Terri Daniel (Seattle, WA) and Craig Rieger (Concord, CA)

Seattle, WA

You Might Be Bipolar If...

You go to Walgreen's for a tub of margarine and return an hour and half later with $115.00 worth of nail polish and makeup (and you don't even WEAR it).

You stay up all night writing a mini novel based on Dante's Inferno's levels of hell

You mow your lawn by using scissors.

You got up this morning, put all your clothes on backwards because you thought it was funny when you looked in the mirror, and went to work that way.

You decided on your health insurance while watching a Ben Affleck movie.

The white duck in the backyard, the next day, confirmed in any way, the health insurance decision from yesterday.

You are at a funeral and begin laughing hysterically, because you just remembered that extremely funny joke the dead guy told you a while back.

The houseplant in the front room hasn't been watered in three months, but you are convinced it died because it hated you.

The theme song from the Beverly Hillbillies continues to repeat itself in your head, for more than a week or so.

You really believe that a long deep yawn followed immediately by a rip roaring fart is a source of cleansing for the soul.

You click the light switch back on and off because you were afraid you broke it when you first turned it off, repeatedly.

You haven't had a decent night sleep since Johny Carson hosted the Tonight Show.

You are reading this while watching a movie, talking on your cell phone, shaving, drinking coffee and driving to work, all at the same time.

Your entire wardrobe is piled, draped or stacked neatly on the rowing machine in the corner of your bedroom.

You are delighted that the holidays are back and all the decorations are up, because you never took them down from last year.

The entire year of travel plans need to be changed because your plane ticket fell from the desk to the floor while you were watching it, and you think the plane may do the same.

You can't look up at the full moon because you fear the gravitational pull may peel your face off.

You need to keep your drapes closed so no one can stare into your windows, even though your house sits smack in the middle of 30 acres of undeveloped land.

You cry throughout the wonderful pork roast dinner you slaved over for six hours, because you watched Babe with the kids the evening before, and you swear you recognized his shape in the meat.

The project you started the other day is piled up on top of the other projects you started last year.

You can hear your hair growing.

You watch reruns of Mr Ed because you like the advice he used to give to Wilbur.

You have more than a 20 minute conversation with the telemarketer who called during dinner to sell you a widget, on purpose.

The entire case of Oreos you bought at Sam's is gone, in one sitting.

You know the exact amount of steps it takes to get from your car to your desk at work, and feel the need to go home if you are one off in either direction when you get there.

Your drink spills all over the control board at work and shorts it out, and all you are worried about is the three letter word for a bird, ending with a U.

You speak with a British accent, but you are from Hoboken, New Jersey.

You rip the tags out of your underwear because you don't want the Fruit Of The Loom guys staring at your butt all day, and you swore you could hear them giggling.

You enjoy watching the doctor's expression completely change when you tell him the chicken on his head says he's a turd.

You start to swiffer the floor and realize you need a swiffer rag and you go downstairs to get one and on the way you realize you forgot to load the washer so you do and then you see the dishwasher needs filling and then you start to wipe down the counters and before you know it you've emptied out the fridge and have all the drawers out in the middle of the floor and all the foods on the countertops and then you see that you need a cleaner that you left upstairs and you go upstairs and see that the tub needs scrubbing and you scrub it and then the toilet, (of course) needs to be scrubbed too, but then you notice the floors are so DIRTY... where's that swiffer rag? Oh yeah! in your back pocket! you swiffer and sit down to sign on to DF and decide to grab a soda from the fridge when you suddenly remember... ALL YOUR FOOD IS OUT OF THE FRIDGE!

You find yourself vacuuming your roof at midnight (the neighbors love that one)...

You get started on a project and three days later you realize that you haven't slept or eaten in three days...

You walk in to Circuit City to buy a new memory card for your digital camera and leave with a new camera to go along with the memory card...

You have more fishing gear than an actual tackle shop, all bought on credit card

You keep a revolving line of credit and get another card to pay another one off, except you don't do that, you spend it on more superfluous fishing gear (do I really need 20 rods?)

You get a personal loan to pay of a credit card, but don't cancel the card and use it to buy stuff for the boat.

The first thing you do after coming out of a depression is to get online at ebay and buy more stuff!

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IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ THIS FIRST: If you answer "yes" to two or more of the following items, there is a great chance that you may be suffering from manic depression or another mental illness. If this is the case, please, print out this page and take it to your doctor! Remember, it is you and you alone who really knows yourself well enough and can answer these questions in a totally honest and open manner. Cheating will only hurt yourself and those who are "sane" and need to live with you! It is your health and wellness, an important issue, so please take your time

* The sun is too loud.
* Trees begin to chase you.
* You can see individual air molecules vibrating.
* You begin to explore the possibility of setting up an I.V. drip solution of espresso.
* You wonder if brewing is really a necessary step for the consumption of coffee.
* You can hear mimes.
* You can achieve a "Runner's High" by sitting up.
* You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing that you have said it before.
* You believe that if you think hard enough, you can fly.
* Things become "Very Clear."
* You ask the drive-through attendant if you can get your order to go.
* You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing that you have said it before.
* You begin speaking in a language that only you and Chandeliers can understand.
* The less sense matter and matter is more than sense.
* You keep yelling "STOP TOUCHING ME!!!!" even though you are the only one in the room.
* You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing that you have said it before.
* Your heart beats in 7/8 time.
* You and Reality file for divorce.
* You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing that you have said it before.
* You can skip without a rope.
* It appears that people are speaking to you in binary code.
* You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing that you have said it before.
* You can travel without moving.
* Antacid tablets become your sole source of nutrition.
* You discover the aesthetic beauty of office supplies.
* You have an irresistible urge to bite the noses of the people you are talking to.
* You say the same sentence over and over again, not realizing that you have said it before.
* Losing your mind was okay, but when the voices in your head quieted, it was like losing your best friend

Say NO to Ground Zero Mosque

"We Con The World"
sung by Captain Stabbing and Friends

For more information on other great cons, please visit these links:

Observations on Ground Zero Mosque and whether a 747 fly-over ceremony at Ground Zero is next : http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/pat-condell-on-ground-zero-mosque-is-it-possible-to-be-astonished-but-not-surprised.html

Please sign the petition: http://www.onejerusalem.org/ground_zero_petition.php

The parody video "We Con the World," which mocked the international media coverage of the Gaza-bound "aid" flotilla that was stopped by Israeli naval commandos, has been taken down from the website YouTube, where it received over 3 million views since it went up on June 3. YouTube posted a comment citing copyright infringement concerns from Warren Chappel Music Inc., which owns the rights to the 1985 charity fundraiser song "We Are the World." The video, made by the satirical Web site Latma TV depicts a mock crew of the flotilla, some wearing keffiyehs and speaking in Arab accents, performing a song to the tune of "We Are the World." The parody, which received international -- and often critical -- acknowledgement, is available on other Web sites, while a Hebrew subtitled version is still available on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VabjGVrhPZc&feature=related

The Bomb

"Ahmadinejad has been a vocal supporter of Iran's nuclear program, and has insisted that it is for peaceful purposes."

He also said that the "Zionist entity" should be "wiped off the map" and that the Holocaust was a "myth."

He sounds like the peaceful leader of a peaceful nation. I wonder when he will be entertained in Washington with our tax dollars.

The Late Great Dave Allen

I remember this skit from the 1970's---and it's just as good now as it was then. :-)

Hmmm.....

Tribute to Our Economy

New Hit Song By Cat Stevens?????

Happy St Patricks Day!

Irish Humor

Six retired Irishmen were playing poker in O'Leary's apartment when Paddy Murphy loses 500 on a single hand, clutches his chest, and drops dead at the table. Showing respect for their fallen brother, the other five continue playing standing up.

Michael O'Conner looks around and asks, "Oh, me boys, someone got's to tell Paddy's wife. Who will it be?"

They draw straws. Paul Gallagher picks the short one. They tell him to be discreet, be gentle, don't make a bad situation any worse.

"Discreet??? I'm the most discreet Irishmen you'll ever meet. Discretion is me middle name. Leave it to me."

Gallagher goes over to Murphy's house and knocks on the door. Mrs. Murphy answers, and asks what he wants. Gallagher declares, "Your husband just lost 500, and is afraid to come home."

"Tell him to drop dead!", says Murphy's wife.

"I'll go tell him." says Gallagher.
************ ********* ********* ********* ******

Into a Belfast pub comes Paddy Murphy, looking like he'd just been run over by a train. His arm is in a sling, his nose is broken, his face is cut, and bruised, and he's walking with a limp.

"What happened to you?" asks Sean, the bartender.

"Jamie O'Conner and me had a fight," says Paddy.

"That little O'Conner," says Sean, "He couldn't do that to you, he must have had something in his hand."

"That he did," says Paddy, "a shovel is what he had, and a terrible lickin' he gave me with it."

"Well," says Sean, "you should have defended yourself. Didn't you have something in your hand?"

That I did," said Paddy, "Mrs. O'Conner's breast, and a thing of beauty it was; but useless in a fight."
************ ********* ********* ********* *********

An Irishman who had a little too much to drink is driving home from the city one night and, of course, his car is weaving violently all over the road.

A cop pulls him over. "So," says the cop to the driver, "where have ya been?

"Why, I've been to the pub of course," slurs the drunk. "Well," says the cop, "it looks like you've had quite a few to drink this evening."

"I did all right," the drunk says with a smile.

"Did you know," says the cop, standing straight, and folding his arms across his chest, "that a few intersections back, your wife fell out of your car?"

"Oh, thank heavens," sighs the drunk. "for a minute there, I thought I'd gone deaf."
************ ********* ********* ********* *********

Brenda O'Malley is home making dinner, as usual, when Tim Finnegan arrives at her door.

"Brenda, may I come in?" he asks. "I've somethin' to tell ya".

"Of course you can come in, you're always welcome, Tim. But where's my husband?"

"That's what I'm here to be telling ya, Brenda. There was an accident down at the Guinness brewery"

"Oh, God no!" cries Brenda. "Please don't tell me."

"I must, Brenda. Your husband Shamus is dead and gone. I'm sorry."

Finally, she looked up at Tim. "How did it happen, Tim?"

"It was terrible, Brenda.. He fell into a vat of Guinness Stout, and drowned."

"Oh my dear Jesus! But you must tell me true, Tim, did he at least go quickly?"

"Well, Brenda, no. In fact, he got out three times to go to the bathroom."
************ ********* ********* ********* *********

Mary Clancy goes up to Father O'Grady after his Sunday morning service, and she's in tears.

He says, "So what's bothering you, Mary my dear?"

She says, "Oh, Father, I've got terrible news. My husband passed away last night."

The priest says, "Oh, Mary , that's terrible. Tell me, Mary , did he have any last requests?"

She says, "That he did, Father."

The priest says, "What did he ask, Mary?

" She says, "He said, 'Please Mary , put down that damn gun...' "
************ ********* ********* ********* *********

AND THE BEST FOR LAST

A drunk staggers into a Catholic Church, enters a confessional booth, sits down, but says nothing.

The Priest coughs a few times to get his attention, but the drunk continues to sit there.

Finally, the Priest pounds three times on the wall.

The drunk mumbles, "Ain't no use knockin, there's no paper on this side either."

My Tribute To A Job I Just Quit

6 Phases of Being Employed

Phase 1: You are listening to jazz — Your first day at work is great. Your co-workers are wonderful, your office is nice, you love your processor, and your boss is the best!

Phase 2:You are listening to pop music — After a while you are so busy that you are not sure if you’re coming or going anymore.

Phase 3: You are listening to heavy metal — This is what you feel like after ONE month.

Phase 4: You are listening to hip hop — You become bloated due to stress, you’re gaining weight due to lack of exercise because you are so tired and have so much work to do when you get home, you feel sluggish and suffer from constipation. Your co-workers are too cheerful for your liking and the walls of your office are closing in. You have started thinking ‘WHATEVER’ about your boss.

Phase 5: You are listening to GANGSTA RAP — After more time passes, your eyes start to twitch, you forget what a ‘good hair day’ feels like as you just fall out of bed and load up on caffeine.

Phase 6: You are listening to the voices in your head — You have locked your office door to keep people out, You wonder, “WHY am I even here in the first place?”

Buy Buy American Pie