Style Invitational Week 956: Looking for a few ‘bad’ scenarios; plus the winning obit poems

You know it’s going to be a bad cruise when you see that the captain has his own private lifeboat.

You know it’s going to be a bad hotel if they ask you if you want to wait for a no-bedbug room.

The Style Invitational

The Style Invitational is The Post’s weekly humor/wordplay contest, serving up since 1993 an irreverent mix of highbrow and lowbrow -- haughty and potty -- in genres ranging from neologisms to cartoon captions to elaborate song parodies. A new contest appears at washingtonpost.com/styleinvitational every Friday.

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You know your kid’s going to have a bad day at school . . .

You know it’s going to be a bad speech . . .

You know it’s going to be a bad marriage . . .

Loser bad-boy Larry Yungk suggests this week’s contest: Finish any of the above “You know” phrases, as Larry does for the first two.

Winner gets the Inker, the official Style Invitational trophy. Second place receives a genuine calf-/goat-/lamb- alterer (not the term used on the box) — a hand tool that snaps a rubber band over a couple of parts of the baby-boy animal, where it’s left until said parts eventually fall off. Found in a Vermont flea market by Loser 4 Ever Elden Carnahan, and donated to the Empress in the middle of a restaurant.

Other runners-up win their choice of a coveted Style Invitational Loser T-shirt or yearned-for Loser Mug. Honorable mentions get a lusted-after Loser magnet. First Offenders get a tree-shaped air “freshener” (FirStink for their first ink). E-mail entries to losers@washpost.com or fax to 202-334-4312. Deadline is Monday, Feb. 6; results published Feb. 26 (Feb. 24 online). No more than 25 entries per entrant per week. Include “Week 956” in your e-mail subject line or it may be ignored as spam. Include your real name, postal address and phone number with your entry. See contest rules and guidelines at washingtonpost.com/styleinvitational. The revised title for next week is by Kevin Dopart; the subhead for this week’s honorable mentions is by Judy Blanchard. Join the Style Invitational Devotees on Facebook at on.fb.me/invdev.

Report from Week 952

our annual contest for poems commemorating those who died in the previous year. The many hundreds of entries ranged from the obvious (bin Laden, Kim, Jobs) to the, well, less so (the creator of Doritos; a mummified horror actress).

The winner of the Inker

Kim Jong-Il
Dear Leader, as your spirit flies
Through North Korea’s blessed skies,
Your legacy pervades our nation:
Coercion, nukes and mass starvation.
As we, your marshaled millions, sing,
To memories of you we cling,
And cannot help but feel a thrill
That now you’re dead, and not just Il.
(Stephen Gold, Glasgow, Scotland)

2. Winner of the Annoy-a-tron, a little box you hide that beeps every few minutes:
“Jackass” daredevil Ryan Dunn:
When it came to wild stunts, he was second to none—
So who’d have predicted that Ryan M. Dunn
Would die not by catapult, cannon or cougar,
Or Russian roulette with a dung-coated Luger,
Or by tying himself to a runaway moose,
Or snorting ground glass off a lion’s caboose,
But by drinking and driving? How could he succumb
To something so horribly, commonly dumb?
(Melissa Balmain, Rochester, N.Y.)

3. Without any help required,
Jack Kevorkian expired.
(Danny Bravman, Chicago)

4. Atheist essayist
Christopher Hitchens said
Mother Teresa was
Far from a saint.
But now that he’s gone,
The believers are smiling,
For God is still with them
And Christopher ain’t.
(Christopher Lamora, Guatemala City)