We’re always trying to think of new ways to lose. Now we’ve decided to add to our choice of runner-up prizes — currently the coveted Loser T-shirt or yearned-for Loser Mug — a featherweight but spacious (20-by-16-by-6-inch) non-woven polypropylene tote bag, that pseudo-fabric kind that’s often used as reusable grocery bags or as totes for convention swag. We’re going to order 100 of them. The Empress is especially jazzed about this plan because (a) she doesn’t have to stock them in different sizes, like T-shirts; (b) she doesn’t have to worry that they’ll shatter in shipping, like mugs: and (c) they cost less than either of those options — The Post doesn’t exactly have wads of money to toss around these days.
What’s the bag going to look like? That’s where you come in: This week: Suggest a design and/or slogan to go on the side of the ardently desired Style Invitational Loser Bag; our big-whoop-artist-who-slums-for-the-Invite Bob Staake will do the actual artwork. We’ll be including, for sure, the Washington Post logo, the words “Style Invitational” and our Web address; fortunately we have a nice big 12-by-8-inch space to work with. We can use two colors plus the color of the bag itself (which will depend on what design we use). The design will be on one side of the bag. It’s fine if you just describe your design to us in words, but if you’d like to make a graphic depiction, you may include it as an attachment to your e-mail.
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.
Archive
This week, the winner may choose between the bag and the usual
Inker,
the Style Invitational trophy. All runners-up, however, each get one of these bags. Because how better to really lose — to get second, third or fourth place — than to get a prize plastered with the entry that beat you?
Honorable mentions, as usual, 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, April 2; results published April 22 (online April 20). No more than 25 entries per entrant per week. Include “Week 964” in your e-mail subject line or it might 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 and the subhead for this week’s honorable mentions are both by Mae Scanlan. Join the Style Invitational Devotees on Facebook at on.fb.me/invdev.
Report from Week 960
in which we invited you to write complimentary but goofy “reviews” for any of five household products sold through Amazon.com.
The winner of the Inker
“Coats & Clark Dual Duty Thread 400 Yards — White”:
As a Mormon Republican, I wear a lot of white shirts. And because I’m “just folks,” when one of them gets a hole I never throw it out, or hand it to an assistant to fix, or have my personal tailor, Alessandro, weave me a new shirt immediately from the hair of an albino yak. Gosh, no. I mend it myself, using this humble thread and . . . some sort of thread-attaching device. By golly, I do. (Melissa Balmain, Rochester, N.Y.)
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