If it’s not bad, we’re not interested

With George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone” blaring through my headphones, I dove bravely into the second round of the Post-Gazette’s Bad Writing Contest.

To those for whom this contest is news, it is not too late. You still have until Jan. 31 to email me your own simplistic similes, mangled metaphors, outtakes from the Department of Redundancy Department and other acts of illconsidered illogicalness. (Honestly, that’s a word. I just checked my Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary and it does not lie, except upon my desk.)

So please proceed, but be forewarned. Anyone who covets a PG coffee mug and the Andy Warhol entitlement of 15 minutes of fame will need to write way badly to win. We hit the ground stinking with the first four entries that were published Thursday, and those below might be even worse. (Their authors surely hope so.)

Patricia Peters of Beechview spoke for all contestants when she made her submission, asking plaintively, “I know this is bad, but is it bad enough?” She was being too modest, as you shall see.

• It was a dark, dreary, misty, chilly, breezy evening with a fog so thick it could swallow a black hole. My observant partner, Lucy

Loo Lue Lewis verbalized to myself, Rex “Tex” deMex, “This fog is so dense it makes you seem smart.” With my ego properly inflated, we set about to set a plan to set us up with a set amount of money from the setting of a bank, but the getaway plan was getting away from us. Ideas flew back and forth like a ping-pong ball that was being hit by two men on steroids who could really, really, really play the game ... (Christian Westbrook, Mt. Lebanon)

• Day after day, he struggled to come up with the right time to pose the question because he knew that if he kept putting it off for too long, it would be too late by the time today arrived, so yesterday afternoon he decided that he would do it first thing in the morning so that when tomorrow comes, it would be like the start of a new dawn, even though it was already getting on toward evening. (Matt Smith, Mt. Lebanon)

• this in Humphrey Bogart’s voice: The gorgeous dame came running through the revolving glass door of the law office and onto the rainswept city street. She slid into a sleek silver sedan that was emblazoned with the initials, BMW. Obviously, that stood for Bootylicious Miss Whatshername. I gingerly picked up the soggy white calling card she had tossed in my direction and turned it over. My detective’s sixth sense kicked into gear when I realized that BMW stood for Betsy Marie Wozinsky. Beautiful women and trouble were pizza toppings that always seemed to land on my table. I decided to take a bite. (Alexandra Chakos, Scott)

• No matter how chill the blistering wind; how restless the roiling gray skies, no matter what manner of mayhem the criminal class served up — on a platter, or a sandwich plate, sometimes on a skewer, and once at the bottom of a near empty bottle of questionable gold liquid (at least it wasn’t a soup tureen) — he always knew he’d sleep safely, soundly — almost instantaneously — in Iona’s bed. Perhaps he needed a new mattress, he thought, as he surrendered to the dictates of Morpheus. (Patricia Peters, Beechview)

• On a golden September afternoon, a terrifying cicada clings to the window screen. I fear this armored thing, this mottled brown and green science-fiction monster with ruby dot eyes, but I have a science-fact mission: I must today collect insects, and this cicada is a horrible prize, a sacrifice to bring, impaled on a pin, to appease the Teacher of Science. As I approach, net in hand, this True Bug sits silent and still, waiting to go off like a buzz bomb. I already feel it flying onto my face like an airborne prawn, legs out, slashing, a tiny terror-dactyl, trying to embed its tarsus in my soul. But I will win this battle using my weapon: Plaster of Paris, in the bottom of an empty Skippy jar, seeps with asphyxiant like a watery tomb slab. I have death for you in here, O Truly Beautiful Bug: fingernail polish remover. That cotton ball can be your pillow. Thy eternal color shall not fade.(Dave Malehorn, Morningside)

• I hesitated to include that last one. It seemed almost good. Then I read it again and saw that all it lacked was a bwah-hah-hah at the end.

I have not yet exhausted my supply of entries and, again, you still have until Jan. 31 to enter. So, I implore you, gentle readers, keep those cards and letters.