Deliberately bad prose is here! Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest 2009 Results
The winner:
"Folks say that if you listen real close at the height of the full moon, when the wind is blowin' off Nantucket Sound from the nor' east and the dogs are howlin' for no earthly reason, you can hear the awful screams of the crew of the "Ellie May," a sturdy whaler Captained by John McTavish; for it was on just such a night when the rum was flowin' and, Davey Jones be damned, big John brought his men on deck for the first of several screaming contests."
Winner: Detective
She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones - except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't.
Self service is standard everywhere except New Jersey, where for strange historical and political reasons, pumping your own is not only not the norm but actually illegal. Ah, federalism.
I lived in New York (Ossining) and always got full-service gas. It was delightful. But that's close enough to New Jersey that people might have moved there and demanded it.
Illegal? Wow. Weird, yet cool.
I almost never fill up in NJ because of the full-service only thing. It weirds me out.
Every few years, someone proposes revising the NJ law requiring full-service gas stations, but it always gets voted down.
Yeah, Oregon doesn't let you pump your own gas, either. it confuses me when I'm there, but I could get used to it.
Many happy returns, Frankenbuddha!
I have a distinct memory of driving in Pennsylvania, in the pouring rain, my tank at E, hoping against all odds I would make it to Jersey so that I wouldn't have to get out of my car.
The gas station attendant had this really pissed look on his face when I finally got there.
I can't remember the last time I didn't have to pump gas myself. It's been decades. But it doesn't bug me - it's pro'lly the farm boy in me that feels pumping gas yourself is the normal way to do things....
She walked into my office on legs as long as one of those long-legged birds that you see in Florida - the pink ones, not the white ones - except that she was standing on both of them, not just one of them, like those birds, the pink ones, and she wasn't wearing pink, but I knew right away that she was trouble, which those birds usually aren't.
Ha, I love this one. And this one:
Darnell knew he was getting hung out to dry when the D.A. made him come clean by airing other people's dirty laundry; the plea deal was a new wrinkle and there were still issues to iron out, but he hoped it would all come out in the wash - otherwise he had folded like a cheap suit for nothing.
If Oregon abolished the "no self service" gas law, unemployment would SKYROCKET.
Not a fan. No-one touches my car 'cept me. EEEgor is *my* minion. Rrrr.
