New Yorker Caption Contest

My friend Christian & I are obsessed with the New Yorker's weekly Caption Contest. We submit entries frequently, but I thought that we had this week's LOCKED UP. You see, in high school, I had submitted an entry to the Bulwer-Lytton Contest which is a contest to write the best opening line to the worst piece of potential fiction:

Since 1982 the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton was the author of that line, made famous by Snoopy of "Peanuts" fame, "It was a dark and stormy night..."

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

--Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)

Dreadful. So they named a great contest after him to write a terrific / terrible opening line to a fictitious novel. Brilliant.

My entry, nearly 20 years ago, was "The vultures alit from their prey, their carrion luggage stowed away." So I get a call from Christian telling me that this week's New Yorker Caption Contest is PERFECT for a joke I made 2 decades ago. Naturally, I submitted a similar entry thinking that - at last - my time had arrived, destiny had come calling, and I would finally get national New Yorker-level recognition for my rapier wit...

Here's where I get angry. Christian & I had superior entries for this week's Caption Contest, neither one of which was chosen. So, I took it up on myself to write our friend Bruce, who is a film critic and editor at the New Yorker:

Bruce:

I apologize in advance for this rant, but I am afraid that I am really furious at your employer. As you know, Christian & I are obsessed with the Caption Contest. Now, of course we always think our submissions are superior, but this week it's no contest whatsoever and we are really angry that the three that were chosen were INFINITELY inferior to our submissions.

Here is the cartoon, and the 3 loser entries:

Drawing by Drew Dernavich

"Janice, hold all my calls. Indefinitely." Submitted by Peter Bruno Rutland, Vt. "Could you order me a B.L.T. on whole wheat with a side of carrion?" Submitted by Wayne Martorelli Lawrenceville, N.J. "Let me guess—the lab results aren't good." Submitted by Jacob Kono Jersey City, N.J.

Now here are ours:

Mine -- "No, no checked luggage. All carrion."
Christian's -- "No, I said we should adopt a corporate culture."

Obviously ours are better.

So, in short and in closing, you work for a bunch of communist-sympathizing whoremongers who wouldn't know good cartoon captions if they bit them in their pompous asses. Filthy animals...

Strong letter to follow,
LTG