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AL SICHERMAN

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    Done Roveing

    In their great collective wisdom, Verse or Worse readers have made their decision. The winner of the indescribably lovely MinnPost T-shirt, for his title for Karl Rove’s new column in Newsweek, is Fred Abuan. His label for the Rove column: Karl Rove: 3rd Blossom

    But this is no time for Abuan or anyone else to rest on his laurels, and not only because that tends to crush the laurels:  There’s a new challenge. For your next chance to win a jaw-droppingly gorgeous MinnPost T-shirt (entries due by 5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 13), your extinguished host sets out a chore that involves both wit and brevity, one of which, he is reliably informed, is the soul of the other.


     

     

    It’s this:

    Several days ago news services reported that Virginia state police stopped a truck hauling waste chicken fat from a Perdue Farms plant near Accomac because a valve on the truck had been left open and there was chicken fat all over 20 miles of U.S. Hwy. 13. Several spinouts and at least four crashes were reported. A police spokesman described the grease on the road as a "glassy film" and said crews were sanding the road, but he noted that the chicken fat was sticking to tires and spreading to secondary roads. He added that it had a "really funky" odor.

    Your job: Write a headline for this news item that uses 40 characters or less, not counting spaces. (You wanted the glamorous life of a newspaper copy editor; now show us what you’ve got.) As always, the potential to amuse will be deeply involved in the judge’s selection of the best five entries.

    And, as always, here’s a not-especially-memorable example:
    Chicken fat renders fender-benders

    Email your entry to asicherman [at] minnpost [dot] com. At 5:01 p.m. on Dec. 13,  I will enter a closet in the back room at MinnPost’s international headquarters to compare and contrast the entries so that I can emerge on Monday, Dec. 17, to post the top five. You'll then have until that Thursday (Dec. 20) to vote for the best one, which will win the deeply attractive MinnPost T-shirt. The winning name will be posted on Friday, Dec. 21, along with a new challenge.

    OK, thinking caps and green eyeshades in place? Put a head on that sucker!

    Like what you just read? Support high-quality journalism in Minnesota by becoming a member of MinnPost.

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    Al Sicherman
    Illustration by Hugh Bennewitz


    minnpost.com/alsicherman



    Al Sicherman worked at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis from 1968 to 2007, initially as a copy editor and eventually as a food writer and humor columnist. He has a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology and much work toward an MA in journalism from the University of Minnesota. (He didn't finish his thesis. You wouldn't have either.) He can be reached at asicherman [at] minnpost [dot] com.

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