This travel organization has a newsletter that I recently signed up for. They have really interesting trips all over the world, and one goal is to save enough money to do one of them someday. Anyway, they have a weekly contest where they give spots on various trips away free, and last week's contest, for a trip through Vietnam, challenged people to look at a picture, and put together a slogan to go with it. The picture was a closeup of this older man holding a huge spider (think big, black, and hairy) up to his open mouth, about to take a big bite.

In moments like this, I always have a brainfreeze, so I called upon the talents of my colleague and friend, Steve, who works in Madison. He outdid himself. Here is his responding email:

This is all I've got:

Lloyd neutered all of his pets, and he did it the old-fashioned way.

Lloyd loves his pet tarantula so much that he insists on eating it only one leg at a time. (Stolen from an old joke.)

Lloyd enjoys a "fuzzy, wiggly chocolate cookie" while "tripping his ass off."

"An eye for an eye...." intoned Lloyd, as he devoured the tarantula that had recently eaten his pet cricket.

To illustrate the dangers of radioactive contamination, scientists displayed a Los Alamos-area tarantula that had grown a 180-pound tumor in the shape of a demented elderly man.

"If I can't have you, no one can," whispered Lloyd, moments before consuming his "pet," Alexis.

No one showed up at Lloyd's "Mondo Cane" theme party, but that didn't dampen his enthusiasm one bit!

"So tired," wheezed Lloyd, hoping that the spider's venom would bring a quick end to the slow, painful twilight that his life had become.

(I guess that last one's not really funny, in a traditional sense.)

I was pleased with all of them, but decided to submit the first on the list since it was especially accessible in that wink-wink/nudge-nudge kind of way. (Note that I had full-disclosure with Steve that I was planning to use his work, and he didn't care--is that still ethically wrong?). I breathlessly waited for my response telling me that I was the winner, but, alas, none arrived.

I found out the winner's response today and it was something like: "Watch what you eat." I think Steve's submission was far better, but that's just me. We didn't even warrant an honorable mention! That's just wrong.