'Matter of Laugh or Death,' a humor column

By Bill Dunn

Interesting observations on this thing we call life

(appearing each week in the Republican-American newspaper, Waterbury, CT)

THIS CONTEST IS A CORKER

Last week I wrote a goofy column (and this is news WHY?) about an essay-writing contest. The contest was sponsored by a pharmaceutical company, and whoever wrote the funniest essay on the subject of constipation would win an all-expenses-paid trip to Cork, Ireland.

The pharmaceutical company makes an anti-constipation drug, and the contest was called “Get Uncorked & Go to Cork.” I realize drug manufacturers get a bad rap these days for being heartless, faceless, greedy corporations, but any firm that makes serious medicine to treat constipation and at the same time uses the juvenile phrase, “Get uncorked,” is OK in my book.

Anyway, in my column I kidded about being a shoo-in to win the contest—even though I hadn’t written anything yet—simply because my sense of humor never matured past the 6th grade level. This means I can instinctively (or in-STINK-tively) create bathroom humor for virtually any situation.

Well, lo and behold (or as they say across the pond, “loo and behold”), my essay was selected as one of the top five finalists.

Now here is where it gets interesting. Only one of the top five essays will win the Grand Prize trip to Ireland. (I think the other four runners-up will receive a consolation prize of a year’s supply of anti-constipation medicine.) The way the Grand Prize winner will be determined is by people voting on the Internet.

I certainly do not want to burden anyone with the sad fact that this likely will be my only opportunity to fulfill the lifelong dream of visiting my ancestral home, the very sod where my forebears are laid to rest. You don’t want to hear mournful stories of a young lad sitting at the kitchen table late at night on St. Patrick’s Day, with “Danny Boy” playing on the Victrola in the parlor, and as warm tears gently mix with green beer, a halting voice says through quivering lips, “Next year in Ireland,” all-the-while knowing deep down that it never will happen.

No, I’m sure you don’t want me to burden you with sad stories like that (especially because they’re not true). All I’d like to say is this: please visit the drug company’s website and decide for yourself which of the five finalist essays is the funniest—and then regardless of which essay you choose, vote for me.

I have to admit, the competition is pretty stiff. For example, one of the other essays is titled, “Stooley, the Happy Leprechaun.” (That’s so bizarre, I wish I’d thought of it.) My essay, by the way, is titled, “And Miles To Go Before I…Go.”

At this point I was going to suggest that you “vote early and vote often,” but I learned that the pharmaceutical company’s website can somehow detect when people vote more than once. So instead, I will suggest that you take a brief moment to contact every single person you’ve ever met in your entire life, and even some people you’ve never met before, and beg them to vote for me, too.

If you do vote for me and send me on this wonderful trip of a lifetime, I promise to bring you a genuine piece of green sod from the Emerald Isle (not the same sod, of course, where my forebears are laid to rest—that would be gross). Or if I don’t have any room in my suitcases on the return flight, I’ll bring you a genuine piece of sod from, say, the Green in Waterbury. Hey, grass is grass, right?

Here is the website address: www.ganedenbiotech.com/cork_voting.php . Thanks for your support.

©2007