Why I've Never Won the Pulitzer for Literature

The warm, lazy, Southern breeze reeked of chemical cotton defoliant, which Erma always thought smelled like potato salad gone bad--by which the reader should not think that the salad had abandoned its solid, Midwestern, moral upbringing for a life of crime, though in any case there are really only two possible offenses a rebellious potato salad could be found guilty of: the first being murder or attempted murder by food poisoning, which likely would be immediately prevented by anyone possessing taste buds or a sense of smell, and the second being the crime of air pollution, which was more plausible, but would be short-lived, since any person catching a whiff of the redolent odor would immediately shove the potato salad down the garbage disposal or seal it in an air-tight plastic garbage bag; thus the reader must by now have certainly come to the realization that what is meant by "potato salad gone bad" is merely that it was spoiled--and she realized sadly that the yearly drudge of cotton-picking would not be far behind.

--A past entry of mine in the Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest.

Listening to: "Fantastica, Music From Outer Space," Russ Garcia