Suck This

Sorry, acrofans, I completely forgot to put up an acro last night. No idea how it escaped me. We'll end tonight's blog with an acro and I'll judge it tomorrow night.

Any of you who've been around a year or two have heard me talk about our local holiday here in my little burg, Lemonade Days. It happens one Friday during the summer, and it has to do with the fact that in B'field if the temperature reaches 90 degrees the town gives out free lemonade to its citizens. There have been summers where we thought surely the town would go broke buying and giving out lemonade, and summers like this one where it's yet to reach 90. 90% humidity, sure, but not a clean 90 degrees.

Then there are the old arguments about where the temperature data comes from, for all the banks in town are showing 90, 92 degrees, and yet the "official" temperature will remain 89. Yes, it's an exciting town.

Anyway, every year for about the past five years we've had this Lemonade Days thing, and just about as long I've been bitching about it. See, one of the main events of the day is the window decorating contest, which our office there at TheCompanyIWorkFor has entered every year. We have three long, slim windows at the front of our office. We don't have a storefront, just those windows. And so we get together and brainstorm and come up with really creative ideas that make us laugh and we go to great lengths making it work, and then the judge, a local weatherman, comes along and looks at our window and laughs and claps, and we've never won the damn friggin' contest. Our "Lemon Gallery" display was a masterpiece, with our windows showing great works of art through the centuries, all incorporating lemons into them. (Aug 6, 2006) Zilch.

Then we did our "History of Lemons" display, which followed the lemon from ancient to modern times. (Aug 14, 2007) Bupkus. We've done displays that incorporated pictures of the town and other local businesses and citizens, trying to suck up our way to a prize. No go.

And every year we've said it's our last year. And every year we try one more time. But it all came to a head last year, when our window got nothing, the winning window was a business who did the exact same display as the year before (lots of cardboard lemons), and I entered Sherman in the "Make Your Own Lemon Hat" contest and he didn't even place. And when I say "didn't place," I mean, there were six entries and they gave out first, second, and third prizes, and he went home empty-handed. (Actually, that's a lie, I got a consolation prize that was rather nice, but it's the principal of the thing.) (Aug 3, 2008)

Anyway, after all that, we at TheCompanyIWorkFor decided to boycott Lemonade Days this year. Well, first we decided to make our windows into a giant lemon, on which would be written "Suck This." Then we realized people might think we were actually entering the contest and we'd lose yet again, so we decided we'd do nothing.

I never thought the boss would stick to her guns, but lo and behold, with Lemonade Days a mere 4 days away, we are indeed doing nothing for the contest. So there.

Except.

Except I got a call today at work from the lady whose dress shop sponsors the Lemon Hat contest. She was asking me to enter again. Now, I don't think I've ever been personally asked to enter a contest, even one I'm sure to lose, and I'm trying not to get sucked in by the flattery. Sherman has already flatly refused to participate, and Milo's a little unwieldy to be expected to be still long enough to wear a hat.

If I could come up with something otherworldly, say, something that would have a large brim that served as a reservoir into which I could have lemonade dripping from a lemon juicer, that had "Pick Me!" in light-up flashing letters across it, and possibly an animatronic naked lady bathing in the lemonade, I might consider it. But I only have four days.

It was nice of the dress shop lady to ask, though.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* OK, let's do an acrochallenge! The topic: What's So Great About Lemons? The letters:
T L L G J F
* You know the rules, you get three entries to come up with the best acronym you can that matches the topic and the letters. I'll be judging tomorrow night at 10:00 est. And I'll be a fair judge, dammit!