# Make up the worst possible opening line. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 4, 2006, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276 "2006-08-04T02:12:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/21 "2006-08-04T15:05:34Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > I see to recall this won the contest one year: > > “The white gravel of the driveway crunched under my feet like a carpet of broken knuckles.” That might be a past winner of the “worst analogy” contest, which has featured such wonders as: “The little boat drifted lazily across the pond, exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.” and, “He was as tall as a six foot three inch tree.” and, “Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze.” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_chao_goes_mu/32/3191_2.png) [@The\_Chao\_Goes\_Mu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Chao_Goes_Mu)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/22 "2006-08-04T15:09:49Z")
As he held his eyeball by the optic nerve he reflected on the day’s events. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/23 "2006-08-04T15:15:47Z")
“Some days don’t start with you waking up with two sock puppets taped to your hands that are covered in dry crusted blood, but this going to be one of the days that it did.” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/24 "2006-08-04T15:27:24Z")
“Rowland Frune decided that the only way to allay the public’s irrational fears of his new teleporter was to give them an impressive demonstration; instead of a fly, he went into the teleporation booth with a Potato Bug…” ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/25 "2006-08-04T15:40:39Z")
“I am a woman,” she said, gently removing the sock puppet from her sleeping lover’s penis and affixing the ruby red clown nose to her face on her way to work, “and I demand respect.” ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/26 "2006-08-04T16:09:25Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > “I am a woman,” she said, gently removing the sock puppet from her sleeping lover’s penis and affixing the ruby red clown nose to her face on her way to work, “and I demand respect.” I think we should perhaps co-author this work. Everyone loves sordid tales involving sock puppetry. ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/27 "2006-08-04T16:29:26Z")
Bill wiped the phlegmy spittle from his forehead and reconsidered his earlier statement. Perhaps he should have said something less likely to cause the doorman to expectorate in his face, or maybe this was just a very rude doorman. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/28 "2006-08-04T16:54:13Z")
“A boring night it was.” ---
**Author:** ![Hugh\_Jass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/4da419/32.png) [@Hugh\_Jass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hugh_Jass)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/29 "2006-08-04T18:00:39Z")
After several minutes of raining blows upon Charles’ head, Chimmba the Ape stepped back to catch his breath giving Charles a moment to reflect on whether the gypsy had misread the tea leaves and his destiny wasn’t really in monkey-taunting. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/30 "2006-08-04T19:06:45Z")
> [@minlokwat](#): > > I was born an orphan; my father died two years before I was born and then my mother, a year later. Oh, that’s _good_. In a wretched way, of course. I love how you have the reader doing math in the very first sentence. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/31 "2006-08-04T19:07:50Z")
It was an awkward, bittersweet moment; passion welled up in her heaving bosom, whilst I felt the first in a series of diarrhea cramps… ---
**Author:** ![Phantom\_Dennis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/51bf81/32.png) [@Phantom\_Dennis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phantom_Dennis)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/32 "2006-08-04T19:25:07Z")
What’s the criteria for “worst opening line”? Some of the examples posted don’t seem bad to me – some are even quite clever. I’m not a firm believer that the first sentence in a novel is of particular importance. The first paragraph or two should probably generate some intrigue, but the first sentence? I’ve read some excellent books with banal or inconsequential first sentences. One of my favorite children’s sci-fi/fantasy books actually starts with the line “It was a dark and stormy night”. Anybody care to guess which book I’m talking about? ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/33 "2006-08-04T19:31:04Z")
[Montgomery Burns] “It was the best of times, it was the _blurst of times!?!?_” [/Montgomery Burns] ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/34 "2006-08-04T19:31:17Z")
> [@](#): > > One of my favorite children’s sci-fi/fantasy books actually starts with the line “It was a dark and stormy night”. Anybody care to guess which book I’m talking about? Too easy. Madeleine l’Engle’s **A Wrinkle in Time**. They tell you that in the first Bulwer-Lytton contest compilation book. I’d read it, but the fact slipped my mind until they told me again. ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/35 "2006-08-04T19:37:48Z")
It was an afternoon so sultry you could have cast it in “Guys & Dolls” and it would have stolen the show; I was sitting in my office having an intimate chat with Jack Daniels and wondering how the hell I was gonna’ pay the back rent when she walked in – my eyes went immediately to the mounds of creamy flesh that bulged out of her silk blouse like a freshly-spanked baby’s butt. Yes, I used this once before on a similar thread. It’s mine, I tell you, all mine! ---
**Author:** ![Mindfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mindfield/32/19759_2.png) [@Mindfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mindfield)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/36 "2006-08-04T20:10:11Z")
It was just before three in the morning when Stan jerked awake, taking a moment to collect his thoughts before he pulled his underwear back up. * * * “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one quite like _that_ before,” Tom said, much to the embarassment of his paramour. * * * “Yarf!” said the jumpy Pekingese dog, trying to imagine that Harold’s knee was that cute Spaniel next door. * * * It was humid out, though not so much as to make it difficult to breathe, and the sun was dipping below the horizon with promise of a cooler evening ahead, though not so cool as to require extra clothing, when Hanson, hands rigid above his head, a muddled look of surprise, fear and consternation on his face as he stared down the barrel of a Ruger P89, backed into the front tire of his Vespa, which he had purchased initially with the intention of using it strictly as transporation to the local market and back, but which ended up being his multi-purpose all-terrain vehicle that he used not merely for quick jaunts for groceries, but also for corralling his sheep, tilling the soil of his garden, hauling trailers of garbage, and moving the belt of his treadmill, whose motor had died months ago, and which he had bought because he was of a mind to shed some of the excess weight he had gained in the course of an unexpected Little Debbie binge that lasted three years and saw him admitted into a rehab clinic for compulsive eaters, though he suspected that ultimately becoming absolutely sick of snack cakes more than the ministrations of clinic staff had contributed to his desire to get back to eating healthier foods, which itself was the impetus for him to start his garden, which was coming along quite nicely and had already produced a splendid crop of peas, beans, turnip, zucchini squash and, inexplicably, a single row of marijiana, though he couldn’t for the life of him remember planting any but which, now that he had occasion to think on it, might have something to do with the gun that was currently exploring his left nostril. ---
**Author:** ![Unintentionally\_Blank](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unintentionally_blank/32/5418_2.png) [@Unintentionally\_Blank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unintentionally_Blank)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/37 "2006-08-04T20:33:26Z")
The Days seem like minutes, the minutes seem like days. I stare at the clock: 01:59:34 am 01:59:35 am 01:59:36 am 01:59:37 am . . . . ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/38 "2006-08-04T20:39:06Z")
Jay Leno is my cousin. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/39 "2006-08-04T20:54:54Z")
Our story begins here, not right at the beginning, but a little bit later, so as to avoid the boring bits. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2006, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/40 "2006-08-04T21:01:16Z")
> [@Oakminster](#): > > …in a place forgotten long ago by mortal men, when the lands were fresh and unspoiled by generations of exploitation by the evil drones of the faceless companies enslaved by commerce to toil forever for the benefit of unseen masters. New Jersey? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276.md?page=3)