# 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:** 4
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/61 "2006-08-05T03:26:00Z")
Nothing much, man. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/62 "2006-08-05T03:42:32Z")
My voice was strong, my story was brief yet compelling, and I was making eye contact, just as I’d been taught in that long-ago Dale Carnegie course; yet my entire audience was squirming in discomfort or simply staring straight ahead as if I wasn’t there. After a few minutes, there was nothing to be done, so I swallowed my disappointment, and, rattling my cup of coins, moved on to the next subway car. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/63 "2006-08-05T04:30:29Z")
When the stranger asked me how to get to Front Street, I took it as an omen to tell him about the long lifetime of struggling sorrow I’d lived in my struggling crawling long quest to escape that very place. ---
**Author:** ![wonderlust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonderlust/32/7237_2.png) [@wonderlust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderlust)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/64 "2006-08-05T04:36:58Z")
It was a dark and stormy night, and somewhere a dog barked. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Know\_Nothing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f04885/32.png) [@I\_Know\_Nothing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Know_Nothing)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/65 "2006-08-05T04:55:42Z")
You have a shell on your head. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Know\_Nothing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f04885/32.png) [@I\_Know\_Nothing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Know_Nothing)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/66 "2006-08-05T05:02:56Z")
There was an maleficent guy in an capacious airplane and the very recherché pilot was raptured up to heaven because he found Jesus and the plane crashed but its not too late for you to be saved so I thought I’d write like twenty books about it. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/67 "2006-08-05T05:16:38Z")
Fordham stared at the screen in dismay, for in a moment he knew that the database was corrupt, and the chief of police was corrupt, and so was the ham in the sandwich he’d eaten earlier, for it had sat out plenty long enough to stray far from the straight and narrow. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/68 "2006-08-05T13:59:22Z")
Shifting into neutral, he slowly braked and with hands at ten o’clock and two o’clock came to a complete stop. He looked both ways across the intersection while switching on his directional indicator, and proceeded cautiously through, turning onto Main St. ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/69 "2006-08-05T16:18:02Z")
Consolidated Petroleum of West New York was looking for three things above all else: a water cooler that would actually keep the water cool, a secretary that had no knowledge of advancements in the law over the last forty years, and, mostly importantly, someone who’d be a big enough sucker to invest in it, as it existed only in the imagination of Phelps Q. Phelps, a veteran at the art of separating people from their money. ---
**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 5, 2006, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/70 "2006-08-05T16:43:03Z")
“Look,” said the man with the bolo tie in a offhand manner that belied his intense consternation at the most recent turn of events which had, among other things, been created by his accidental shooting of both the sheriff and the deputy, “over there.” ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/71 "2006-08-05T17:02:49Z")
There was this dog and it was barking and there was a rusty gate that was swinging and there was this spigot that was dripping and all these noises were keeping me awake as I was trying to remember if I had turned off the stove after that Hormel chili dinner I made an hour ago and couldn’t eat because I was so tired, but now I can’t get to sleep because of all this racket and all. ---
**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 5, 2006, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/72 "2006-08-05T18:04:19Z")
George Bush Jr. and Ozzy Osbourne began their debate, which lasted late into the night, and which I now propose to not only repeat, but to flesh out the details omitted by two such “big picture” guys, and we are all the more fortunarte that I am joined in this endeavor by the distinguished political analyst, Carrpt Top! ---
**Author:** ![ddgryphon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8c91f0/32.png) [@ddgryphon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ddgryphon)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/73 "2006-08-05T18:42:02Z")
He looked deeply into her soft brown eyes, and with a sincerety practiced mostly by Priests and prostitutes intoned, “Hey baby, what’s your sign?” (her sign was mostly feed me, and so, she ignored him, opting instead to contentedly chew her cud, like the other cows in the yard). ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/74 "2006-08-05T19:06:31Z")
Start at the beginning. Continue to the end. Then stop. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/75 "2006-08-05T20:09:00Z")
It was a typical LA afternoon, which is to say that it was hot, humid, and a bit smoggy, as Bill, one of the top agents in Hollywood, maneuvered the red Mercedes convertible that his ex-wife tried to take in the divorce settlement across two parking spaces of pristine tarmac in the parking lot of his favorite Beverly Hills sushi restaurant, and contemplated, for what seemed like the millionth time, ideas for marketing movies to the Amish, perhaps the last remaining untapped revenue source in the industry. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/76 "2006-08-05T20:17:10Z")
Jerome whistled the same sad tune that he had learned from the old gypsy who used to polish their teakettle on Sundays in the fall, and whittled on a bar of Ivory soap in the vain attempt to recreate the little bridge his mother had driven off of that lonely day when he was twelve and trying to catch some bream in the creek but she was scared of traffic and had the radio too loud and didn’t hear the train as it barreled across the intersection and knocked her car a full 360 degrees just like he had seen the week before at the Ice Capades and he wondered what was for supper. ---
**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 5, 2006, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/77 "2006-08-05T20:29:10Z")
Gerald began, but was interrupted by a piercing whistle which cost him 10 percent of his hearing permanently, as it did everyone else in a ten mile radius of the eruption, not that it mattered much because for them permanently meant the next ten minutes or so until buried by searing lava or suffocated by choking ash, to pee. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/78 "2006-08-05T20:36:01Z")
Victory came slowly to the Klag tribe after decades of fighting with the Vrons who raided their camp for the little goods they were able to scratch out of the arid land with the bone and flint tools they had found in a garbage dump outside the city and they celebrated with a drunken orgy that wouldn’t have been possible if the Vrons hadn’t brought a keg of grog that was too heavy for them to carry and that’s why the Klag beat them so easily. Idiots. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/79 "2006-08-05T21:04:07Z")
Howard Dork laughed. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2006, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276/80 "2006-08-05T21:08:20Z")
Condorman swooped into the camp just after sunset and made off with the little girl who looked a lot like Dolly Parton except for the hair and the breasts and the little waist but a lot more like Dolly Parton than Lily Tomlin and flew away to his lair to feed the gaggle of geese that had followed him home from Burger King the other night when he went in to get a sandwich and the little girl screamed because the geese reminded her of the woman who had cut her toe that afternoon. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/make-up-the-worst-possible-opening-line/367276.md?page=5)