Congratulations to Benny, who took first place in Round One of the Alf Landon Bad Writing Competition. He advances to the finals. We will pick our final two finalists this week. Here are 6 more entries, and I need you to vote for your least favorite one at the bottom. Voting ends Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.

• JOHN-Alf Landon capped off his Sunday communion breakfast with Adolph Hitler’s nephew, Yizzle Hitler, with a resounding kick to his solar plexus and surprise hand favor in the closet with the chairwoman of his dog grooming school.
• WILLIAM– Alf Landon. The words hung in my brain like a slimy newborn, yet to have the mucous wrenched from its trachea. The shitstorm of joy and treachery that marked the previous 3 months had finally come to an end, but the question remained: Just who was this man?
• RYAN– I inventoried the contents in my shabby 1992 Honda Civic, even though the contents never changed: One paperback of Christopher Marlowe’s King Lear. Check. One bladder of Franzia. Check. One vinyl copy of the 1974 L.P. “Nap Bastard” by eastern European jazz-fusion outfit The Perogi Prerogative–the most influential Prague-Rock group of that decade. Czech. I felt ready, but confidence alone does not a Hungry-Hungry Hippos Semi Finalist make. Even Alf Landon had confidence.
• BO– Rosita politely stifled her gag reflex as she choked down her mother-in-law’s dismal flan donging at her insides.
• BRIAN-Alf Landon was blind.
• BILL– We came here for two reasons,” said Tim, the camp’s chubby head counselor, “to eat smores and pray. I’m all out of marshmallow, so get on your knees y’all!” As little Alf Landon knelt down and took the hand of the boy next to him, he smiled, knowing that his mom was right about church camp.

OK, gang, it’s time to start voting in the First Annual Alf Landon Bad Writing Contest. We’re gonna divide this into three voting blocks, with the winner of each one going to the finals. Here are your first 6 entries. At the bottom, you can vote for which one you like the best. Voting for volume one ends tomorrow at 11:59 p.m. May the best worst Alf win!

HOWARD- Even though it was a brothel, it was still Kansas, and the Madame, with her 5 o’clock shadow, evoked Depression, not Lust; if I could carry only Maine and Vermont, Alf Landon mused, at least I can carry myself as a Hawaiian woman with breasts the size of pineapples.
CHIP– Over the next 753 pages, you, the reader, will explore every nook and cranny of Alf Landon’s colon.
PAQRAT– Nothing, not even the warm, clammy, sheeting raindrops that oozed like cosmic perspiration from the previously onerous sky, was going to prevent Dexter from being first in line at Peabody’s Hobby Shop and finally acquiring the coveted Alf Landon — the elusive crown jewel in his collection of 1936 Republican National Convention action figures.
SUSANA– Kathryn awoke in a cold sweat. It was the third time this week she had dreamt of the flying bedpan that had killed her father, Alf Langdon.
JULIE– For Alf Landon, a handsome and auspicious doctor long retired, it was infallible love at first sight: her perfectly rounded blue eyes, the way her tresses fell thick, and yet stringy, the slender, wobbly shapeliness of her arms; never before had his heart so venerated, so adored, a Playdough creation.
BENNY– It’s funny how overshaking a loosely-capped bottle of ketchup, and Alf Landon’s ill-fated decision to wear a white overcoat in the diner booth behind me would lead to the greatest friendship I’ve ever had, and the adventure of a lifetime.