New Treads on Old Wheels

It's been done before at the Doughty Traveler, and it was a disaster. I proposed a contest. And I'm doing so again.

Here's the deal...after all these years, we're finally closing in on 1,000 posts here at the ol' TDT. As that auspicious moment draws nigh, I figure if I save a dollar a post, I could come up with a sweet prize for whatever contest I create. Long-term readers will recall this is how the last contest began...so promising, so long ago, such a failure.

In that case a mix of shame and penury prevented me from completing the deal. Now that I am shameless and living high on the hog (thanks to my employment with this august institution), I can say neither of those two variables threatens this new idea.

Reason would tell you this is a ploy to gain more readers. I will tell you it's part of a perverse desire to part ways with money as quickly as possible. Given your experience with my writing (and my unwillingness to abide by any of Alex Tabbarok's dictums when it comes to blogging), you decide which is more accurate.

So, here's the deal: I'm gonna pose random questions without any order, rhyme or reason. You respond in the comments or via email. I will post the winner of each question in a vaguely timely fashion and from that you will be able to discern the criteria I'm using to award victory. And so will I, since my rubric is as yet uncreated.

Why on earth would you care, would you bother? Well, for one, your odds are good. I can count my readership on one hand, as far as I know, and that's a Civil War veteran's hand, with several fingers missing. So, the competition is about as stiff as a cattail in a hurricane. Moreover, the prize is pretty sweet. It'll be worth less than a hundred dollars, but no less than fifty. It will probably be an iPod shuffle...if you can think of something more hilarious and useless (like a complete set of Sonny Bono's used contacts), I'll see what I can do, but I promise you nothing.

So, there it is. The game is on. All you gots ta do is respond to any posts that pose a question, even if it's rhetorical. Brownie points for creativity, but I won't tell you what kind. If you send me scurrilous crap, I'll try to remember to email you back angrily...so don't.

So, for the first question: what's the funniest thing that ever happened to you involving an orange and who is your favorite president and why? Bonus points if you manage to combine those two.