The point of the Lyttle Lytton Contest is to write the most horribly funny opening line to a book that you can in 25 words or less. It's a spin-off of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, which has the same aim, but without the word limit.

Here are some of the better ones that I came up with. You'll probably notice that I reused a few gags, trying to make the most out of them, particularly dental hygine.

• "In the year 2843, halitosis was finally defeated," read the memorial plaque.
  
  
• His attempt to woo her failed like a poorly constructed simile falling, metaphorically, on its anthropomorphised face, because similes can't fall and don't have faces.
  
  
• Call me Ishmael; though most people call me "Sack," on account of my last name, Sakariassen, which I hate, so please call me Ishmael, jerk.
  
  
• Dental hygine had always been of utmost importance to Cynthia, but tonight she just didn't feel like flossing.
  
  
• Once upon a time, in the year 2374, people will no longer need to brush their teeth.
  
  
• "Think of the children!" screeched a pundit on cable news, and Herman, getting ready for bed, was, indeed, thinking of the children.
  
  
• It was the last hour of the first day of the rest of her life as a copyright lawyer, for about another 15 minutes.
  
  
• Lurching forward, the Segways knowingly setting in motion the people, but unknowingly the events to proceed, proceeded to move forward.
  
  
• The chicken or the egg: Andrew knew which came first, but it simply didn't matter anymore.
  
  
• So first off I gotta say hello to all my peeps back in the 701 lol and of course to jesus christ i love you!
  
  
• Night was, metaphorically, falling.
  
  
• There are those in the blogosphere community that would rather I not relate the events of June 30, 2004: the last day of that month.
  
  
• Jim (which is the name of our hero (aged 34 (male (single)))) liked holidays (espessicaly Arbor Day (the day of our story)).
  
  

The first two might be better if I hacked off the ends. The first would lose the pun, but it would indicate that the book was actually a science fiction book about humanity's final triumph over bad breath. With the way it is now, it might just mean the main character is reading something incidental to the plot. I can't tell if the second one is funnier with or without the clumy explanation of the poorly constucted simile tacked onto the end.

-Seth