LEVEL 2:
It's midnight. You've had a few more beers. You've just spent 20 minutes arguing against artificial turf. You get up to leave again, but at level two, a little devil appears on your shoulder. And now you're thinking, "Hey! I'm out with my friends! What am I working for anyway? These are the good times! Besides, as long as I get five hours sleep (snaps fingers) I'm cool.".

LEVEL 3:
One in the morning. You've abandoned beer for tequila. You've just spent 20 minutes arguing FOR artificial turf. And now you're thinking, "Our waitress is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen!" At level three, you love the world. On the way to the bathroom you buy a drink for the stranger at the end of the bar just because you like his face. You get drinking fantasies. (like,"Hey fellas, if we bought our own bar, we could live together forever. We could do it. Tommy, you could cook.") But at level three, that devil is a little bit bigger....and he's buying. And you're thinking "Oh, come on, come on now. As long as I get three hours sleep...and a complete change of blood (snaps fingers), I'm cool.".

LEVEL 4:
Two in the morning. And the devil is bartending. For last call, you ordered a bottle of rum and a Coke. You ARE artificial turf! This time on your way to the bathroom, you punch the stranger at the end of the bar. Just because you don't like his face! And now you're thinking, "Our busboy is the best looking man I've ever seen." You and your friends decide to leave, right after you get thrown out, and one of you knows an ...after hours bar. And here, at level four, you actually think to yourself, "Well....as long as I'm only going to get a few hours sleep anyway, I may as well....STAY UP ALL NIGHT!!!! Yeah! That'd be good for me. I don't mind going to that board meeting looking like Keith Richards. Yeah, I'll turn that around, make it work for me. And besides, as long as I get 31 hours sleep tomorrow ...................cool.

LEVEL 5:
Five in the morning. after unsuccessfully trying to get your money back at the tattoo parlor ("But I don't even know anybody named Ruby!!!"), you and your friends wind up across the state line in a bar with guys who have been in prison as recently as...that morning. It's the kind of place where even the devil is going, "Uh, I gotta turn in. I gotta be in Hell- at nine. I've got that brunch with Hitler, I can't miss that." At this point, you're all drinking some kind of thick blue liquor, like something from a Klingon wedding. A waitress with fresh stitches comes over, and you think to yourself, "Someday I'm gonna marry that girl!!" One of your friends stands up and screams, "WE'RE DRIVIN' TO FLORIDA!!!!!"- and passes out. You crawl outside for air , and then you hit the worst part of level five- the sun. You weren't expecting that were you? You never do. You walk out of a bar in daylight, and you see people on their way to work, or jogging. And they look at you-and they know. And they say..."Who's Ruby?" Let's be honest, if you're 19 and you stay up all night, it's like a victory like you've beat the night, but if you're over 30, then that sun is like God's flashlight. We all say the same prayer then, "I swear, I will never do this again (how long?) as long as I live!" And some of us have that little addition, "and this time, I mean it!"

4th Runner-Up: Oooo, he smells bad, she thought, as bad as Calvin Klein*s Obsession would smell if it were called Enema and was made from spoiled Spamburgers instead of natural floral fragrances. (Jennifer Frank, Washington, and Jimmy Pontzer, Sterling)

3rd Runner-Up: The baseball player stepped out of the box and spit like a fountain statue of a Greek god that scratches itself a lot and spits brown, rusty tobacco water and refuses to sign autographs for all the little Greek kids unless they pay him lots of drachmas. (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)

2nd Runner-Up: I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don*t speak German. Anyway, it*sa dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don*t know the name for those either. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)

1st Runner-Up: She was as unhappy as when someone puts your cake out in the rain, and all the sweet green icing flows down and then you lose the recipe, and on top of that you can*t sing worth a damn. (Joseph Romm, Washington)

And the winner of the framed Scarlet Fever sign: His fountain pen was so expensive it looked as if someone had grabbed the pope, turned him upside down and started writing with the tip of his big pointy hat. (Jeffrey Carl, Richmond)

Honorable Mentions:

• He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree. (Jack Bross, Chevy Chase)

• The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease. (Gary F. Hevel, Silver Spring)

• The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the period after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can. (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)

• He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it. (Joseph Romm, Washington)

• She caught your eye like one of those pointy hook latches that used to dangle from screen doors and would fly up whenever you banged the door open again. (Rich Murphy, Fairfax Station)

• The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn*t. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

• McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty Bag filled with vegetable soup. (Paul Sabourin, Silver Spring)

• From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you*re on vacation in another city and "Jeopardy" comes on at 7 p.m. instead of 7:30. (Roy Ashley, Washington)

• Her hair glistened in the rain like nose hair after a sneeze. (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)

• Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

• Bob was as perplexed as a hacker who means to access T:flw.quid55328.com\aaakk/ch@ung but gets T:\flw.quidaaakk/ch@ung by mistake (Ken Krattenmaker, Landover Hills)

• Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

• Her date was pleasant enough, but she knew that if her life was a movie this guy would be buried in the credits as something like "Second Tall Man." (Russell Beland, Springfield)

• Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph. (Jennifer Hart, Arlington)

• They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan*s teeth (Paul Kocak, Syracuse, N.Y.)

• John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met. (Russell Beland, Springfield)

• The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play. (Barbara Fetherolf, Alexandria)

• His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free (Chuck Smith, Woodbridge)

• The red brick wall was the color of a brick-red Crayola crayon. (Jennifer Frank and Jimmy Pontzer, Washington and Sterling)

• After sending in my entries for the Style Invitational, I feel relieved and apprehensive, like a little boy who has just wet his bed. (Wayne Goode, Madison, Ala.)

• You made my day, even a day as gray as white cotton sheets washed for decades in cold water without bleach like no self-respecting woman who came of age in the 1940s would allow in her house, much less on one of her beds, but up with which she must put whenever she visits one of her own daughters, just as if they had never been brought up right. (DEV, Madison, Wis)