I've Got $25 That Say You Can't Make Me Laugh

**UPDATE: Thank you for all the entries thus far. Keep them coming! This contest will run until Wednesday night, May 28 2008 at 10 p.m. Arizona time.**

Is it just me, or are these things getting harder?

I am always trying to comment on blogs, and I have to go through two or three of these "guess what letters these are" games. Only they aren't the kind of games that are fun--they're the kind that make me want to throw away my laptop and forget technology ever existed. And I swear, they're getting harder. Maybe I just have poor vision, but I really struggle with these things. I can't even tell "i" from "j" half the time. They remind me of the eye exam place, and I hate eye exams--they stress me out:

"Ummm...P! No, F! No...argh..." [By the way--the last eye exam I took was for immigration purposes a few weeks ago, and Poor Kyle did NOT help me cheat. He did NOT shake his head when I called an "F" a "P," and he did NOT subtly nod when I correctly identified an "O." He did no such thing.]

Anyway, I read a blog some time ago whose author held a contest for the most clever made-up definition of one of these "words." (As a side note, you may or may not know that about 50% of all bloggers use these types of word identification applications to ensure their readers are not robots or aliens or something called a phish. But now you know for sure. I myself simply choose to trust that the 100 people in the world who read Archives of Our Lives are, in fact, human.)

So of course I entered, because I'm always entering blog giveaways (and consequently always reeling from the sting of failure when I am not givenaway anything). And I always secretly figured I would hold the same sort of contest. So I've been "collecting" some examples over the past few months, and today I decided to post the giveaway.

Rules and Regulations:

1. For any of the pictured word-identification sets, think of a clever could-be definition. Or, for sets that don't seem like word, make up an acronym with the random letters. Good luck--some of them look like they make use of the dollar sign. I'm very interested to see how you might incorporate the dollar sign into an acronym.

2. There is no limit to the amount of times you may enter. I know I personally get funnier later in the day, when the reality of getting out of bed is far behind me. So go ahead! Feel free to enter two, three, or 20 times. But do remember that this competition is based solely on cleverness and wit.

3. Link to my blog in a post on your blog. I know this rule makes a lot of people (ahem. Kayleen) uncomfortable, but if you don't do it, you don't get to win. You can still enter, of course, because I love a good laugh. But you won't win. You might come close, but you won't win.

The prize is a $25.00 gift card to the retail location of the winner's choice (i.e. Border's.com, Amazon.com, BurgerKing.com, or even QT. Whatever tickles your fancy.)

Also, I may or may not give away a second gift card at random, so even if you don't have a blog to use for linking purposes, you may as well still enter.

*Special thanks to Poor Kyle, who knows nothing of this recent family expenditure. He's a real gem. [I love you, dear.]*