July/August 2023 Limerick Laughs Winner and Runners-up

A book and an hour of sun …
Who wouldn’t want that kind of fun?
But bruises? I’ve got ’em.
They’re all on my bottom.
I fought with my chair — the chair won.

Congratulations to Barbara Hosbach of Pennington, New Jersey, who won $25 for her limerick describing this John Hyde Phillips cover image from our August 12, 1939, issue.

If you’d like to enter the Limerick Laughs Contest for our upcoming issue, submit your limerick via our online entry form.

Here are some more great limerick entries from this contest, in no particular order:

Everyone started to titter
At my failure as a chair sitter,
But what worsened my shame
Was the unwanted fame
When the video went viral on Twitter.

—Scott Talbot Evans, Rochester, New York

One’s shoddy; one’s top-of-the-line.
One’s broken; one’s holding up fine.
One’s sadly regretted;
The other is fêted
As Best Set of Legs ’39.

—Jeff Foster, San Francisco, California

A sun-loving blondie named Blair,
Took a break on the beach with her chair;
But her rest was curtailed,
As the chair fabric failed,
Which led to a bruised derriere.

—Andy Lantz, Montgomery, Ohio

All the paraphernalia folks bear,
For one day at the beach seems unfair.
But here’s an invention,
That’s worthy of mention —
A light-weight collapsible chair.

—Sjaan VandenBroeder, Stockton, California

Deem it splendid or deem it depravity,
There’s no dodging the statutes of gravity.
Thus with lessons to teach,
It left on the beach
Its mark as a bum-shaped concavity.

—Gennadiy Gurariy, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

When availing yourself of a chair,
It is best to make sure it’s all there.
Or, despite what you’d planned,
You’ll soon find the sand
Is supporting your sore derriere.

—Robert Hanley, Southern Pines, North Carolina

The vacation was meant to be fun.
A whole week of seashore and sun.
But not so for Claire,
Who fell from her chair.
She was sick of it after day one.

—Brian LaRose, Cornish, New Hampshire

A failing sling chair slung her down
Onto her frail tail to the ground.
And where Michelle fell
There was a hell of a shell
That didn’t feel swell to have found.

—Denise Nipps, Peoria, Illinois

The beach chair — an awkward invention,
Ungainly beyond comprehension.
But for one flirty miss,
The selling point’s this—
It sure grabbed that cute lifeguard’s attention!

—Marcia Gunnett Woodard, Swayzee, Indiana