Ivan Ehlers’ cartoon is set in a restaurant, where a waiter with a menu in his hand is addressing two diners. They look like slugs, but because they don’t have eye stalks I’m assuming they’re alien life forms.
All my captions are inspired by comments or suggestions that waiters make before taking orders.
- “Might I suggest the abducted cow?”
- “Our special tonight is a human male, gently probed and then incinerated with a death ray.”
- “Would you like to pair that with some water from Mars?”
- “Take your time. I’ll get you some water from Mars.”
Now let’s see how you did.
Half of you assumed, as I did, that the waiter and diners are creatures from outer space, and most of your entries addressed some aspect of alien abductions:
- “The earthling is fresh.”
- “All the cows were abducted today.”
- “Today’s special is freshly abducted.”
- “The special’s not only fresh—it’s resisting.”
A few of you focused on the type of person, or the specific person, who was abducted:
- “Our catch of the day is awestruck drunken hillbilly.”
- “And the catch of the day is a guy named Fred.”
- “For dessert, we have people who drive along deserted highways, lone campers, and those who suffer from sleep paralysis.”
That last caption is really long—perhaps the longest I’ve ever highlighted—but it’s really good.
Some of the best abduction entries were a little dark:
- “The type O would pair well with that.”
- “Would you like to see the children’s menu? They’re free-range.”
- “For dessert, may I suggest the baked Alaskan?”
One of you alluded to the conspiracy theory regarding an alleged UFO landing in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947: “We’re featuring wines from New Mexico.” That caption is especially good because the thought of wines from the Land of Enchantment is itself funny. (In case I have offended anyone, let me acknowledge that New Mexico has a long history of wine production, and its more than sixty wineries produce 900,000 gallons of wine that are probably safe to drink.)
Half of you assumed that the waiter and diners were not extraterrestrials, but very terrestrial snails or slugs, which are extremely slow: “Don’t expect fast service.”
Several of you alluded to the fact that salt can kill a slug:
- “Might I recommend a salt substitute?”
- “Our entire menu is sodium-free.”
- “Yes, we always hold the salt.”
- “Hold the salt?”
One of you focused on the most obvious distinction between two types of gastropods (a snail, which has a shell, and a slug, which has none): “Sorry, no shells, no service.”
And two of you focused on what gastropods eat:
- “It’s fresh. The cook just stepped on it.”
- “There’s a fly in your soup, compliments of the chef.”
Here are the best gastropod-related puns:
- “For dessert, I highly recommend the key slime pie.”
- “Might I suggest the primordial soup?”
Two of you assumed the waiter and diners were parasites:
- “Welcome to Tom’s Small Intestine.”
- “Tonight’s special depends on what our host had for lunch.”
And one of you came out of left field with an entry that presumes everyone in the drawing was butchered by the same incompetent doctor: “Looks like we had the same surgeon fuck up our nose jobs.”
This week, I’m selecting winners in two categories:
- Best alien life form caption: “And the catch of the day is a guy named Fred.”
- Best gastropod caption: “Hold the salt?”
ENTER THIS WEEK’S CAPTION CONTEST
Lawrence Wood has won The New Yorker’s Cartoon Caption Contest a record-setting seven times, and been a finalist two other times. He has collaborated with New Yorker cartoonists Peter Kuper, Lila Ash, Felipe Galindo Gomez, and Harry Bliss (until Bliss tossed him aside, as anyone would, to collaborate with Steve Martin). Nine of his collaborations have appeared in The New Yorker, and one is included in the New Yorker Encyclopedia of Cartoons.