![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.cartoonstock.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/LittleMellishFinal.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Last month\u2019s contest featured a drawing by <\/span>Tim Mellish<\/b>, who joined our judges\u2019 panel from Brisbane, Australia, at 2:00 a.m.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n His drawing is set in Heaven, where St. Peter is standing by the pearly gates and addressing a man with a leaf blower. Tim\u2019s original caption was, <\/span>\u201cSurely, you jest,\u201d<\/span><\/i> which is very close to this entry: <\/span>\u201cYou\u2019re joking, right?\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Leaf-blowers, some of you noted, are incredibly loud:<\/span><\/p>\n The second and fourth entries are essentially the same joke, but the fourth is superior because it ends on a better punchline. (I\u2019m guessing many of you disagree because the second entry was the winning entry in crowdsourcing).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Many of you emphasized the fact that leaf-blowers annoy everyone:<\/span><\/p>\n The Almighty:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n St. Peter:<\/span><\/p>\n And neighbors (some of whom can be driven to violence):<\/span><\/p>\n My fellow judges accuse me of liking any and all sex jokes, but I have standards. Of the two sex jokes we received for this contest, I hated one : <\/span>\u201cWe haven’t had a leaf blower here since Adam and Eve got horny.\u201d<\/i><\/b> But I loved the other: <\/span>\u201cBlowing leaves at dawn was bad, but the cardinal sin is what you did with the suction setting.\u201d<\/i><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The first sex joke has several problems, including the fact that it confuses Heaven with The Garden of Eden, as do these two entries:<\/span><\/p>\n I wish those jokes made more sense because they create funny mental images. So does this entry\u2014<\/span>\u201cThose were banned after the ‘toga incident.\u2019\u201d<\/i><\/b>\u2014but angels wear long, flowing white robes; not the large, white woolen blankets that Romans draped over their tunics. Still, that toga caption made me laugh out loud. If only the person who submitted it had substituted \u201crobe\u2019 for \u201ctoga,\u201d they might be $500 richer.<\/span><\/p>\n The following entry has St. Peter rejecting the leaf-blower\u2019s attempt at an excuse: <\/span>\u201c\u2018But I only use it on Sundays\u2019 is actually worse.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n This pun initially struck me as clever\u2014<\/span>\u201cYou\u2019re late for the Fall.\u201d<\/i><\/b>\u2014but it\u2019s not because leaf blowers have nothing to do with Lucifer\u2019s expulsion from Heaven. In a good pun, the \u201cprimary\u201d meaning makes sense, while the \u201csecondary\u201d meaning <\/span>also<\/span><\/i> fits the subject. This caption doesn\u2019t pass that test, though Greg Borislow, who\u2019s won both <\/span>The New Yorker<\/span><\/i> and the CartoonStock caption contest and is an expert on puns, may write in to tell me I\u2019m wrong.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cBlow to hell\u201d<\/i><\/b> is a twist on a common expression, but I prefer this version of the same joke: <\/span>\u201cThere’s a special place for you, but it sure as hell isn’t here.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n This caption explains how the man with the leaf blower died while also noting that there are significantly quieter alternatives to gas-powered leaf-blowers: <\/span>\u201cIf you had an electric one, you would have heard the truck.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n This next caption is almost identical to the one that Trevor Hoey\u2019s nine-year-old daughter June wanted to submit: <\/span>\u201cGod already has a leaf blower. It’s called wind.\u201d<\/i><\/b> That\u2019s not a veiled insult. June is hilarious.<\/span><\/p>\n Speaking of Trevor and his daughter, they live next to a country club where the members constantly playing pickleball, so he liked this entry: <\/span>\u201cWhatever it takes to drown out the pickleball pops.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n These next two captions cleverly focus on the mythical, pearly-white entrance to Heaven that St. Peter is guarding:<\/span><\/p>\n God made Earth a living hell for Job, and this caption suggests that the leaf-blower will do the same thing in Heaven: <\/span>\u201cJob is not going to like this.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Here\u2019s the best reference to a Kevin Costner movie from the \u201880s: <\/span>\u201cThey need you at the Field of Dreams.\u201d<\/i><\/b> It\u2019s also a pretty good pun.<\/span><\/p>\n All the judges liked this entry\u2014<\/span>\u201cWe called about the feathers.\u201d<\/i><\/b>\u2014but disagreed about its meaning. I thought the man with the leaf-blower had blown all the feathers off his fellow angels\u2019 wings, and was therefore being reprimanded by St. Peter. My fellow judges, however, pointed out that the man with a leaf-blower is not an angel because he doesn\u2019t have wings. He\u2019s a mere mortal whom St. Peter has summoned to Heaven to clear away all the feathers that have simply fallen off the angels\u2019 wings. My fellow judges are probably right.<\/span><\/p>\n This next entry suggests that St. Peter puts annoyingly loud angels together: <\/span>\u201cYou’ll be sharing a cloud with the chainsaw guy.\u201d<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n I\u2019m going to end this month\u2019s commentary by highlighting two terrible captions that Joel Mishon included among his top ten:<\/span><\/p>\n The first entry is not a caption; it\u2019s a title. The second is nonsensical. According to Joel it\u2019s a clever reference to the fact that there\u2019s zero gravity in Heaven, but as Bob pointed out: \u201cIt\u2019s Heaven, not a space station.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Congratulations to DANIEL BENEDETTO, who won the contest with, <\/span>\u201cIf it makes you feel better, your neighbor is in custody.\u201d<\/i><\/b> The five runners-up are:<\/span><\/p>\n <\/i><\/b>\u201cI\u2019ve heard enough.\u201d<\/i><\/b> AMY E. BAER<\/span><\/p>\n If you want to see how we made our selections, we recorded the process and posted it on our website.<\/span><\/p>\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n