Congratulations to Don Michalowski, first-place winner in the Humor category of the 94th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition. Here’s his winning story, “Burnt Toast.”

(See the winning entry list here.)

In 1990, my best friend John and I took a three-week road trip through the western United States. In Custer, South Dakota, we camped at Flintstones Bedrock City – a theme park and campground inspired by The Flintstones. As we did every night, we got real high and went looking for adventure.

We decided to sneak into Bedrock after-hours and visit Fred, Wilma and Dino. It was on Main Street, as we passed Mr. Slate’s house, that John said to me, “You know what dude, if this trip has shown me anything, it’s that you’re, like, actually funny. I mean it. You’re one of the funniest people I know. I bet you can come up with stuff as funny as that guy who does The Far Side.”

“Thanks man,” I said, posing for a picture while cupping the stone breasts of the Wilma statue. I loved The Far Side, and I loved a challenge so, as I went off looking for the Betty Rubble statue I said, “I can yabba dabba doo that for sure!”

We eventually wandered back to the tent, kept on smoking and kept on laughing as I set out to write stuff as funny as that guy from The Far Side.

Long before this trip, John and I got in the habit of always having a notebook with us when we got high. We knew we wouldn’t remember anything if we didn’t write it down. It helped answer questions like: Where did we park? Why do I have a pocket full of Canadian coins? Who is Susan and why do I have her library card?

That next morning, in our tent outside of Bedrock, John and I reviewed our notes.

Much more had been written, but this was all we could make out—thanks to our terrible handwriting and the dozens of blood droplets scattered across the page. The notes helped trigger our memory. We remembered being chased out of Bedrock by a security guard, hearing shots fired and then losing him by running through a field. I recalled leaping through tall grass then slamming into a barbed wire fence when I looked back to see if we lost him. This explained the blood.

Next to the chicken scratch and blood smears were two drawings.

A bit of background on the first. Our trip took us through a lot of national parks where there was always a sign that said, “Scenic Overlook.” It directed us to pull over, park the car, walk over to a railing and look at something breathtaking. Often, however, there was nothing remarkable to see—just another “been there done that” view that left us doubting the merits of the Scenic Overlook concept. We started calling these kinds of stops a “Cynic Overlook.” My drawing had a group of people standing at one of these railings, looking down at a guy yelling, “I told them there was nothing great to see here, but did they believe me? NOOOO!!! They never listen to me. They just want your money!” Caption: Cynic Overlook.

That was my first attempt at being funnier than The Far Side guy, whose name, by the way, is Gary Larson.

The second drawing was simple: Moses holding his staff, looking in the mirror with his hands stretched out wide as his hair miraculously parted. Caption: Moses in the morning.

We laughed hard at that one, then closed the notebook and packed up our gear. I slapped a few Band-Aids on my barbed wire holes, and we headed off to see Mt. Rushmore. By then, all I could think was, when was my last tetanus shot?

I didn’t write any more ideas for the rest of the trip. Or maybe I did, but didn’t write them down, or we couldn’t read them. Either way, that would have been the end of that story—if not for January 14, 1993.

I was sitting on the toilet reading the newspaper, when something on the comics page caught my eye. That day’s Far Side cartoon. There it was—Moses, looking in the mirror, arms stretched out wide as his hair miraculously parted. Caption: Moses parting his hair.

I was floored. That caption sucked. Mine was so much better—less obvious. And where was his staff? Everybody knows Moses parted stuff with his staff. Every depiction of Moses—Bible illustrations, sculptures, Charlton Heston—has Moses parting with his staff!

I didn’t think, “Hey, that Larson guy stole my idea.” I felt proud. I came up with an idea that Gary Larson came up with, before Gary Larson came up with it. That meant something. Sitting there on my toilet, I had an epiphany. I realized my purpose.

That was the day that I discovered I wanted to be – had to be – a syndicated cartoonist.

Of course that didn’t happen. Have you ever heard of Burnt Toast? Has anyone? Of course not. But Burnt Toast became my passion project. I went all in: designed a logo, printed business cards, secured a URL, even wrote a mission statement:

Laugh at life’s little things…why not, it’s only Burnt Toast.

I didn’t say it was a good mission statement, but I took Burnt Toast seriously. I wrote nonstop – hundreds of ideas in dozens of notebooks. Sketches drawn and redrawn, captions written and rewritten. I was determined to get Burnt Toast published.

There was, unfortunately, one major problem. I was not a very good artist. And if Burnt Toast was going to be syndicated in every major newspaper across the country, I needed an illustrator.

I met with dozens of artists, but only one clicked: Jay Washer. He had a fun, easy drawing style, but more importantly, his sense of humor matched mine. Together, we sorted through my mountains of ideas, picked out what we agreed were the best of the best and got to work producing our submission kits.

The result? Forty well-drawn, funny, off-the-wall comic panels, assembled into a professional presentation package complete with cover letter, bios and our mission statement. We sent them off to all the top cartoon syndicates. Not only were we proud—we were over-the-top excited. Why? Because it had been announced that Gary Larson was retiring at the end of the year. That meant there would be a big hole on the cartoon page of every newspaper in the country. A hole that needed to be filled.

And, in our hearts, we knew Burnt Toast was the answer.

We mailed off our submissions…and waited.

If Burnt Toast was going to be the answer, could someone please repeat the question?

There was no joy in Mudville—Burnt Toast struck out. Each submission was met with a polite but firm rejection letter. I was confused.

Did I pick the wrong illustrator?

Was I a one-hit-wonder?

Was I…not funny?

How could so many great ideas be met with absolutely no interest?

Two dedicated years of creating, writing and promoting Burnt Toast resulted in nothing. I even submitted to every magazine that bought cartoons—still nothing. After dozens of replies saying, “Not what we’re looking for,” or “Too close to what we already have,” Jay and I reluctantly decided to hang it up.

No syndication. No book deal. No merch store.

Our dream of a Burnt Toast coffee mug on every desk as co-workers gathered around the water cooler laughing at that morning’s Burst Toast panel evaporated.

That year, every newspaper launched a Far Side clone. The cartoon world had prepared for Larson’s retirement years before Burnt Toast ever hit their desks.

Then I read a Gary Larson interview explaining why he decided to retire. He wanted to quit while he was ahead and avoid creative burnout. He feared his work slipping into what he called the “Graveyard of Mediocre Cartoons.”

Ouch.

Was Burnt Toast…mediocre?

Fast forward twenty-five years.

While moving to a new home with my wife Lee, I unearthed my Burnt Toast tote – stuffed with all my old notebooks, sketches and rejection letters. Reliving the Burnt Toast magic so many years later with someone new was a total hoot.

I must admit, Burnt Toast is…funny!

Those syndicates were wrong! What the hell were they thinking?

Okay—all joking aside—yes, there are some solid gems in the Burnt Toast collection. But overall, it is kind of, well, mediocre. Still, for as much as I loved creating Burnt Toast, I loved sharing it with Lee even more.

Her responses were priceless.

“This is stupid,” she said.

“Whaaatttt?!?!” I laughed, flipping through the panels.  “This stuff is great! Look at this one.” I showed her a drawing of a guy celebrating on a tennis court, arms raised in victory. On the other side of the net lay a dead horse, flat on its back, a tennis racket strapped to its front legs.

The caption: Bill has no problem beating a dead horse.

“That’s wrong,” she protested. “And definitely not funny.”

“Not funny?” I fired back. “Look at the score! It’s 40-15. He may have beaten the dead horse, but the horse still scored. That. Is. Funny!”

“It’s just mean,” she said shaking her head. “You got anything else?”

“Look at this one, it’s one of my favorites.”

I showed her a drawing of an open time portal, all squiggly on a wall. From both sides, the same guy, at the same time was trying to go through the opening.

Caption: Having found the portal to a parallel universe…Don bonks heads with himself trying to cross.

“I don’t get it,” she said flatly.

“It’s a parallel universe,” I defended, “so, by definition, the same thing is happening at the same time on both sides. So, he has to bonk into himself trying to get through.”

“Nope…dumb. Next.”

This went on for almost an hour. Me showing her one Burnt Toast panel after another, cracking myself up and watching her grimace in response, which, only made me laugh harder.

I kept going, determined to find at least one she liked.

“When people weren’t looking, Peter Piper picked his nose.”

“Gross!”

“All the campers wanted to have a big weenie roast, and Carl was the biggest weenie they knew.”

“Bad.”

“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. But give him a few beers and you can get him to do practically anything.”

“Stuuuupid.”

Finally, on my last attempt, I slowed down, carefully pointing out the details.

“Okay, look closely,” I said. “See the hunter? Now look at the tree in the background—see it? The duck, just barely poking his head out.”

I pointed to the caption and read it aloud, barely holding back my laughter: Hunting the very elusive Peeking Duck.

“Ugh!” she shouted. But then it happened.

A smirk.

A subtle smile she tried so hard to hold back.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, surrendering, “I’m not laughing because it’s funny—because it’s not. I’m laughing because YOU think it’s funny. I’m enjoying how much fun you’re having showing me your stupid cartoons.”

And then she added:

“I do love how you see the world so differently. How you always find the funny in the little things. That’s why I’m smiling.”

It took twenty-five years.

Mission accomplished.

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