Odes to odious writing

It's that time of year. Mud season? Well, not yet, but soon. It may, in fact, work itself into your novel! What novel?, you ask. The one that will begin with the most deliciously ridiculous opening sentence you can create.

That's the hope of the organizers of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, held yearly in April since 1983. Here's the  sentence that started it all:

"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."

                                        --Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, Paul Clifford (1830)


 Think you can top that?  Submit your entries here as comments! 

Here's are some other examples to get your creative juices flowing.
bulwer-lytton examples