The First Sentence -- Hook, Please

First off, if you saw the title of this and thought it'd be remotely helpful . . . yeah, sorry about that.

    It won't be.

    But it's amusing, and in my book, amusing is always a plus.

    Apparently, there's a contest every year -- called the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest -- to see who can write the worst opening sentence for an fake novel.  (Anyway, I hope these are fake. Eek.)

    The 2011 grand prize winner is Sue Fondrie, a professor from Wisconsin.  This is her entry:


        "Cheryl's mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories."


    Pretty bad, eh? 

    There are different divisions within the contest -- you can read a few of them, and the original article where I learned all this brain-enriching stuff, here. 

    Really, I don't do morals of stories, but I guess the main lesson is this:

    If you're having trouble nailing the opening sentence of your novel, be sure to keep all the attempts -- the more laughable, the better.

    You could always enter next year's contest.

    So now I have to ask:  What's the worst opening sentence you've ever read?  What made it so bad -- or is it wince-inducing and self-explanatory?