The Invitational Week 162: Show Us Some Love
Hello. Are you feeling a bit sad today? The Invitational is. It’s almost as if its mom died yesterday.
Maybe a little love will help.
From Adam to Eve:
I love only you (that’s no fib!)
And I’m mad for the cut of your jib.
Though that thing with the snake
Was a major mistake
(And I wish you would give back my rib).
(Beverley Sharp)
To Yoko from John: We could make beautiful music together. Well, I could anyhow. (Rob Huffman)
My Dear Hester:
A valentine, some hugs and pecks,
A night of wild, illicit sex.
As your pastor, I must say,
Miss Prynne, you’ve earned yourself an A.
(Chris Doyle)
For Invitational Week 162: Write a humorous Valentine’s Day sentiment
to someone (or to some organization), either real or fictional — either
from you or from someone else you name, as in the examples above from previous contests. AND: You also have the option of making a graphic. If it’s made by AI, let us know; it’s not disqualifying, but we want to know. (See this week’s entry form for more directions for this option.)
Formatting your entries: Don’t worry about our usual request to keep each entry to one line; even if you’re writing a poem, just type it as you’d like to see it published. Again, read the entry form carefully before submitting graphics.
Deadline is Saturday, Feb. 14, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Feb. 19, while you’re still finishing those last chocolates five days later, the ones with the pink stuff inside. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form.
Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to tinyurl.com/inv-form-162.
This week’s winner gets a valentine-colored stretchy velour headband that we’re pretty sure is supposed to portray a crab, but fortunately little heart-shaped appendages instead of actual pinching claws.
Runners-up get autographed fake money featuring the Czar or Empress, in one of eight nifty designs. Honorable mentions get bupkis, except for a personal email from the E, plus the Fir Stink for First Ink for First Offenders.
Joining Farces: Movie mashups from Week 160
In Invitational Week 160 we asked you to combine two real movie titles to make a third movie and describe its plot, which had to be about current life and/or current events. You guys were brilliant at coming up with funny and engaging movie titles, less so at creating scenarios that could even semi-plausibly be considered movie plots. We had to do some script-doctoring on a few of those.
Third runner-up:
Eternal Sunshine of the Rear Window: Two hours of Cabinet sycophants blowing endless flattery up their leader’s backside. (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)
Second runner-up:
Earth vs. the Flying Jackass: Davos 2026: A Week to Remember (Jonathan Paul, Garrett Park, Md.)
First runner-up:
Dracula vs. Aliens: Stephen Miller strikes again! (Jesse Frankovich)
And the winner of the gadget that mixes up an egg inside the shell:
The Lost Weekend at Bernie’s: A documentary filmmaker travels to Vermont and makes the mistake of asking Sen. Sanders, “What’s wrong with America today?” (Lee Graham, Columbia, S.C.)
Now for the Invitational Gene Pool Gene Poll:
(As usual, if you think one or more of the honorable mentions were better, yell at us in the Comments.)
None but the Bad and the Ugly: Honorable mentions
How to Train Your Pretty Woman: A chronicle of the 21st-century anti-suffrage movement. (Hildy Zampella, Sarasota, Fla.)
All I Want Is Everything Everywhere All at Once: A power-crazed president decides he wants the entirety of Scandinavia, not just Greenland. And Canada. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)
Back to Snow White School: A newly admitted Black student at Columbia suddenly finds out he’s “not a good fit” after all. (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)
Finding Nemo Pet Sematary: South Dakota kids stumble upon evidence that Kristi Noem also executed tropical fish, six cats, and a parrot in that landfill. (Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.)
Sorry, Wrong Mysterious Island: In this rollicking farce, a squadron of U.S. Marines wonder why they’ve been deployed to Iceland. (Jonathan Paul)
Dude, Where’s My Country? A stoner wakes up to ICE agents banging on his door. Hijinks ensue. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)
How Green Was My Valley of the Dolls: Donald and friends reminisce about their happy times on the Island. (Duncan Stevens)
The Name of the World Is Not Enough: A presidential commission votes unanimously to rename the planet Trump Earth. (Jonathan Paul)
The Man Who Would Be Best in Show: “I should have won Westminster,” Trump insists, claiming he is, after all, Top Dog. Will Penny the Doberman hand over the giant rosette like a good girl? (Cynthia Cotten, Lockport, N.Y., a First Offender)
Big Hero 6 Se7en: A courageous principal finally purges a stupid trend after it pervades her middle school. (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)
Marty for Old Men: In his senior years, the table tennis star hustles the pickleball circuit. (Jeff Rackow, Bethesda, Md.)
All the President’s Dirty Rotten Scoundrels: It takes a village to ruin a country. (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)
Melania, Whale Rider: An unlikely love story. (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.)
Milk Everything Everywhere All at Once: Oligarchs battle across the globe to become the 0.00000001-percenters. (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)
Monster’s Ball Room: A grotesque villain expands his executive lair. (Jesse Frankovich)
The Big Sleeper: The President attends a cabinet meeting. (Mark Raffman)
Bringing Up the President’s Men: Eating the commander-in-chief’s toadies makes Godzilla violently ill. (Jonathan Paul)
Saving Private Parts: Donald Trump bravely fights the woke forces of DEI to prohibit sex-rejecting surgery. (Kevin Dopart)
Spider-Man of La Mancha: A confused superhero stops windmills with his sticky web because they “kill the birds” and are a “Green New Scam.” (Art Grinath, Takoma Park, Md.)
There Will Be Bull: The Karoline Leavitt story. (Rob Cohen, Potomac, Md.)
They Shoot Ordinary People, Don’t They?: A young psychopath achieves his dream of becoming an ICE agent. (Kevin Dopart)
My Beautiful Yeller: The President sends Ambassador Guilfoyle on a quest to destroy democracy at its birthplace. (Kevin Dopart)
The Hand That Rocks the Color Purple: From the White House studio, a celebration of the President’s big, beautiful bruise. (Jesse Frankovich)
Alice in Wonderland Doesn’t Live Here Anymore: The Texas Board of Education bans the children’s classic, citing such graphic language as “Eat me.” (Duncan Stevens)
All About Despicable Me: The Making of the State of the Union Address 2026. (Jonathan Paul)
Get Shorty Out of Here: Minnesota officials demand Greg Bovino’s departure (and voila!) (Mark Raffman)
Guess Who’s Coming to Ebbing, Missouri? Trump throws a dart at a map, and a small town is thrown into crisis. (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)
Eat Drink Man Woman Pray Love: Will a stable genius from Queens ace the six-word cognitive test and receive the brand-new Mensa Peace Prize? A tale of suspense such as you have never seen before! (Kevin Dopart)
It’s a Dog’s Life Terminator: The Kristi Noem story. (Kevin Dopart)
The headline “Joining Farces” was submitted by both Beverley Sharp and Neil Kurland; William Kennard wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.
Still running — deadline Saturday, Feb. 7, at 9 p.m. ET: It’s our contest to combine make up definitions for some obscure words in the Oxford English Dictionary. Click on “read full story” below for details.
Now we seamlessly segue into the Mailbag portion of The Gene Pool, in which Gene responds to your questions and observations. Please send your new Questions and Observations here:
Questions and Observations Here
And last, if you have not already done so, please consider becoming a paying subscriber to The Gene Pool. It is pretty cheap (still just $5 a month or $50 a year), and it lets you enter the Invitational, rather than just reading the results every week and sourly deciding you would have done better and then kicking the dog.
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Q: You asked for silent moments of “bonding” with a stranger. I was at a meeting of the school board of my town back in 2018, I think. There was an issue under discussion involving something to do with books in the school library. There was a father in the audience with his two kids, a girl and a boy — maybe 13 and 12. The father interrupted the proceedings to say that he was confident the president of the United States would have disapproved of a certain book being available at the school — it involved homosexuality — and as far as he was concerned, the book should be lifted off the shelves and destroyed for that reason alone. He called loyalty to the preisdent “basic common sense.” I looked over at the kids, concerned for them and what they were being exposed to. They saw me looking and, together, almost in synchrony, they rolled their eyes. I realized everything was fine.
A: Whoa.
A couple of months ago, when picking up Grandpa the Cat after she had been spayed, I was in a waiting room with an older man who had brought his male dog in for the same operation. The little feller was in his arms. The man was accompanied by two young women, who seemed to be his assistants. The guy was having last-minute doubts about this procedure and was expressing them to the two women. “What are you worried about?” one of them asked him, solicitously.
“WHAT IF HE BECOMES MENTALLY RETARDED?” he bellowed.
“He won’t,” she said, and looked to her friend, who nodded gravely in agreement.
The guy quieted down.
What the hell? I thought. Then I looked at one of the women, and got the whole story in a single, eloquent eye-roll. They were evidently his attendants, not his assistants, he was evidently not … okay … and it was part of their job to humor him.
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Q: Speaking of journalism, folks all over social media are complaining that no one in the press stood up to the president when he disrespected Kaitlin Collins. And about similar moments. I’m asking your opinion as a journalist, what should reporters do in this situation? Should they all have walked out? Should the next questioner have demanded an apology? It’s my understanding that reporters generally don’t want to become the story, but maybe there are situations where that is unavoidable. — Sean Clinchy
A: Interesting question, Sean. You’re right, reporters don’t want to become the story, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that we understand that the public expects withthe media to treat public officials without rudeness — even a degree of deference — not out of respect for the person but out of respect for the office they hold, and thus, for the electorate. The public expects the media to be, or seem, impartial. When reporters seem to be “ganging up” on someone, it implies a conspiracy of bias, and the public definitely does not like that. So, in general, we remain dignified and stolid and take abuse when it is dished out. I can think of two notable exceptions, both famous.
In March 1974, at a public event during the height of Watergate, CBS correspondent Dan Rather stood up to ask a question, and the audience applauded. Rather was almost a celeb in his own right at that time, known as a willing critic of Nixon. Nixon took umbrage at the audience’s reaction, and snidely asked Rather, “Are you running for something?” Rather famously retorted, “No, sir, Mr. President. Are you?”.
The reaction was considered over the top, interpreted to be an inference that Nixon was running for his political survival, which he was. He’d resign in just a few months. It was definitely a “defining moment” in adversarial moments between media and government. CBS stood behind its correspondent — something the new, lapdog CBS likely would not do today.
Closer to your point is a famous incident that occurred between the press and Vice President Henry Wallace during the height of World War II. Wallace had been accused of being too chummy with Russian Communists. Westbrook Pegler, the rabble-rousing far-right syndicated columnist, asked him about this. Wallace criticized what he called “Red baiting,” flatly refused to answer. Instead, he said, “I never engage in any discussion whatever with Westbrook Pegler,” and turned to take the next question.
There was a moment of stunned silence. Pegler was an opinionated muckraker, but the question had seemed a fair one.
Instead of asking his prepared question, the next journalist, a reporter from The Detroit News, ask the same one that Pegler had, word for word.
Wallace, on his heels but warming to the fight, said “I never engage in a discussion with a stooge of Westbrook Pegler.”
Whoa.
The next question was asked by H.L. Mencken of the Baltimore Sun, a man of impeccable reputation, probably the most respected journalist of his era: “Mr. Wallace, I can hardly be accused of being a stooge for Mr. Pegler,” Mencken noted. “Why don’t you answer the question?”
It was all out war, and Wallace retreated, maintaining his silence but losing the argument.
It was a justifiably famous moment. The press won.
I am hoping in the next three years, this sort of spine will stiffen in the press corps.
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Whew. That took a while. I think we’re done here for today, except for one thing. If you haven’t yet seen this “Trump Mom” SNL sketch, I urge you to forthwith.
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