Week 148: The Tile Invitational XII
Say hello to Crappo. That’s him, above. You’ll get a more complete introduction to him below, in Group C of The Invitational’s caption contest results. In the meantime, we are going to help you Scrabble-rack your brains.
The last time we ran our annual Tile Invitational contest — it was Oct. 31, 2024 — we offered it as “a distraction from biting your nails as you sit on the couch next Tuesday.” Yes, less than one year ago, the country still had the option of not installing as its president a marginally literate brachydactilic megalomaniac. (We’re word people, after all. We can still play with letters.)
In the few pages it has left, The Washington Post still runs the print-only syndicated word game ScrabbleGrams. AT THIS LINK YOU CLICK ON RIGHT HERE a list of the four “racks” pictured below from the Oct. 28 Post, plus 36 more letter sets from the long-out-of-print Big Book of ScrabbleGrams; each unscrambles into a real seven-letter word, but that’s not the word you want.
For Invitational Week 148: Rearrange the letters of any of the 40 letter sets to create a new term, then define or describe it, as in the examples below. Your word may use all 7 letters or just 6, but you may use each letter in the set only once. (So if there are two L’s, you can use them both, but if there’s just one L, you can’t use it twice.) Your term can be one word, two words or more, hyphenated, abbreviated, etc.; we’re easy. (The point values of the various letters don’t come into play in this game.)
There’s a good chance that someone else will make up the same word you did, so having a funny definition or description (e.g., a sentence using your term) can be what gets you the ink. See the word list for IMPORTANT instructions on formatting your entries, but basically they should be in the form of the examples below.
LUTE TAX: What finally caused the peasants’ revolt against the Plantagenets.
MT. ANNOY: Your high-schooler’s pile of dirty clothes.
M.C. LOYER: “You got no game, you got no class / Gonna be habeas corpusin’ yo ass!”
BOUNCI: The name of the woman in Picture G of today’s caption contest results.
Entry deadline is Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Nov. 13. 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-148.
(Note: If you are reading this in an email, please click on the headline at the top of the page to get an updated version of The Gene Pool online, with any amendments, emendations, etc. made after the email was sent. And with the elaborate real-time Q’s and A’s at the bottom)
This week’s winner receives — in plenty of time to enhance your Thanksgiving wardrobe — these handsome turkey-leg socks. (If you prefer chicken to turkey, they are chicken-leg socks.)
See Dumb Thing, Say Dumb Thing: Caption contest winners
In Invitational Week 146 we asked you to write captions for any or all of the following pictures we dredged up. Too many people to credit interpreted the action, such as it is, in Picture B to concern farting; we can’t imagine why you thought this would amuse us.
(This week’s winner and runners-up appear under the respective pictures, followed at the end by the Gene Pool Gene Poll, in which you can second-guess us.)
First runner-up:
The entire remaining Pentagon press pool rides to defend Secretary Pete Hegseth against the Enemies of the People. (Tim Livengood, Columbia, Md.)
“It’s always the same nightmare,” Mr. Ed told his psychologist. (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)
The origin story of Murray Higginbotham, Accountant of the Wild Frontier, is not widely known. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)
“I’m never going back to Peloton!” (Jeff Rackow, Bethesda, Md.)
Warning: Mixing Ambien with alcohol may cause unexpected sleep behaviors. (Lee Graham, Columbia, S.C.)
Bob worries that his choice of tie may have been inappropriate for his job interview on Zoom. (Judy Freed, Philadelphia)
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Inattentive as always, Arthur loses yet another game of nose goes. (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)
Ophelia wondered if Gregoire was really the haunted, tortured artist he claimed to be, or just some asshole with a beard. (John Kupiec, Fairfax, Va.)
“Stop portraitbombing me!” (Daniel Galef, Cincinnati)
She had touched him deeply, but he still didn’t enjoy his annual exam. (Jeff Hazle, San Antonio)
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Third runner-up: “Yeah, I might not be good-looking, but I bet I get more ass than you.” (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.)
Second runner-up: “I’m Groucho’s cousin, Skid.” (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)
The least famous Marx brother, Crappo. (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)
The ultimate shit-eating grin. (Mark Raffman; Rob Huffman, Fredericksburg, Va.)
According to Trump’s lawyers, he did have someone guarding the stolen classified documents. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)
Trump orders the FBI to investigate a smoking antifa frog found in a Portland bathroom. (Chris Doyle)
“So ya caught me smokin’ in the bathroom. Whatcha gonna do about it? Kick me out?” (Michael Stein, Arlington, Va.)
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The winner of the Bigfoot air freshener:
Don Peyote. (Art Grinath, Takoma Park, Md.)
“I’m the king of the whirl!” (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)
Dustin “The Wind” Ventini could get any windmill going—he just needed a helping of beans. (Leif Picoult)
After striking out with all the “ladies” at the windmill, Lloyd drops some acid instead. (Jon Ketzner)
*******
The first HOA meeting at The Villages at Williamsburg descended into rancorous discord. (Jon Ketzner)
As the only woman present, Eleanor never more clearly grasped the adage “the odds are good, but the goods are odd.” (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)
Back in the olden days, folks occasionally began to reconsider the notion of bathing only every other month. (Jon Ketzner)
A page from “Where’s Waldo’s Great-Great-Grandfather?” (Jesse Frankovich)
“Don’t look now, but I think that weirdo showed up.” (Daniel Galef)
The First Congress of the United States pretty much set the bar for the current institution. (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)
“I thought this ballroom was supposed to be for 999 people.” (Daniel Helming, Conshohocken, Pa.)
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“The hardest part will be recarving the top of the head to a combover.” (Dave Prevar, Annapolis, Md.)
“I have no clue what to do — I was in procurement until DOGE reassigned my ass out here.” (Jon Ketzner)
“Really, Stan? I told you to pee before we left the nostril.” (Judy Freed)
*****
A Baptist couple attempt to jump-start the rapture. (Chris Doyle)
“And to think we got these Segways at DealDash.com for only $15!” (Dave Prevar)
“I mean, if sea levels do rise by six inches over the next ten years like they’re predicting, we’ll be fine, see?” (Duncan Stevens)
RFK Jr. plans to announce the Administration’s new preferred method for pregnancy termination. (Rick Haynes, Boynton Beach, Fla.)
The Lanternfly SWAT Team will squash the enemy by any means necessary. (Jesse Frankovich)
Today’s Invitational Gene Pool Gene Poll:
(As usual, if you think others were better, yell at us in the Comments.)
The headline “See Dumb Thing, Say Dumb Thing” is by Kevin Dopart.
Still running — deadline Saturday, Nov. 8, at 9 p.m. ET: Our contests for tombstone epitaphs for the still-living. Click below for details.
Now we seamlessly segue into the Questions and Observations portion of The Gene Pool, in which Gene responds to your questions and observations. 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 ($5 a month or $50 a year) and you need to be a paying subscriber to enter the Invitational, rather than just reading the results every week and sourly deciding you could have done better and kicking the dog.
Q: Regarding the eight-year punishment meted out to a person who planned to kill Justice Kavanaugh but chickened out at the last minute and turned himself in. The words “assassination” and “Supreme Court Justice” seem to be inordinately swaying opinions here. So many of us seemed to think that eight years was an appropriate punishment. Consider an analogy.
Let’s imagine a would-be bank robber. He gets a gun and a mask and takes a cab to the bank, apparently with no thought of a getaway. The would-be robber then sees the bank guards, gets cold feet, leaves the bank and calls his sister, who talks him out of his nutty plan. On his own, he calls 911 and surrenders to police. Should this person be charged with and convicted of attempted bank robbery? If I were on the jury, I would acquit.
A: Precisely. To me, this is basically punishing a “thought crime.” You know who invented that term? George Orwell, in “1984.”
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Let’s go.
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