The Invitational Week 15: The Very Last 'Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions'

Plus: What would be even worse than a second T-Rump presidency?

I just want to say right here that at 71, I just realized why “toadstools” are funny, a slap-to-the-forehead revelation. They look like little stools for toads! Most of you probably figured this out at age 7. This might be a good time to purchase The Gene Pool for very little money.

Meanwhile, today’s Invitational is in memorial to Al Jaffee, the Mad Magazine cartoonist who died this week at the fearsome age of 102. Al created the Mad back-page fold-in, but even more importantly, he created the “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions” feature, one example of which we link to here.

You get to do them. This week. We won’t repeat this contest, to honor Al. It’s the last one: For Week 15, tell us a stupid question followed by a funny retort. All truly stupid questions and truly snappy answers will be considered. Here’s an example, mined from an upcoming Barney & Clyde comic strip, in honor of Al, written by the brilliant Horace LaBadie: A cartoon of a man on fire, running down the hall, with a bystander asking if he needed help: “No, I am reenacting Prometheus bringing fire to the human race.” Try to beat that.

Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to bit.ly/inv-form-15. Please read the EZ formatting directions on the form, so we also don’t have to blahblah them here. 

Deadline is 4 p.m. ET Saturday, April 22. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, April 27.

This week’s winner gets almost a whole page of tiny “I Pooped Today” stickers for proudly posting on one’s medical calendar,  classified document, forehead, etc.   Acquired in the Buy Nothing giveaway group by Daphne Steinberg.

Win this week’s contest and remind yourself of your accomplishments.

The results of Week 13 are below, but first, two paragraphs of boring but necessary boilerplate:

After the intro (which you are reading now), there will be some early questions and answers  added on –  and then I'll keep adding them as the hour progresses and your fever for my opinions grows and multiplies and metastasizes.  To see those later Q&As,  just refresh your screen every once in a while. 

As always, you can also leave comments. They’ll congregate at the bottom of the post, and allow you to annoy and hector each other and talk mostly amongst yourselves. Though we will stop in from time to time.

‘Vitemares: Worse-than-Trump scenarios from Week 13

In Week 13 we asked for “what might be worse than another Trump presidency.” Many Losers suggested that it would be a Trump Jr. presidency.

Alert: It seems that two people sent in full lists of the maximum 25 entries with the obliging assistance of ChatGPT. Only one of them told us he was doing so. The ruse was obvious, for reasons we do not wish to disclose because we wish, in the future, to be able to identify ChatGPT miscreants and banish them forever for doing this un-announced. The two sets of entries, while consisting of all different scenarios, were clearly written by the same “person.” Nothing in either long list was remotely funny.

We’re telling you now in a very stern, schoolmarmish voice: Don’t send us AI-aided entries. For one thing, they suck. For another, you suck for doing it.

New results, all from human brains: The few few things worse than a second Trump presidency:

Third runner-up: Mitch McConnell discovers the secret of eternal life. (Diana Oertel, San Francisco) 

Second runner-up: The CDC now declares that when two people greet each other, instead of bumping elbows they should each sniff the other’s butt. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.) 

First runner-up: The truth is found to be lies, all the joy within you dies, and you need somebody to love. But the only option is Marjorie Taylor Greene. (Steve Smith, Potomac, Md.) 

And the winner of the Dilbert pencils: Existence of the afterlife is proven beyond doubt, but we’re it. (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.) 

Not the Worst: Honorable Mentions

A giant asteroid is headed for a direct collision with Earth – timed to strike a week before the last episode drops of “The White Lotus 3.” (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.) 

A chain reaction unravels the very fabric of the space-time continuum and destroys the entire universe when the egg becomes more expensive than the chicken.  (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.) 

After a mutation, the U.S. is beset by murder-and-arson hornets. (Jon Carter, Fredericksburg, Va.) 

Alexa goes rogue.  With a trove of “intimate” recordings, she blackmails millions into signing up for Amazon Groceries, Amazon Pharmacy, and the new Amazon Jelly of the Day. (Jon Carter) 

The British invade the U.S. and insist on quartering their troops in our houses—all because we’re too woke to arm enough teens with AR-15s. (Jon Carter)

An allergy that makes your head swell whenever you get sexually aroused, causing blood to squirt out of your eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. (Jon Gearhart,  Des Moines)

A masturbation tax. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.) 

A mystery bacterium causes all paper currency to disintegrate at the same time that electronic financial networks collapse, and all transactions from groceries to mortgages must be paid in pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.) 

A pandemic of a deadly flesh-eating virus causes one’s body to smell like Limburger cheese as it rots away, and the only way to gain immunity is to breathe in a dying victim’s last fart.  (Tom Witte) 

Due to climate change, the molecular structure of chocolate is altered in such a way that it now tastes like black licorice. (Lee Graham, Reston, Va.)  

Burglars break into your house and replace all of your clothing with knockoffs. – Chiara Ferragni, Milan (Jon Gearhart) 

During his second term, Trump presides shirtless on horseback. (Jesse Frankovich)  

The StarKist Sushi drive-thrus become the best Japanese restaurants in North America. (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.) 

Flat-Earthers turn out to have been right all along as cats start pushing everybody over the planet’s edge. (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.) 

Food crops everywhere start to fail, until the only vegetable farmers can grow worldwide is skunk cabbage. (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)    

God speaks to the world and affirms that fundamentalist Christians are accurate in everything they say.  And then He smites all blasphemers. (Neal Starkman, Seattle) 

As the wave of conservative-inspired deregulation continues, cigar smoking is allowed on airplanes. (Jeff Hazle, San Antonio)   

In retaliation for being scapegoated over covid-19, the world’s bats, pangolins, and raccoon dogs go on a global rampage. (Jon Carter) 

Robocallers gain the ability to make your phone battery explode if you don’t pick up by the fifth ring. (Sam Mertens) 

Ron DeSantis becomes the Librarian of Congress, emptying bookshelves and turning the Reading Room into a pro wrestling ring. (Leif Picoult) 

The biggest new TikTok challenge is putting on funny pajamas, setting fire to your own house, and mocking the timeliness of the fire department’s response.  (Jon Carter) 

The Constitution is rewritten by the same people who write cellphone agreements. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.) 

The country’s population of feral pigs explodes when they develop a taste for human flesh. (Chris Doyle) 

Genetically engineered indestructible rat-cockroaches escape from a Wuhan lab.   (Kevin Dopart) 

The Supreme Court rules that Americans have a constitutional right to open-carry rocket-propelled grenades, even if they’re legally blind. (Chris Doyle) 

The U.N. officially designates the United States a shithole country. (Duncan Stevens) 

Congress votes to make daylight-saving time occur every month—ahead 10 minutes each in March, April, May, June, July, and August, then back 10 minutes each in September, October, November, December, January, and February.  (Neal Starkman) 

When the next session of the Supreme Court begins, eagle-eyed observers note that Justice Sotomayor has been secretly replaced by Ginni Thomas. (Sam Mertens) 

Your ex-lover’s description of your genitalia has some even less flattering vegetable comparisons than “mushroom.” (Duncan Stevens) 

The headline “’Vitemares” is by Mark Raffman; Kevin Dopart wrote the honorable-mentions subhead. 

Still running – deadline 4 p.m. Saturday, April 15: Our Week 14 contest for neologisms using the letter in The New York Times’s Spelling Bee game. Click here or type in bit.ly/inv-week-14. 

Banter and share humor with the Losers and the Empress in the Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook; join (tell them you came from The Gene Pool) and the Devs will anagram your name every which way. And see more than 1,000 classic Invite entries in graphic form, also on FB, at Style Invitational Ink of the Day.

You need to be a paid subscriber to The Gene Pool to enter the Invitational. Sign up (just $5/month or $50/year for an Invitational plus a second Gene column every week) at GeneWeingarten.substack.com.

Now, your questions and Gene’s answers.

Q: Are you a jerk?

A: Yes, in most senses. But I genuinely love certain people, with depth and passion and generosity and vulnerability, so you have to be the judge. But probably, yes.

Q: Do you believe in an afterlife?

A: Yes, but I feel it is awkward. We all have to walk around like Donald Duck, with a shirt but no pants. Genitalia exposed. And we poop in the street.

TIMELY TIP: If you're reading this right now on an email:   Click here to get to my webpage, then click on the top headline (In this case, “The Invitational Week 15…”) for my full column, and comments, and real-time questions and answers. And you can refresh and see new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post from about noon to 1 ET.

Q: What is your favorite food? 

A: I like raw fish and seafood.   Also, offal, like chitlins.    I don’t like normal things, in general. 

Q: Have you ever punched a person? 

A: No, but I was punched.   Once.   It was the day after the MLK murder and I was walking in the Bronx with my friend Steve Zelman.   We were set upon by a group of five or six kids.  It was kinda dramatic.  You go unconscious for a second before you hit the ground.  And the kids were white.  I have no idea what it was all about.  They stole nothing.  We had nothing to steal. 

Q: Do you and The Empress  have a romantic relationship?

A: Only about humor, but it is wildly passionate and frankly overwhelming.  

Q: What is your least favorite word? 

“A: ‘Reportedly.”  

Q: Do you dream about women? 

A: Yes but mostly about one woman.   It’s not usually sexual.  It is usually banal.   Which is, in a way, sexual.  I am obsessed by one woman.  I do believe that is the natural order of things.

Q: Can you explain the meaning of life?

A: Not as well or as concisely as as Kafka did. “The meaning of life is that it ends. “

Q: What would be the most embarrassing thing you would ever have to do?

A: Probably dance in public. Like to “The Time of My Life.,” from Dirty Dancing, and I had to hoist a gorgeous young woman and stay erect, as it were.

Q: When will you die?

A: On October 7, 2029. If this turns out to be true, this will be the most famous online post in history.

Q: Do you regret anything you ever did?

A: Only stating that I do not like Indian curry. It was a terrible mistake for which I am currently committing suicide.

Q: Who is your favorite American Secretary of State?

A: I would answer this but I have committed suicide.

Q: Hi Gene, it’s your old chum Chris Doyle. What do you think of this recipe I wrote?

Title: Gene Weingarten's Amusingly Awful Pie

Ingredients:

1 package (14.3 oz) chocolate sandwich cookies, crushed (for extra disgustingness, choose the most off-brand cookies you can find)

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk

1 cup pickle juice (dill or sweet, depending on your desired level of disgust)

1 cup canned sauerkraut, drained and chopped

1 cup canned anchovies, drained and chopped

1/4 cup prepared yellow mustard

1/4 cup ketchup

2 cups whipped topping, thawed (the cheaper and more artificial, the better)

1/4 cup crushed garlic cloves

1/4 cup chopped pickled jalapenos

1/4 cup chopped onions

1/4 cup blue cheese crumbles

1/2 cup gummy worms, for garnish (optional)

Instructions:

In a large bowl, combine the crushed chocolate sandwich cookies and melted butter. Press the mixture into the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie dish. Place the dish in the refrigerator to set for 30 minutes.

In another large bowl, mix together the sweetened condensed milk, pickle juice, sauerkraut, anchovies, mustard, and ketchup. Stir until the mixture is well combined and has a uniform, nauseating color.

Carefully fold in the whipped topping, garlic, pickled jalapenos, onions, and blue cheese crumbles into the mixture. Be sure to mix gently to avoid deflating the whipped topping.

Pour the disgusting filling into the chilled pie crust, smoothing the top with a spatula.

Refrigerate the pie for at least 3 hours, or until it's set and firm enough to hurl at Gene Weingarten's face.

When the pie is ready, garnish the top with gummy worms, if desired, for an extra touch of repulsiveness.

Grab a camera, because you're not going to want to miss capturing the moment this abomination of a pie meets its ultimate fate in the face of an amused Gene Weingarten.

A: Okay, I am laffing. but FUD is a brilliant addition to the world of intellect.

I am calling this GenePool down, but keep sending in questions and comments. I promise to answer some as though I am still alive.