The Invitational Week 17: The Poops Diorama

Make some funny art with toilet paper, and send us a photo. Plus winning Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions

But first, a simple one-question Gene Pool Gene Poll.

That’s it. Now, The Invitational:

In May 2021, The Invitational put forth its homage (or perhaps ummm-age) to The Washington Post’s annual Peeps diorama contest (whose results now run exclusively on TikTok) by asking the Loser Community to create art with the most timely of media: real cicadas, which at the time were in the midst of their every-17-year takeover of the D.C. area, covering the ground with millions of molted exoskeletons to a 24/7 screech-buzz. The contest results were positively Loserly, a delightful mix of gross-out and punning on the “Brood X” onslaught. The winner: “Et Tu, Brood X” by Invite Hall of Famer Kevin Dopart and his wife, Deborah Hensley. (That’s a piece of dill serving as the laurel wreath of Julius Cicada, and a piece of cocktail spear for the dagger.)

The cicadas won’t be back en masse till 2039, but Kevin’s suggested another idea for this year’s photo contest: For Week 17, send us a picture of a witty visual artwork that you have made using toilet paper (in rolls or sheets) and/or their cardboard cores, decorated as you like with other materials, backgrounds, etc. (but not with photo editing). You could even turn the TP into papier-mâché. You can submit as many as 10 photos (even 10 artworks!); feel free to submit two or more photos of your creation from different angles, if that helps us see it better.

Remember that we’re a humor contest and especially value humor (duh), wordplay, and/or topicality. For example, a lovely flower expertly folded from a length of Cottonelle wouldn’t be right for The Invitational: It has to be humorous as well as well crafted. Here are some examples of well-crafted TP art on the web featuring tube creatures and devilishly ornamented whole rolls. (And we can see this becoming the standard warning: Don’t use AI. Use your own hands.)

If you live in the D.C. area — or would like to visit on Saturday afternoon, May 20 — we’d love you to show your inking creations IRL at the Flushies, the Losers’ annual awards potluck. See your personal invitation — yes, even for you — about how to join us (even without toilet paper art in hand).

Here’s one more winner, from a 2018 Invite photo contest, to put googly eyes on something. See, you don’t have to be a master craftsman if you’re a master wordsmith.

Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to bit.ly/inv-form-17. Please read the formatting directions on the form, including what to do if your photos refuse to load to the form. 

We’re going to give you as long as we possibly can to do this contest: Deadline is noon ET on Monday, May 8. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, May 11. You need to be a paying subscriber to The Gene Pool to enter; sign up (just $5 for a month or $50/year) at the “subscribe” box above.

This week’s winner gets an excellent pair of bacon-and-eggs socks: one sock bacon, one sock egg. If you keep kosher, just wear one sock. If you win and come to the Flushies, the Czar and Empress will also bestow upon you an autographed roll of toilet paper.

If you wear them while walking on a really hot sidewalk …

The results of Week 15 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 Gene will keep adding them as the hour progresses and your fever for his opinions grows and multiplies and metastasizes.  To see those later Q&As, 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.

Badaskery: Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions from Week 15

In Week 15 The Invitational honored the great Al Jaffee of Mad Magazine, who’d died that week at age 102, with a contest about one of his trademark features, Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions. 

Third runner-up: (On Zoom) Am I on mute?
Yes.  But thanks to your telepathic skills, we can hear your question. (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)  

Second runner-up: Are you the chef?
No, I’m wearing this big white toque to cover the hatchet buried in my skull.  (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore) 

First runner-up:  (In an offended voice) Do you know who I am?
Don’t worry, amnesia is usually temporary. (Jeff Goldberg, Washington, D.C., a First Offender)   

And the winner of the sheet of “I Pooped Today” calendar stickers;

Cutting your grass, huh?
No, just taking my lawnmower-shaped goat out for a graze. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)   

Sass-fail: Honorable Mentions 

Did you get a haircut?
No, I’m training it to retract when stupid people approach. (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines) 

Are you all waiting to use the restroom?  
No, we’re here to guard the door while you go.  (Jonathan Jensen) 

Officer: Do you know how fast you were going?
Driver: What do I win if I get it right?  (Michael Stein, Arlington, Va.) 

Does this dress make me look fat? 
No, just big-boned. (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)

Are you lost?
No, I know exactly where I am, except somebody went and rearranged all the buildings and streets.  (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)

Is that what you’re wearing?
No, that's what you’re wearing – I’m wearing a mirror. (Jon Gearhart) 

Are you expecting?
No, I smuggle beagles.   (Barbara Turner, Takoma Park, Md.) 

Are you expecting?
Yes, I’m expecting another few months of rude questions. (Jonathan Jensen)

Can I ask you a question?
Success!  You must be so proud.  (Kevin Dopart) 

Cop: Do you know how fast you were going?
Driver: Apparently, not fast enough. That’s why you caught up to me.  (Frank Mann, Washington, D.C.)  

Do you want the extended warranty on the toaster?
Oh, sure – I’ll have such peace of mind knowing that if my $15 toaster is damaged, I won’t have to borrow my friend’s pickup truck to bring it to the toaster repair facility. (Jon Carter, Fredericksburg, Va.) 

Local TV reporter to teenage girls entering an arena: Are you excited to be seeing Taylor Swift?
What? We’re here for the Brookings Institution's policy discussion on reforming federal procurement and acquisition policies! (Mike Gips, Bethesda, Md.) 

Have you heard the Good News?
If it’s that you're leaving my porch, then yes. (Jon Gearhart) 

Hey babe, are you a Ginger or a Mary Ann?
Are you a Fred Flintstone or a Barney Rubble? (Karen Lambert, Chevy Chase, Md.) 

Oh, is that your baby?
Well, he is since I kidnapped him. (Neal Starkman, Seattle) 

Was I driving too fast, officer?
No, I pulled you over because you haven’t changed your dashboard clock to daylight-saving time.  (Jonathan Jensen) 

Were you sleeping?
No, I was dead. Thanks for resurrecting me.  (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.) 

You’re soooo tall.  Do you play basketball?
No, I prefer to munch leaves off tree branches before I go to work as the mascot for Toys R Us.  (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.) 

Working hard or hardly working?
Both: I’m being unproductive and I have a huge erection.  (Jeff Contompasis)

Are you working hard?
No, this is America – that's a gun in my pocket.  (Kevin Dopart)

Are you still showering?
No, I’m sending sweat upward into this newfangled vacuum. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)

Did you push the button?
No, my appointment’s not till tomorrow –  I just want to be first in line for the elevator. (Jon Gearhart)

Did you get your nose pierced? 
No, I had my pimple bronzed. (Barbara Turner)

Have you looked everywhere for it?
Well, not everywhere, but I figured it wouldn't be in the stash of vodka in your desk drawer. (Karen Lambert)

Interviewer:  How did it feel just now to win the World Series? 
Dunno. Still numb from all the steroids. (Rob Cohen, Potomac, Md.)

Is my leaf blower bothering you? 
No, I’m wearing these industrial sound-blockers in case a 747 needs to make an emergency landing on our street. (Perry Beider, Silver Spring, Md.)

(To flight attendant) Are we landing?
No, we've run out of fuel. Care for some more coffee before we hit the ground? (Jonathan Jensen,)

Are we there yet?
Yes, but we just kept driving because we like to hear you whine. (Lee Graham, Reston, Va.)

Are you going to eat that?
No, I'm going to engulf it with one of my pseudopods and absorb it. (Kevin Dopart)

Doing some push-ups?
No, I’m trying to nudge the earth back onto its axis. (Leif Picoult)

Cop: do you know why I pulled you over?
Because you saw me eating a donut? (Frank Mann)

Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?
Yes, but she hates it when I use too much tongue. (Lee Graham)

Do you know what she had the nerve to say to me? 
I’m guessing it wasn’t “Please don’t bother others with our trivial drama.” (Jon Carter)

Ooh, does that poison ivy itch? 
No, I’m just using my skin to file my fingernails. (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)

There’s a cop behind me – should I pull over?
No, I’m sure he turned his lights on to applaud the witty social commentary of your “F the Police” bumper sticker. (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)

To husband putting on tie and jacket:  Oh, are you going out?
No, going to bed — all my pajamas are in the wash. (Rob Cohen)

And Last: Are you that Jeff Contompasis of Ashburn? 
No, I'm the other Jeff Contompasis of Ashburn.  That Jeff Contompasis is really annoying because he thinks he's soooo funny. (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn)

The headline “Badaskery” is by Tom Witte; Jesse Frankovich wrote the honorable-mentions subhead. 

Still running – deadline 4 p.m. Saturday, April 29: Our Week 16 contest to “breed” two racehorses’ names to name a “foal” that refers humorously to both names. Click here or type in bit.ly/inv-week-16. 

See more about The Invitational, including our 2,000-member Facebook group and our podcast.

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Now, your questions and Gene’s answers.

But first, an observation:

The story of Solomon and the two moms is ridiculous.  Why would the bogus mom agree to have the baby cut in half?   No one wants half a baby.  This is a baby she wants, enough to lie. She doesn’t want it dead. Both women would have said no, and then where would Sol be?   

Here’s an ancient Indian version that makes much more sense:  Similar setup, but the wise man announced a tug of war, drawing a line on the ground and asking the two to stand on opposite sides of it, one holding the baby’s feet, the other his hands – the one who pulled the baby’s whole body beyond the line would get to keep him. The mother, seeing how the baby suffered, let go of him and, weeping, released the kid to the other woman. And then the wise man awarded the child to the weeping woman, for the same reason.  

So:

Q: Would you eat a baby for a billion dollars?

A: Yes, but it would have to be an already deceased baby.

(This reminds me of a joke I can never tell.)

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 17…”) 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.

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When. I sent out the calls this morning for questions, I proposed a theme: Times that you were humiliated. So far, two have come in that were excellent. Here they come.

Q: Something embarrassing?  Sure?  This really happened.  In college, I was dating a young lady who I'll call Tara; that's because her name was Tara.  She was pretty, funny, affectionate.  You get the idea.  So we make a date for a Sunday evening, and she tells me she has plans for earlier in the day, and might be a bit late.  I arrive at her house, where I'm met by her dad, who never liked me, for some reason.  He tells me she's on a date, but she's supposed to be back any time, to go out with me.  But she never arrives, and I depart , like a schlub.  Is that a real word?  And I get no call, no apology, no nothing.  Oh yeah, and her stupid dog bit me when I was getting back in my car.  I have no idea what happened to her,  and really don't care, although I would like to meet her again, just to tell her, "I never really liked you anyway."  Or something like that.  The end.

A: This was only a good story, not a great one, until the dog bit you.  

Q: My children's hippie-dippy school had a principal who was widely beloved but I found that she was all lip service and no action. When she retired, I was relieved and loved the new principal. At a school event, I was telling a friend how much I appreciated the new person and how I had never liked the beloved woman and found her largely incompetent. and then my friend's expression of horror alerted me to the fact that she was right behind me. I still completely cringe at this. And I wish I could say it was the only time it happened. 

A: My most embarrassing moment in a school came in college.  I had “taken” a class in (I think) architecture, not because I cared about architecture, but because the course didn’t take attendance and your grade relied solely on a final paper. I could write papers.  I never went to class, not once.   I wrote a pretty damn good paper at the end of the year, and simply had to deliver it.  I walked into the building and asked the first adult I saw where I could Doctor Kang to deliver a paper.  He said, “I am Dr. Kang.”  I didn’t just get that F, I earned that F. 

Q: uggy1: Why doesn’t my car get clean when I drive through a rain storm?

A:  Because rain generally does not fall with a grease-cutting agent included.  Grease is what holds dirt. 

Sudden Gene Pool Gene Poll:

 Q: Something I 've been hearing lately in conversations is "...also, too...". What's your take on it?

A: Like you, I also too dislike it.  You know what weirds me out?  The very common modern sentence that begins “Yeah, no.”  It’s kind of elegant in a way, because I get what it means – “yes, I hear you, but no, I disagree.”   I initially didn’t love “I was, like,...”  but came to appreciate it.  It shortens, “I said something to the effect of…”  Maybe “also, too” will grow on me also too. 

Q: Do old people have sex?

A: I’ll find out when I become an old person in about 12 years. 

Q: Gene, please comment on this.   It’s quite a remarkable story about eating poop. 

A: I am glad you asked.  It took a while, but I believe I set this in motion with this old column, one of my favorites of all time.   Please take a moment to read it.   

Q: Look what I came across in a Kentucky shop yesterday. https://photos.app.goo.gl/5xxrPksGJvGng5Ps9

A: I’m sure you bought it.  

Q: Kinda sad that wiocaHa never really took hold."

A:   It is.  It’s a term I invented in 2016 in a chat, suggesting that whenever anyone refers to Donald Trump, they parenthetically add that acronym, which means “Who is, of course a HUGE a-hole.”  Some people do use it, but not that many.

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Q: Gene, I am your age as of Easter of this year and I have a question for you: What part of your body does NOT hurt? –RLP

A: I have never had significant elbow pain.  

Q: Do I have a dirty mind or it the solution to rack AEOMDNB of the 4/18/2023 ScrabbleGrams puzzle really, heh-heh, BEDMOAN?

A: That was the real answer. 

You believed me for a moment, admit it.

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Q: Gene --- Italy may become the first country to ban the production and marketing of cultivated meat—meat grown from stem cells in a bioreactor—and is considering another on insect-based protein. The whole issue of cultivated meat, of course, has a climate consideration, with animal agriculture being one of the worst climate offenders, responsible for an estimated 14% of global carbon emissions.  What say you about meatless meat ? Have you personally tried it ? 

A: I have had the impossible burger, and don’t like it yet, but I am a big proponent of meatless meat.  The science is proceeding swiftly, led by my friend Bruce Friedrich at the Good Food Institute – they are working with meat cultivated from animal cells (in other words, real meat but no animals were harmed.)  I once asked Bruce – who is a vegan – if he would eat meat from a genetically engineered headless cow, and he said yes.  It’s all about pain and mistreatment.

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Q: When and why did "impact" come to replace "affect" and sometimes "effect"? I'd always thought impact was a noun, and used in (deponent) verb form only as past participle involving toenails or wisdom teeth. Do you find this recent explosion of impact intolerably annoying?

A: It was roughly the time “contact” suffered the same fate, and that was 1956. Identical situation. Contact had been a noun – make contact – and suddenly it became a verb.     I know that from this passage from the 1956 Nero Wolfe novel “Might as Well be dead, in the voice of narrator Archie Goodwin.  The first speaker was a client of Wolfe’s. : 

“About a month ago I put ads in the New York papers, and I contacted the New York police, and—What’s the matter?” 

“Nothing,” Wolfe said, “Go on.” 

It was not nothing. Wolfe had made a face … One man who had made “contact” a verb in that office had paid an extra thousand bucks for the privilege, though he hadn’t known it. 

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Q: What was your first job and what did you learn from it?  

A: My first job was in college.  It lasted one day.  I learned I was an incompetent ice-cream-cone filler.  My second job was also in college.  I was a mailman.   In the beginning i was really slow on my route: You have to learn the names. People were pissed  Then I got faster, as fast as the regulars who I was filling in for while on vacation.  Then I got even faster, and completed my route an hour or two more quickly than the regulars.  I realized they were deliberately dawdling to extend their day – this was a time-card culture.   From that I learned that adults could be assholes. 

Q: What have you learned at a late age that you should have known long before? 

A: Many involve technology, and they are embarrassing .    A few years ago, shortly after getting an iPhone I needed to see a time stamp on a text, and had no idea how to do it.  I was in a restaurant, so I went to a table of young people who were talking and drinking animatedly.  I walked up and shouted over the din, asking for time stamp help.  A young woman looked briefly up took my phone and did that slidey-thing to the text and handed it back to me.  Took five seconds, during which time she never stopped talking to her friends. ,   But just yesterday, I learned something for the first time, at 71:  How to make the voices on the phone louder .  i know you all know, but I didn’t.  I knew you can make the ring louder with that simple button on the side, but it did nothing for the loudness of the phone.  Then I looked it up.  If you use that button while on the phone, it does that. 

Q: Where is your dignity? 

A: I ate it years ago.  It was a little wooden, but delicious.    

Q: So, the shape of my poop has changed. It used to be one log-like piece. Now, it is several skinny pieces, kind of like skinny round strips. Dr. Internet tells me I may have colon/rectal/anal cancer, but I had a colonoscopy last year and it was normal. This has been happening for several months. Am I dying of cancer? Side note...I really hope submissions are still anonymous. 

A: They are.  It’s probably nothing, and I realize this is awful advice, but you might see a doctor, who might order another colonoscopy.  I say this because one of the few things on which proctologists agree is that “pencil poops” are often the sign of cancer.  Of course they also say that black tarry poops are often a sign of bleeding – but often they are not.  

Q: Why do you hate chatgpt? And what will you do to people who use it in the future? Eternal banishment to the sun or just public shaming?

A: Don’t hate it,, but hate it when people use it to enter the Invitational, for obvious reasons.  Even  when they say they do, the joke is wearing thin.  

Q: I wrote earlier about getting a second booster before a trip to Europe. Like you, I did so. And like you, I caught Covid. It took me three years. The case is mild, but I do feel excessively run-down. My mom also got her second case, which was also mild. Anyhow, now I wonder if we learned the wrong lesson from your example. Cann you email Fauci again?  

A: On the contrary,  your story confirms my guess.  I didn’t say you wouldn’t get it.  I got it.  Rachel got it.  I predicted the symptoms would be uncommonly mild. 

Q: I've been told that you're public affairs adverse (like Loser parties), which I find difficult to believe.  Were you scared by something when you were 3?  I hope not.  Is it the moustache?  That is, are you afraid of having it damaged/mutilated/ruined by some unexpected happenstance, like a crazed barber? 

A: Believe it or not, I am painfully, almost dysfunctionally shy.  I dealt with it by entering a profession in which you cannot be shy, meaning I have been living a lie for 50 years.  That lie disintegrates at a party, when I am a guest, not a journalist.

Q:Perhaps in part because I’m a former flautist, I’ve always been fascinated by the opposite-end musical accomplishments of the consummate flatulist, Le Petomane.  What might be the best way for the community of Invitationalists to honor his memorable achievements?

A: Seems to me The Gene Pool honors the great work of The Fartiste nearly ever day.

Q: I'm afraid to look in a dictionary to see what the 1st definition for 'misnomer' is. Seems most people are treating it as a synonym for 'misconception.' AAARGH.

A: I looked for ya.  We’re still safe.  For the moment.  

Q: You mentioned around the publication of "One Day" that there was some sort of message or pattern hidden within the text that no one had yet identified. Would you be willing to share what it was and why you wanted to include it?

A: I would share it if I could remember it.  The book was published in 2019.  Nobody can remember back that far.  I do know it was subtle and thematic.  Sorry.  

Q: Just reporting in. Was at the gym this morning and I observed lots of VPL. This was a great topic of the old chat. I hope you haven’t matured enough not to have a comment 

A: VPL always fascinated me because men love it and women hate it.  I figured if men loved it, women would love it for that reason alone.  I totally misunderstood, because I misunderstood women.   I polled men and women on this and discovered what was going on:.  Men love it because they are pigs and VPL frames the contours of derrieres.  Women hate it because they don’t dress for men – they dress for women, and women think it’s sloppy.  

Q: Hey Gene, here's a question. See this recent story in the WaPo: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/03/24/stolen-dog-reunion-district-heights/. The article says that the dog was "let out in the gated backyard to use the bathroom." Now clearly there is no doggie bathroom in the backyard. Do we really need this euphemism when we all know what the dog was doing?

A: I really hate this, almost as much as I hate “the dog was put to sleep.”   The dog relieved himself.  The dog died.  Newspapers are often guilty of mannered euphemism.  None is quite as bad as the obits – usually paid – that note the deceased “returned to the loving arms of Jesus.”  Sure, it’s a family written obit, and they are entitled to whatever mythologies they believe, but newspapers still need to exert some editorial control over what is printed – they do on advertisements, why not obits?  You probably disagree. 

Q: What's the point of the divide between "questions" and "comments" during the chat hour?

A: Comments are mostly you guys talking among yourselves; when Pat or I enter it, it’s usually tersely. And it is seldom raising questions, it’s mostly observations.    Your questions get much more attention from me, and much more voluminous answers, largely because I answer many in advance.  You guys participate in both; if questions ever fell  off dramatically, I’d consider eliminating them and going to an all-comment format; comments serve a purpose, and readers seem, in general, to prefer them.

Hey, I’m calling us down. Please keep sending in questions and comments. I will respond on Tuesday.

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