The Invitational Week 175: Questionable Journalism
In which we invite you to give a funnier meaning to a sentence from the news. Plus pun-filled ‘sister cities,’ Down Under edition.
Hello.
The following quote appeared in The Washington Post yesterday:
“Well, you’ll find out because I’ll let you know.”
That quote was not in answer to this question:
“What did Donald Trump say when he was asked, 'What is the meaning of truth?’ ”
In brief, that’s your new contest, which we’ll tell you about down under — down under this:
Great Barrier Riffs: ‘Joint ventures’ Down Under from Week 173
In Invitational Week 173, as part of our years-long world tour to promote world peace and prosperity and painful puns, we took our “sister cities” contest to Australia and Oceania. We asked you to find any two or more towns in the region — famed for its comical place names — and combine them to suggest a “joint venture” they could undertake. (You might not be shocked that we were pretty flexible on what counted as such a pursuit.) So each of the names strung together below — even U, a village on the Micronesian island of Pohnpei — appears on Google Maps; for example, “Yuwil-Walkaway-Ungarie” comprises towns from Papua New Guinea, Australia, and Australia. (We used this list of 28 countries and territories to work from.) Also not so shockingly, relatively few people committed the time and effort to search through all those maps — but some of them really went to town. So to speak.
Third runner-up:
Addington-Tu-Rere Butt Enhancement Surgery Center (Judy Freed, Philadelphia)
Second runner-up:
The Yuwil-Walkaway-Ungarie Parsley Festival (Jonathan Paul, Garrett Park, Md.)
First runner-up:
The Maia-Southend-Notu-Fein Hemorrhoid Sufferer Support Group (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)
And the winner of the tea candle that depicts characters from famous paintings losing their clothes as the candle burns:
The Graball-Deme-Byee-Dee-Pussy Cat Hill-Winya-Star-Dale-La-Tiua-Dewitt Southern Hemisphere Shrine to Donald J. Trump (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif,)
And now, the Invitational Gene Pool Gene Poll:
(As usual, if you think one or more of the honorable mentions below are better than these, shout out your favorites in the Comments.)
Below the Equator: Honorable mentions
The Alderley-Grampus-Iron Knob-Dutton-Wurruk Urinary Clinic (Frank Osen)
The Hellyer-Dareel-Orange-Athol Trump Impersonators’ Club (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)
The Beken-Kol Obsequious Secretarial Service (Judy Freed)
The Bigga-Para Hills Breast Enhancement Clinic (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)
The Binnaway-Tu-Long Campaign for Sentencing Reform (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)
The Hei Hei-Manly-Young-Guy Fawkes-Goode Gigolo Service (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)
The Kanpi-Nowhere Else-But-Homa Restroom Anxiety Support Group (Stu Segal, Southeast U.S.)
Bland-Ando-Verdun Hospital Menu Taste Testers (Judy Freed)
The Dona-Ita-Kalu-Mari Squid Preservation Society (Judy Freed)
The Ai-Dara-U Jackass Tournament (Gary Crockett)
Euabalong-Innamincka Furriers (Jonathan Jensen)
Iluka-Terrabella Personal Makeovers for Italians (Jonathan Jensen)
The Styx-Anda-Stones Corner Sidewalk Orthopedic Clinic (Kevin Dopart, Naxos, Greece)
Mount George-Mount Helen-Mount Ida-Mount Mitchell Bi-Friendly Sex Parties (Judy Freed)
The Mywee-Burnewang Venereal Disease Clinic (Jesse Frankovich)
The Hem-Hawor-Um Center for Hesitating Ditherers (Randy Lee, Burke, Va.)
The Seve-Ajana gender screening system for public bathrooms (Judy Freed)
The Benna-Long-Hall Rest Stop (Gary Crockett)
The Burnie-Ayr-Rheola Scratchy Shirt Store (Jesse Frankovich)
The Crackenback-Clearview Professional Association of Plumbers (Jesse Frankovich)
The Gowan-Gowang-Gonn Power Hitters Club (Jesse Frankovich)
The Greta-Gar-Bo Isolation Chamber (Gary Crockett)
The Hao-Cooma-Madang-Cockburn STD clinic (Brian Cohen, Winston-Salem, N.C.)
The Jackass Flat-Taree Institute for Presidential Praise (Jesse Frankovich)
The Ulong-Fore-Matong Oral Sex Addiction Rehab Facility (Kevin Dopart)
The Bendigo-Verran-Puke Beer Festival (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.)
The Yukan-Benmore Yoga Studio (Judy Freed)
The Ure-Mama-So Comedy Festival (Eric Nelkin, Silver Spring, Md.)
And Last: The Lottah-Punsand-Para-Dee Invitational Archives (Jesse Frankovich)
The headline “Great Barrier Riffs” is by Jesse Frankovich; Kevin Dopart wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.
New contest for Week 175: Questionable Journalism
Because we feel passionately that our society continually fails to take the time it should to willfully misinterpret news reports, we once again present this contest, which incorporates both the A&Q format of our Ask Backwards contest and the take-it-out-of-context fun of our Mess With Our Heads perennial.
For Invitational Week 175: Choose any sentence (or the major part of a sentence) from any publication (online or on paper) dated May 7-16, 2026, and follow it with a question it could comically answer, as in these inking examples from last year’s results:
Real sentence from the L.A. Times: Lance Smith, 74, stands off to the side of the bowl, a Coors Light in one hand, a Nikon camera in the other.
Q. How does the House of Representatives enforce its anti-trans bathroom ban? (Frank Osen)
A. “I may have pushed it just a tiny bit.”
Q. If he could talk, what might your cat say about the shattered wine glass on the kitchen floor? (Chris Doyle)
A. Maybe lunch.
Q. What’s there to lose by watching “Dr. Pimple Popper”? (Chris Doyle)
The sentence may be from an article or ad. New for 2026: You may use a headline if it reads like a sentence, i.e., it doesn’t omit articles, verbs, etc. Tell us the name and date of the publication the sentence comes from; if it’s online, include a link to the webpage.
IMPORTANT FORMATTING DIRECTIONS! Even though we’ll be printing the A’s and Q’s in two lines as above, please DO NOT break your entry into two or more lines; i.e., don’t push Enter until the end of each entry. Just write the “answer” followed by the question, and even the URL of the webpage, all on one line.
Then hit Enter and a space or two before your next entry. Otherwise, they’re going to break in half and they absolutely will not be very funny that way.
Deadline is Saturday, May 16, 2026, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, May 21. 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-175.
This week’s winner gets this useful bumper sticker, one of which adorns the Empress’s own vehicle. It’s allegedly peel-off, but if you don’t want to risk messing up your car, just use your own phone booth.
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.
Still running — deadline Saturday, May 9, at 9 p.m. ET: It’s our annual “grandfoals” spinoff of our horse name “breeding” contest. 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, to Ye Olde Mailbagge:
And last, if you have not already done so, please consider becoming a paying subscriber to The Gene Pool. 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 family dog cat hamster bunny potbelly pig. weasel. sea monkey. giant squid.
Q: I really liked your funny eulogy for John Sterling, the THUUUH Yankees win! guy. I think you should have made more of his bloopers, for which he is famous.
A: Oh, I mentioned them, but I could have done more with it. After I published, I remembered one of his most spectacular gaffes, which I heard as it happened and nearly ate the pen I was chewing. It came after a home run by Hideki Matsui, the splendid Yankees left fielder from Japan. After the blast, Sterling went into one of his patented home run calls — he had a different one for each player — but got mixed up. What popped into his head, for some reason, was his call for Alex Rodriguez, which was “An A-bomb! From A-Rod!”
What came out was, “An A-bomb! From, uh, Matsui!”
(I’m sure that went over big in Hiroshima.)
And in the Comments, Jeff Tiedrich reminded us of something:
“There is in fact a blog titled ‘It is high, It is far, It is caught!’ ” and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it’s still active.
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Q: Regarding your “two weeks” observation about Trump, I would imagine a man of your worldliness knows that two weeks was the answer Tom Hanks got from the contractor whenever he asked when his house would be finished in “The Money Pit.” I also imagine, although I have no direct experience, that two weeks is a common answer in that industry and thus was an inside joke. I further imagine (my imagination is on fire today) that Trump used that phrase a lot in his real estate days.
A: Cops have something like that. They joke about the answer they always get when they stop a car because it was driving erratically. They ask the driver, “Sir, have you been drinking?” The answer, from the guilty, is always the same: “Just a coupla beers.”
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Q: Regarding your treatise on Jeeps and ducks, I have to inform you, as someone who has driven 48,000 miles the last two years with a wife who checks every Jeep for dashboard ducks, more Jeeps in America have ducks than not. Honest.
A: So I have been robustly informed. It’s even more versatile and ubiquitous. See next post.
Q: Found a little rubber duck on a cruise ship. Weird. Discovered it’s a tradition. People hide them. Other people find them. Get cheered up. Re-hide them.
Turns out there are a number of cruise ship passenger traditions ... like the upside down pineapple sign on a cabin door. (I'll let you look it up and be surprised like me.)
Robert
A: I was, indeed surprised. I urge the Googling.
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Q: Regarding your calls for things that seemed spooky and turned out to have a more normal explanation:
My Subaru hatchback was parked in a wide open parking lot where I worked. I had had a spare tire patched earlier that day, and the tire was place in the uncovered rear storage space. When I returned to my car after work, 5:00 PM, I noticed some damage to my car. The rearview mirror had been ripped off and found lying on the passenger seat, several strips of interior trim in the rear were torn off, and there was a large straight-line gash in the spare tire. I assumed a random act of violence, and filed a report as such. I questioned the ballsiness of anyone going to the trouble of slashing a spare tire and ripping off random trim, midday, in full view of the office windows above. The next day, I realized what must have happened. [PAUSE HERE WHILE YOU GUESS]
It was a 90-degree plus afternoon. The interior of the car must have reached well over 100. The repaired tire was fully or maybe over-inflated, and burst in the high heat, causing the interior damage.
A: Thank you.
We’re done for the day.
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Kudos to all the entrants. Word play like this truly brightens my day.
It is definitely a Frankovich kind of contest and I really liked Burnie-Ayr-Rheola Scratchy Shirt Store and
The Crackenback-Clearview Professional Association of Plumbers