The Invitational Week 27: Their Base Behavior

How might companies pander to T's mob? Plus neologism winners.

Where do you buy a monocle? At the foptician, of course. It’s among the dozens of of F-word neologism winners below in this week’s Invitational results. (Pictured: British statesman Joseph Chamberlain, father of Neville, via Wikipedia)

Hello. Today we deliver you The Invitational, Week 27, which features the abominable Donald Trump, plus the Ffrankovichean results of Week Twenty-Ffive, but as always we will first make a startling and technically impermissible digression into The Gene Pool Gene Poll. Presented right after Independence Day, it’s about the ugliest flags in the world. “Ugly” is a complex and subjective word to use about a flag — it may include factors such color and design, silliness, incomprehensibility, bloodthirstiness, inability to be easily drawn by school kids, whatever you think are appropriate criteria. Here are your choices:

A: The flag of Haiti.

B: The flag of Tampa

C: The flag of Uganda

D: The flag of Maryland

E: The flag of Calgary, Alberta

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And now, The Invitational, Week 27: We Go Low

“Jeopardy!” would include a swimsuit competition. 

John Deere could introduce a special bird-killing windmill for farmers. 

Sharpie would issue a line of map-correction markers. 

This week’s contest is based on a political phenomenon squatting all around us like  warty gargoyles.  Many Republican politicians seem to be convinced that their futures remain tied to Donald Trump; that, despite his vileness, crudeness, ineptitude, illegalities, fecklessness, recklessness, squamousness, pettiness, venality, licentiousness, sebaceous personal preferences and pecadilloes, and bizarre notions about how the world works, they must not only not disavow him, but must even praise and emulate him, to hang on to his “base.” The whole thing has been almost entertaining to watch; they’re like parents making excuses for why it’s okay that little Billy eats bugs and pigeon poop off the sidewalk.  Perhaps it’s only a matter of time before other organizations — businesses and other entities worldwide — take the same rusty tack Trumpward.

For Week 27: Tell humorously how some business or organization could alter its product or message to appeal to Trump’s cult, as in the examples above.

Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to bit.ly/inv-form-27. As usual, you can submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same entry form. There’s no special formatting this week except the usual request not to break up any individual entry with a line break (i.e., don’t push Enter within a single entry). This way the Empress can shuffle all the entries and not know how many she and the Czar are choosing from any one person.

Deadline is Saturday, July 15, at 4 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, July 20.

This week’s winner receives The Al-Qaeda Training Manual — yes, that’s exactly what it is. The 175-page English-language handbook, whose eighteen chapters offer instruction for terrorists-in-training — ranging from assassination methods to advice not to get parking tickets — was found in 2000 by British investigators in Manchester, England, and published in 2006 by the U.S. Air Force Counterproliferation Center and picked up at a conference by Loser Jeff Contompasis, who stresses that it is an unclassified document. 

One in the U.S. military’s nifty series of how-to books.

Runners-up get autographed fake money featuring the Czar or Empress, in one of TEN nifty designs. Honorable mentions get bupkis, except for a sweet email from the E, plus the Fir Stink for First Ink for those who’ve just lost their Invite virginity.

Boring 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 occasionally. 

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.

F’ing Hilarious: Winning neologisms from Week 25

In Week 25 we honored Loser Jesse Frankovich’s 1,000th blot of Invite ink with the traditional honor of Do Our Work for Us: Mr. F got a chance to guest-judge the Invitational contest of his choice. Which was to change a word or phrase by adding one or more F’s, and/or substituting F’s for other letters.

We sent the Merry Frankster the 733 neologism entries sorted alphabetically and totally anonymous; he’s finding out just now, along with you all, who wrote what. Jesse prefaced his choices with this note:

Dear Empress:
Thank you for facilitating the fun-filled function of finding the funny fraction of fresh F-words.  First, the flood of foolishness fell to a fairly feasible flock of favorites.  Fighting fatigue, I filtered the fringe (with feedback from my fabulous fiancée) before fixing on the featured field of forty-five.  Finally, I flagged the four I fancied as the finest.

Fondly,
Jesse

Third runner-up: Suffer solstice: What heralds three months of sweltering in Texas. (Chris Doyle, Denton, yup, Tex.)

Second runner-up: FOMO sapiens: Ancient hominid that went extinct from jealousy, convinced that all the other hominids were having more fun. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

First runner-up: Faker’s dozen: Eleven. (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)

And the winner of the collection of Jesse Frankovich’s first 500 inking Invitational entries: Feline Dion: Pop diva who topped the charts with “It’s All Coming Back to Meow.” (Chris Doyle)

F-bombs: Honorable mentions

Fintimidated: Afraid to get in the ocean. (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)

Fuddhist: One who is philosophically opposed to the killing of any living being, except a wabbit. (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)

Ad-fib: Trump’s typical response to being put on the spot. (Neil Kurland, Elkridge, Md.)

Baffleground: The site of a MAGA rally. (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.) 

Barftender: That true friend who holds your hair back while you’re puking into the toilet. (Jon Carter, Fredericksburg, Va.) 

Carf: What the motion-sick kid riding in the back seat is gonna do. (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)

Carfooling: Driving in an HOV lane with an inflatable doll. (Chris Doyle) 

Cupfakes: Padded bras. (Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.) 

Effiquette: Making sure to send a text the next day. (Duncan Stevens)

Fantiques: The Donny Osmond notebook and Partridge Family lunchbox you found in the attic. (Pam Sweeney, Burlington, Mass.)

Farceny: Stealing somebody else’s joke. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.) 

Fatatonic: How Uncle John looks when he’s staring at the game after three helpings of Thanksgiving turkey. (Dave Airozo, Silver Spring, Md.) 

Fatisfaction: The feeling you get after eating a pint of Häagen-Dazs.  (Edward Gordon, Austin) 

Fellow journalism: Petulant backlash against the #MeToo movement. (Lee Graham, Reston, Va.) 

Fender reveal: A gathering to show off your new car. (Jonathan Jensen) 

Festiges: The ticket stubs and booze bottles littering the Lollapalooza grounds on Monday morning.  (Pam Shermeyer) 

Fetamorphosis: How sheep’s milk becomes cheese. (Tom Witte)

Fidolizing: Adoring your dog above all other beings. (Pam Shermeyer)

Flabrador: A dog that’s been “treated” too well. (Beverley Sharp) 

Flagfellation: Extreme patriotism. (Tom Witte) 

Flaptop: The attire required for a wardrobe malfunction. (Beverley Sharp)

Flubricated: Full of tea and chicken soup. (Pam Shermeyer)

Flue ribbon: First prize in a chimney sweep competition. (Michael Stein, Arlington, Va.)

Foblivious: Unaware that your car keys were in your purse the whole time. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)

Footstraps: What we have to pull ourselves up by, now that we can’t afford boots. (Jonathan Jensen)

Foptician: Where you go for a prescription monocle. (Jonathan Jensen)

Foreflay: How a dominatrix gets clients warmed up. (Chris Doyle)

Foxygen: Air that is used to fan the flames of conspiracy theories. (William Kennard, Arlington, Va.)

Freefer: They’re giving out samples at the dispensary! (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

Furchin: A guy who forgot to shave. (Beverley Sharp)

Fuxtaposition: An arrangement of bodies only seen in adult entertainment. (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)

Harpoof: It’s guaranteed to make the white whale disappear. (Karen Lambert, Chevy Chase, Md.)

Ku Klux Flan: A custard that only uses the whites of the eggs. (Jonathan Jensen)

LendingFree: A short-lived online loan service. (Chris Doyle)

Nufftials: Divorce proceedings. (Neil Kurland)

René Desfartes: “I stink, therefore I am.” (Jonathan Jensen)

Surfeptitious: What you need to be when browsing the Internet on your phone during a staff meeting. (Pam Sweeney)

Text fessage: An admission someone was too cowardly to make in person. (Michael Stein)

Underfear: Anxiety about what your short skirt might be revealing. (Jonathan Jensen)

Failiwick: Someone’s weakness. “She can name horses, but song parodies are her failiwick.” (Pam Shermeyer)

And Last:  Follygag:  Any of the 653 entries that missed Jesse’s first cut. (Beverley Sharp)

The headline “F’ing Hilarious” is by Tom Witte; William Kennard, Sam Mertens, Kevin Dopart, and Chris Doyle all came up with the honorable-mentions subhead.

Still running — deadline 4 p.m. ET Saturday, July 8: Our Week 26 contest to say how any two items on our wacky list are similar or different. Click here or type in bit.ly/inv-week-26. 

See more about The Invitational, including our 2,600-member Facebook group, the Losers’ website, and our podcast.

Okay, here come your questions and Gene’s answers.

Q: We are told to cut our toenails straight across. Why then are all the clippers curved? 

A:  Wow. I never knew this. This is  from the National Library of Medicine,  and therefore your question is a good one requiring much cerebration, featuring long conversations with famous podiatrists over tax-deductible meals at fancy restaurants.  Alternatively, can anyone hazard a guess?

This is like the hot dog / hot-dog bun paradox, only less explicable. That one makes financial sense.

Q: Gene, Gina's story about her husband hit hard. My wife died of a stroke on March 10. No warning, no cognitive issues, just, boom. Today is July 4th, one month to the day after I delivered my wife's eulogy. I was moved to write you because I have been having a hard day, thinking about that eulogy. Please let Gina know I am so thankful that her husband survived with his facilities intact. Our doctor gave me the most wonderful gift after my wife's death. She explained that even if the paramedics had saved her and gotten her to the hospital (she apparently flatlined immediately), there is no way of knowing what condition she would have been in for the rest of her life. And the odds were it would have been a condition that she would have hated and resented for the rest of her life. So, her dying quickly and painlessly was likely a mercy. She was also 76 years old. Please keep putting hard topics out there. It is a comfort to see what others are experiencing and to be continually reminded that you never know what another human being is going through. The best way to live this life is with gratitude, purpose, and patience and understanding. – Cliff

A: Cliff, your story was so moving and valuable it got chosen for the rarefied Gene Pool real estate — one of the two posts that are published before we start moving to real time. So everyone gets to read it. Thank you. You know, I believe comedy and tragedy are made of the same stuff, the way matter and energy are. I don’t know if that is of solace to you, but it has always been, to me.

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 27 … “) 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 today.

Q: You mentioned in your last Gene Pool that you didn't think Mitt Romney would have given us such awful Supreme Court justices if he were President. However, would it really have made a difference in these latest rulings if he had nominated justices who were only as bad as, say, John Roberts? Roberts voted to strike down affirmative action (he wrote the damn opinion!), and while he didn't vote to strike down Roe, his concurrence made it clear he was willing to give it a death by a thousand cuts instead. Would the fact that this hypothetical justice isn't quite as horrible a person as Kavanaugh really be much consolation? 

A: It’s a continuum.  Justices tend to ooze left over their careers.  The Trump Trio never will.  They are committed schmucks and ideologues. 

Q: Our high school was pretty good academically, at least if you took the college prep courses. This was in the late 1950s. The football and baseball coach was an English teacher for some general (non-college-prep) classes. My buddy loved telling the story of the English teacher coach yelling at him during batting practice, “C’mon Lance. Don’t leave them strikes go by.”  – Roy Ashley

A: He was breaking free of his bonds!

Q: My medical story: I had to have a cerebral angiogram, and I was going to get the “I don’t care” drugs. The male nurse kept giving me more, but I (a female weighing around 128 pounds) wasn’t feeling it it. He finally asked me, “No judgment, but do you drink a lot?” I said, “Well, I’m a lawyer and a sailor, so yes!” A little while later I commented with childlike wonder that the dots in the ceiling tiles were moving, at which point he said I’d had enough so we could start the procedure.

A: I have a good friend who, like all of us in the 1960s,  really didn’t want to get drafted.  When he was called to his draft board, Arlo-Guthrie style, he did two things: drank a quart of pancake syrup so his pee would seem diabetic, and dropped some acid so he would seem crazy.  They checked his pee and ordered him to stick around for a few hours after which they’d take it again, which kinda killed that scam.  He does remember that he was acting oddly, so they sent him to see the shrink, and he remembers only one moment of the interview.  He looked over the shrink’s shoulder and said, “Wow, what’s that wall made of?”   He got drafted anyway. 

Q: Then there was the time wife had the amniocentesis test. They inserted the needle … and I was the one who fainted. 

A: I had a similar experience.  A nurse got a chair under me just in time.  Back then, the needle they inserted was the length of a flagpole.  

Q: Didn’t your dad also start seeing holes in the ground along with cartoon people? That was a beautiful article, and I hope you’ll post a link. If that wasn’t your story, I hope you’ll find it and post it on behalf of whoever did write it. 

A: Thank you.  Here it is.    My dad would have turned 106 on June 28. He was born the very day Archduke Ferdinand was shot.  He died at 92. 

Q: Fugly Flags Frederick County just got a flag redesign. Our previous county flag was among the most horrible I've seen, Francis Scott Key--on a field of candy stripes-- seemingly hollering and pointing vaguely at the outline of the county, like "It's right here!" That design was the result of a contest in, I think, 1976. We've just had another and the winner is less horrible, if very boring. and it does, at least go with the Maryland flag, the best flag in the universe (how DARE you, sir?!)

A: The Maryland flag is a nightmare of revolting, out-of-control design.  A mishmash of images that collide and clash.  The new Frederick flag screams “NAZI!” 

Q: Why does the Post keep running “Nancy,” and only on Sundays? Maybe the worst comic strip ever.

A: It occasionally takes a chance.  It is not as bad as the new “Mark Trail,” which looks like it is drawn by a talented high school sophomore. 

Q: I was a very, very bright kid growing up, and also generally pretty quiet and well-behaved; and as a consequence of those two attributes almost every teacher I ever had really liked me. Except for one: an awful sixth-grade teacher whom I’ll call Mrs. Lofton, because that’s her real name and screw her. Mrs. Lofton was a birdy little woman with one dead brown tooth amongst her ratlike fangs and a blonde bowl cut. I later learned that when she was in high school she was a massive stoner. I include this information not in derogation of stoners, but as ironic context for her in-class tyranny. My elementary school gave grades for both performance and effort. I always got A’s in all my subjects, but Mrs. Lofton always gave me D’s or even sometimes F’s for effort because she didn’t feel I worked hard enough in arriving at the correct answers. She would regularly misspell words on the blackboard or make arithmetic errors during math; at first I thought I was being helpful by raising my hand and correcting her, but after a few times of her snapping at me and writing my name on the board I learned to leave the class to simmer in her ignorance. Speaking of writing names on the board — Mrs. Lofton had a discipline system whereby if you got in trouble, you’d get your name on the board; then if you got in further trouble you’d get a check mark next to your name (which meant detention after school); and then any further malfeasance would result in more check marks and unspecified further punishment, which to a child’s mind was unfathomably terrifying.

 For about half the year I got my name on the board for such transgressions as pointing out that there are two c’s in “science,” or for coughing while otherwise quietly reading a book, or (in one memorable instance) for asking if I could go to the bathroom. I had never gotten in any trouble whatsoever in school prior to this, and with all those years of good-boy training under my belt, I would absolutely clam up once my name was on the board. But then this harpy changed the rules: name on the board meant automatic detention. No warnings, no appeal. What’s more, this rule change applied only to me. Everyone else was still entitled to the due process of the name/check/unimaginable-terror system, but I had been stripped of my rights. She announced this rule change to the entire class, justifying it on the grounds that I was being too disruptive and this was the only way to stop me from challenging her for control of the class. Bear in mind that I was a 10-year-old boy at the time. Sometime shortly after the rule change, inevitably, I got in trouble again. I don’t remember what I did to “deserve” it; all I remember is walking to the principal’s office to call my mom and tell her I got detention and had to stay after school. This was a significant problem, because we lived in the country about 10 miles from the very small town where my school was. Both my parents worked, and I was 100% reliant on the school bus to get to and from school every day. My mom was so angry about having to leave work to pick me up that she told me if it ever happened again she would pull my pants down and beat my ass in front of my classmates. 

It happened again. It happened several more times. Mom never followed through with her threat, but it was enough to send me into panicked, gasping sobs every time I had to make that walk and call home. I don’t know what if anything Mrs. Lofton thought when she saw how she made a little boy cry like that, but I know she never changed her behavior. If you’re reading this waiting for my revenge or her comeuppance, I’m sorry to say that it never happened. I moved on to seventh grade and went back to being beloved by all of my teachers, and she stayed behind and continued to terrorize young children. The only happy ending I can offer is that I grew up to become a reasonably successful NYC lawyer, and she probably never learned how to spell “science.”

A: The previous item was too long and self-indulgent but I included it because you are one hell of a writer.  If you are a lawyer, you are in the wrong profession.  Money doesn't matter. You must do what you are best at.

Q: The worst English teacher I had in high school had to teach us one semester of "Speech." At one point she read from the book, mispronouncing as she went: "Don't say, hwich, say wich; don't say hwat; say what." And on it went.

A: Sounds like she was from New York, and hostile about it. 

Q: Not really an amusing story, but I was amused when, in an environment full of high-tech equipment and machines that go “BING!” that is an emergency room, when it came time for the two doctors to put the shoulder that I had dislocated back into its socket, they each grabbed my arm, put a foot on my chest and yanked. Also, relief from pain was instantaneous. The humerus does not like to be out of place. They both seemed to have enjoyed the task, too.

A: Does anyone else have a tale of a doctor who used primitive techniques to solve a problem?   

Q: From Ms. B: After surgery that removed a portion of my jaw and replaced it with a bone graft from my pelvis, I was finally able to get out of bed and hobble to the bathroom, with the assistance of a very attractive male nurse. (I say "hobble" because of the heavily bandaged incision on my lower abdomen.) I couldn't speak because my jaws were wired shut, so when I had difficulty trying to stand up from the toilet, I motioned him to bring the clipboard I was using to write anything I needed to say. In total humiliation, I wrote: “The tape is caught in my pubic hair.” 

A: Well, this made me laff.  Thank you, Ms. B.  

Q: When I was in the 10th grade, I leaned the word “synecdoche.” I loved it for its niche but satisfying meaning (a small part of something that stands in for the whole; a "hired hand") and for its eccentric Greek pronunciation (sin-EK-doh-kee). I shoehorn it into as many situations as possible. (I also enjoy “stichomythia” for similarly pretentious reasons.) Some years ago, I was at Oxford in what is called a tutorial: a one-on-one class with a professor, at the beginning of which you read aloud to them the 2,000-word essay you (hopefully) wrote over the last week (read: last night and much of that morning). I had some ups and downs in that particular tutorial, but one moment of satisfaction. We were discussing the portraiture of Henry VIII, and I was positing that his prominent codpiece (I also got to say “prominent codpiece”) stood as synecdoche for the strength of his family line (wishful thinking on his part). At which point the professor stopped me to explain that it was pronounced "sin-ek-douche." I hazarded that I did not think so. She shook her head and smugly replied, "sin-ek-douche." I decided to compromise and say that perhaps it is pronounced differently by us bumpkin Americans (paraphrased). I did not reread the line. Some weeks after my completion of the course and return to the States, I got an email from that professor. "Sin-EK-doh-kee." 

A: I once wrote this poem for a reader who asked my help in an online contest.  The contest was to write a limerick using “Schenectady,” “synecdoche,” and “vasectomy,” as though they rhymed.  I wrote this.  It won! 
A vulgar old man from Schenectady
Made unfortunate use of synecdoche
He called a young doctor 
The c-word (he mocked her) 
So she gave him a penknife vasectomy.

Q: Two belated comments on 0-10 pain scales. (1) As someone else suggested, "10 is the worst pain you can imagine" makes it as much a measurement of your imagination as of your pain. I hope I'll never report a 10, as I assume that's what Joan of Arc felt when being burned at the stake. (2) That said, I work in clinical research, and these pain scores are generally considered reliable indicators for a single person over time. That is, if Joe says he's a 7 today and Sue says she's a 4 today, that is meaningless--there's no way to know who is in more pain or by how much. But if last week Joe said he was a 7 and this week Joe says he's a 4, you can feel pretty confident Joe is in less pain this week than he was last week.

A: Thank you.  Interesting. 

Q: Regarding the case of the sexual harasser in the mayor’s office: I am disturbed at the lengths this woman went through thinking she needed to do it to prove he was a creep who took advantage of his status. Me (51F) and a friend who has actually worked with the guy were talking about it. She confirms he is a sleaze. What neither of us gets is going voluntarily to an apartment and then getting naked when you don’t want to. We’ve both been in situations. Neither of us handled it this way.

In my case, a VP (I was not yet a manager) in an association I worked at rubbed himself on me in an attempt to get me to go up to his hotel room after a night on the town. I managed to get away and later that night in the hotel lobby I was never so glad about high-floor and low-floor elevators. On that same trip, a group of people came to hang out in my room and when the last of them left, they left him alone with me in my room. It was a bunch of hinting loudly that I had an early morning and that the person in the room across the air vent was the President before he would leave. I was 26. I’ve carried those memories with me my entire career, and always warn people not to leave colleagues alone at bars, etc., to keep them safe.

A: Thanks.  

Q: I go to the same pharmacy chain that you do. My favorite lie so far is “Your doctor didn’t call it in, but we can have it ready in 15 minutes.” If true, they are providing me a prescription medicine without a prescription and then billing my insurance company for it. Both are illegal. I accept their charades, because I once accidentally underpaid them substantially. I was buying a case of water for my office and, with no human cashier available, had to use the self-checkout stand that was way too small to hold a case of water. I hefted it up and waved it around until I got a beep. Then paid by credit card and mindlessly collected my three feet of receipt. When I got back to the office, I realized the barcode for an individual bottle of water had scanned — I had grabbed a case of water bottles that wasn’t meant to be sold by the case (something a human cashier would have caught). It was a mistake in my favor, yet I felt the store bore most of the blame and that trying to explain the situation and make restitution to a live cashier would be too complicated an endeavor. (I do habitually tell cashiers and waitstaff when I’ve been undercharged.) So I let them tell their little white lies, as with each one I earn another of those water bottles.

A: This raises an interesting ethical question.  At a supermarket, I habitually use self-checkout.  It’s invariably quicker.  On those few occasions when I have subsequently checked my receipt – usually when back at home – I very occasionally find discrepancies.  They are sometimes in my favor, sometimes in the store’s favor.  I once got $20 worth of shrimp for free. I also once got charged $17 for a can of dog food.   What do you do about this?   I do nothing.  I figure it evens itself out and life is too short to quibble and bitch. My best guess is I’ve lost more than I’ve gained, but maybe not, and maybe who gives a crap?  

This is Gene.  I am congratulating Jesse Frankovich for some extraordinary judging, and am calling us down for the day.  Please keep sending in questions to the orange question button.  I’ll get to them on Tuesday.