The Invitational Week 39: Tailgating on the Highway

Pair a Dylan line with your own rhyming one. Plus winning 'backronyms.'

Hello. We’ll be getting to The Invitational forthwith, but first, as always, a one-question Gene Pool Gene Poll.

If you could live anywhere in the United States, and could afford it, and your circumstances permitted it, which of these would be your first choice?

Come gather ‘round, people . . . and try the new contest

Abe said, “Where do you want this killin’ done?”
And God said, “On the Outer Loop, which is backed up from the John Hanson Highway to Route 1.”

Johnny’s in the basement, mixin’ up the medicine
As I listen to this on antiquated vinyl technology invented by Thomas Alva Edison. 

And it’s a-hard, it’s a-hard, it’s a-hard, it’s a-HARD …
… So, babe, let me slip you this stiff calling card.

This week’s contest was suggested by Loser Jon Ketzner, who finds himself with a lot more Invite ink now that he’s no longer under the thumb of the Washington Post Taste Police (see today’s results, below, for example). Jon suggests a Dylan “tailgaters” contest: For Week 39: You choose a line from a song written by Bob Dylan, then pair with your own rhyming line. Your line may either follow Dylan’s real line or precede it. (Dylan himself does not have to have rhymed his line.)

The first example above was written by Dave Zarrow, for an old Style Invitational contest that had nothing to do, theme-wise, with Bob Dylan.

Most of Dylan’s lyrics are conveniently online at bobdylan.com/songs, but they’re also all over the Web.

Click here for this week’s entry form. Or go to bit.ly/inv-form-39. As usual, you can submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same entry form. Please see this week’s form for important formatting instructions.

Deadline is Saturday, Oct. 7, at 4 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Oct. 12.

The winner gets a bright red, surprisingly detailed squeeze “ball” in the shape of the human heart, featuring the logo of Philadelphia’s Mutter Museum of medical history.  Donated by 442-time Loser Dave Prevar, who picked it up on a Loserfest vacation weekend a few weeks ago.

You can sing your Dylan tailgater to organ accompaniment: This week’s heart-gripping prize.

Runners-up get autographed fake money featuring the Czar or Empress, in one of ten nifty designs. Honorable mentions get bupkis, except for a personal email from the E, plus the Fir Stink for First Ink for First Offenders.

Meanwhile, we need questions / ruminations / observations that Gene can answer right here, in real time. Send ’em to this tasteful orange button:

INK: Infamy, Not Kudos — backronyms of Week 37 

In Week 37 we asked for “backronyms” — you choose a word or name, then treat it as an acronym, as if its letters stood for your description.  These worked better when you opted to spell the word/name correctly, which many of you did. (Hint: The car isn’t a “Telsa.”)

Third runner-up:   OPPENHEIMER:  (1) Overcome Physics Problems.  (2) Enable Nightmarish Human/ Environmental Incineration. (3) Miserably Express Remorse. (Marli Melton, Carmel Valley, Calif.) 

Second runner-up: 2024:  2 0minous 2 4tell (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

First runner-up: BEETLEJUICE:  Breasts Embraced, Erection Tugged, Lauren (Elected Jackass) Ushered Into Colorado Evening (Jeff Shirley, Richmond, Va.)  

And the winner of the jesterish foam hat in Mardi Gras colors: 
WRITERS’ STRIKE:                     (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)    

(N)OTABLE (O)THER (P)ROUD (E)FFORTS:
Honorable mentions 

MELANIA TRUMP: Marry, Eventually Leave, And Negotiate. I’ll Acquire Tremendous Riches Under My Plan. (Neal Starkman, Seattle)  

LYCRA: Lets Yoga Classmates Regard Asses (Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.) 

X: Xhe Xeirdest Xndustrialist’s Xemper Xantrum Xstablished Xebranding (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.) 

FLORIDA: Funny Land Of Raging Idiots Dodging Alligators (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.) 

IOWA: I’m Overwhelmingly White, America (overwhelmingly white Jon Gearhart, Des Moines) 

CHATGPT: College Help App: The Great Professor-Tricker  (John Cherniavsky, Arlington, Va., a First Offender) 

McCARTHY: Mismanaging Clown Car After Recruiting Those House Yutzes (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.; Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.) 

KAMALA: Kept As My Advantageously Lackluster Alternative  – J.R.B. (Kevin Dopart)

HAWAII: Heavenly Area With An Intermittent Inferno (Jon Gearhart)  

HARLAN CROW: Helped Arrange Riskless Loan After Noticing Clarence’s Rusty Old Winnebago (Chris Doyle) 

BEER: Belly Expands, Erudition Retreats. (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore) 

CAT: Cunning Allergen Transmitter (Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.) 

GIRAFFE: Gee, I Really Am Fucking Freakishly Excellent (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.) 

TUCKER: Twit Unctuously Cheers Kremlin, Encourages Racists (Duncan Stevens)  

VLADIMIR PUTIN:  Vicious, Lying And Dangerous, I Murder Indiscriminately. Russians! Please Understand This Is Necessary!  (Stephen Gold, London)  

LYFT: Look, Your Fare Tripled! (Mike Gips, Bethesda, Md.) 

SCOTUS: Six Conservatives Out To Upstage Scalia (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)  

SELF-DRIVING CAR: “Sleep! Enjoy Life! Fuhgedabout Driving! Rela-a-ax! I’m Very Into Navigating! (Glitches, Crashes Are Rare...)” (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.) 

SIGMUND FREUD:  Sexual Innuendo Grand Master. “Unsurprisingly, Nocturnal Donut Frenzy Reflects Erotic Unconscious Desires” (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.) 

WOMAN: Weary Of Manspreaders And Neanderthals (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)  

OLIVES: Only Licorice Is Viler Entree Spoiler (Pam Shermeyer) 

And Last: GENE: Generally Entertaining, Not Edifying (Janet Hlatky, Herndon, Va.)

 The headline “INK: Infamy, Not Kudos” is by the infamous Jeff Contompasis; Jesse Frankovich wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.

Still running — deadline 4 p.m. ET Saturday, Sept. 30: Our Week 38 contest for witticisms using chiasmus — sort of mirror image, like “If you’re planning to take a drive on the Beltway, don’t start by taking a belt in the driveway.” Click here or type in bit.ly/inv-week-38 for full directions. 

Last, if you are a free subscriber and can afford a paid subscription, please consider supporting The Gene Pool. Our paying subscribers let us continue to expand and experiment while keeping most of this newsletter free and open to all. It’s $50 a year or $5 a month.

So here comes the renowned real-time questions / observations part of the Gene Pool, and answers thereto. Today’s topics will include the recently discussed issues of smart / dumb pet tales, lack of shopping carts, hit-an-run drunk driving, and medical billing insanities, and whatever else is on your mind. REMINDER: If you are reading this in real time, keep refreshing your screen to see more Q’s and A’s.

Q: Several years ago, we inherited a year-old golden retriever that one of our kids had acquired for a shockingly low cost (I am convinced it had been dognapped, but no chip). She came to us because she was too eager and rambunctious for their apartment. One day early in Pumpkin's tenure, I was engaged in private business behind the door of our powder room when I heard a sequence of sounds that started as perplexing, then became horrifying as I deduced what must have happened: whomp, whomp, whomp! Bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang-bang. Ssssssshhhhhhhhhh. When I was able to open the door, I found I was right -- the dog had stuck her head through the hole in the lid of the top-entry litter box we were then using for the cats on our upstairs landing, seeking delicious cat poop. Unable to pull her head back out, she pulled the litter box backwards until she fell down the staircase, dragging the litter box, evidently wearing the now-detached lid like a collar, bouncing down the stairs followed by a river of loose cat litter flowing down the stairs. We have open stairs, so the litter flowed through the openings onto the next flight below. The litter box ended up at the base of the stairs, the lid a few feet away where the dog had gotten free of it, and used cat litter everywhere. The dog eventually lost interest in eating cat poop (it only took a few months, once she was thoroughly familiar with our cats' products), but we learned not to use a litter box with a lid. The dog still remains interested in bringing her own frozen poops back inside from the backyard in the winter. She is a sweet dog, but this is not an appealing trait.

A: Excellent story.  Here’s mine.  Remember my collie Augie, from the last Gene Pool, the stupidest dog in the world?  One day my wife was walking Augie; infant Molly was in a baby sling.  They stopped at a convenience store to get something.  Since the dog was not allowed inside, wife tied her leash to a metal garbage can.  When wife came out of the store, the dog was gone … as was the garbage can.   Wife followed a trail of people laughing uproariously.  “Are you looking for a dog being chased by a garbage can?”  

Augie had evidently tried to follow her people into the store, and knocked over the garbage can, which was empty and made a terrible crash. Augie panicked and ran.  The garbage can was after her! She could not outrun it!   Wife found her about three blocks away, collapsed,, exhausted from the ordeal.  The garbage can was dented and looked like a huge Raisinet.

Q: Donald Trump just said that windmills are killing whales, that dead whales are washing up on the beaches day after day. WTF?

A: I did some minor research, just for you. It is not true, of course, but there is a kernel of something there: It is an issue out there, flogged by zealots and loony anti-environmentalists who claim whales are being injured by offshore windmill-site exploration, which creates sounds that bother whales and disrupt their migration. NOAA scientists concede there are sounds associated with this industry that are problematic for marine life, but deny absolutely that there is any incidences of death, wholesale or otherwise. So in a sense, this is not entirely invented, as many of Trump’s claims are. It’s based on something he has grotesquely and dishonestly inflated in significance. For Trump, it qualifies as a little mincing little step toward Semi-Truth.

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 39…” ) for the 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 roughly 1 p.m. ET today.

Q: Smartest thing my Yellow Lab, Max,  did...he pulled a branch into the house, through the doggie door. I didn't see him get it up the steps and on to the deck. I saw him poke his head through the door with the stick in the side of his mouth. He backed out and tried again and backed out again. This time, he poked his head in, dropped the stick partway through the door, came through the door, turned around and pulled the stick through. The amazing part, I kid you not, because I can't make this stuff up, the stick was 7 to 8 feet long. I would post a picture if I could. I'd be happy to send it to you if, you know, you wanted it at the top of the page.

A:  Okay, I keep saying this to readers, in various ways, trying not to sound obnoxious.  Of course we want the picture. We all want to see it.  I would pay for it.   BUT I COULD NOT ASK YOU FOR IT TO ACCOMPANY THIS POST because I do not know who you are or how to reach you.  You must include your email address, at least, in the body of your question, which you will send here   .  It is the button for questions / observations. You all can use it.

Q:  I’m back.  This was not the dumbest thing Max did, but maybe the funniest thing. Or maybe it was the funniest thing my wife ever did. Max was maybe a year old. I came home from work one day and I hear my wife screaming for Max to come. I go out in the yard to see what's going on. Now, the neighbors had three dogs and they would take Max to their yard for play dates. They also had a doggie door exactly like ours. Apparently Max had dug under the fence, ran right up the deck and into the neighbors house. Note, here that the neighbors were not yet home from work. I look over and see my wife, on their deck, on her hands and knees, with her head inside the doggie door yelling for Max to come. Lucille Ball couldn't have done it any better.

A: Also send in a picture of your wife, with her head in the doggie door.  I’m sure she looks very dignified.

Q: Hello Gene! When Richard Thompson published this modified version of a Richard’s Poor Almanac comic … did he ask your permission or get you to pose for the character in the lower-left corner? You both worked for the Post, the resemblance is absolutely striking, and the dialog isn’t that far a stretch, either.

A: Richard and I were good friends.  He illustrated my column.  There was no need to ask, and he had no obligation to warn me.   In fact, he had an obligation NOT to warn me, so I’d be surprised and spit my coffee. Which I did.  

The likeness is excellent.  He fattened me up a little bit, and I NEVER wear shorts, which he knew.  So this was an assault.  

Q: Hi, Gene. I’m curious to know your thoughts on whether artists (whether pop singers, painters, authors, etc.) should occasionally update their creations in light of realizations regarding political correctness, changed viewpoints, or even grammatical errors. I know some school textbooks, for example, are updated periodically to account for new information and perspectives. But what about, say, pop songs? What if The Black Crowes (and Otis Redding before them), when singing “I know you got you another man, but I can love you better than him” realized that, grammatically, they really meant “…love you better than he can”? Or maybe they really meant they could love her better than they could love him, who knows? But probably not. I’m also thinking about Bruce Springsteen referring to “the yellow man” in Born in the USA. He’s probably reflecting the language of the time (and not trying to sound bigoted), but that term seems woefully outdated now. One could argue that, at some point, an artist has to release a work, knowing it reflects a moment in time and might eventually feel/look/seem outdated or off-target. What are your thoughts on the matter in general? Have you ever thought about updating any of your books or columns?

A:  Basically, my answer to all of it is a qualified “no.”  Art is art, linked to a time and place.  I think “yellow man” hurts my ears and bruises my soul, but at least it was a 1983 song.  You can maybe give The Boss some slack. The greatest railroad song ever written, “The City of New Orleans” has “freight yards full of old black men.” That was Steve Goodman in the 1970s. But The Spice Girls sang “yellow man in Timbuktu” in 1997.   But changing these things seems sleazy to me, like rewriting history to conform to political correctness.  Better to just not perform it anymore.     Disney, which has bought the entire Star Wars everything, but changed the name of the band in the cantina from “Jizz” to “Jatz.”  Yech. 

And gimme a break about changing things for grammar.   Though I admit The Doors does the fingernail/chalkboard thing to me with “... the stars fall from the sky / for you and I,” I think it has to stay as is, if for no reason other than the historical perspective of what ignorant crap was sent out in relatively early rock.  And an alternative would have been so easy:  “And the stars fall to the sea / for you and me.” 

Q: When he was a boy, my wife’s father had a dog, a Chow Chow, a breed that’s intelligent but not overly friendly. The dog loved to nap on the sofa, a habit that did not please the family, so the dog was shut up in the basement when they went out. The funny thing was, when they came home there was a sunken warm spot on the sofa flecked with Chow hair, although the dog was always where he belonged in the basement behind a closed door. They could never catch the dog breaking out or lying on the sofa, but they knew that’s here he had been in their absence. Her father was delighted that the dog could outsmart them, finding a way past the closed basement door but retreating there just before anyone came into the house. 

A: This is true intelligence.

Q: Not so much a question as an amusement. 

A: Thank you. 

Q:  SMART: “The Popcorn Gambit.” She made popcorn. Henry the Basenji really really wanted some, and was outraged that she had the effrontery to deny him. He sniffed, he stared, he walked away. Within a few minutes he came flying into the living room, one end of the toilet paper in his mouth, gleefully flaunting his revenge. No no no my sister cried, leaping up to save her TP budget and laboriously rolling it back into a confused wad and placing it back in the bathroom. When she returned to the living room, his head was in the popcorn bowl. 

A:  Yeah, Lexi does this sort of thing, too.   She is wildly passive-aggressive.  When she is pissed that we have not yet fed her, or if she is low on water, or wants a walk she will steal Rachel’s pocketbook in our presence, eat her dog bed, carry our shoes in front of us.  She hasn’t figured out door scratching, food-bowl carrying, etc.   The only way to make it stop is to attend to her needs.  

Q:  DUMB: This is about a dumb sheep, which is not really saying much. We were in England, walking on one of those little back road lanes hemmed in by hedgerows and stone walls. We came upon a small group of sheep in the lane, blocking our path. The supposed animal-loving sister took it into her head to run at the sheep, waving her arms, and maybe shouting, I don’t remember. The terrified sheep scattered into ditches and over bushes. One panicked little guy ran into a stone wall. The wall did not give. He ran into it again and again, with such force that he knocked himself out. 

A:  Sheep are among the dumbest big animals, second only to capybaras, who are basically enormous idiot hamsters.  Check this out.   And also this. 

Q: Regarding your poll on whether you might flee the scene of a fatal accident: I’d never do it.  We have to be accountable to one another.  I’d lawyer up good, though. 

A: Understood, but the question is, to whom must you be accountable, and why?  What is the moral calculus here?  The poll posited that you were tipsy, but driving well and carefully. You hit  an old man who lurched into the path of your car, from the darkness.  No time to even reach for the brakes.   He was dead.  The accident was clearly not your fault. No one was around to see this, though, and if you called the police right then and there, you’d do serious jail time, likely for vehicular manslaughter.  Five to ten, in most jurisdictions.   Your life might be ruined. 

More than half of you admitted you might flee.  Eight percent said you probably would flee. 

So.  The fact is that  this is not a completely outrageous moral dilemma.  The man is dead; reporting the accident would not help him.  By reasonable standards you’d be facing serious jail time, and attendant, indelible public shame, for an accident that was not your fault, and was unrelated to your drinking.  That sounds unjust.  Both you and your family will be hurt.  

Are you obliged to turn yourself in?  Legally, you are.  But morally? 

Q: Hi Gene, Please identify me as Marylander410. All my life, I'd been a little lactose intolerant, with this progressively getting worse so that I had to take meds several times a day, enabling me to enjoy dairy products. Back in 2021, I had a psychosomatic response to autumn pollen that was so severe, nothing comes close to it (due, I think, to my fear of retiring after 40 plus years and facing an unknown future). My sinuses were clogged, and I was spitting out snot day and night. What snot I swallowed didn't agree with me. Then I started vomiting everything: food, medication, even a few sips of water. Couldn't keep anything down. I ran out of all of my leave--and finally conceded that I couldn’t go on this way. I started the retirement process. I slowly got better. What surprised me was that my lactose intolerance was gone! I mentioned this to my primary care physician, and he said that I must not have been lactose intolerant in the first place--but I had all the symptoms. I suspect that my gut biome somehow got reset. What do you think?

A: I think you are a somaticizer, which is a word for a certain type of hypochondriac.  I am a genuine, miserable expert in this field!   

I was you, once, and still sometimes am.   You feel the goings-on in your body excruciatingly clearly in ways most people don’t – and worse, because of your neurosis, you can manipulate these things, unconsciously, in ways that confirm your worst fears.   Three times in my life I suspected a serious disease because of some insignificant symptom, and then, insidiously, unconsciously, I managed to aggravate the sensation by obsessively thinking about it, testing it, etc.  Once, it was that all my teeth were falling out.  Another, that I had a brain tumor because the skin on my hands were peeling, which can be an early symptom, because brain tumors sometimes cause excessive localized sweating especially in the hands, and my nervousness made me sweat more and the peeling increased.  Once, I had testicular pain that got worse and worse as I panicked over testicular pain. 

Now listen up: The first two of these conditions went away when I got a new and more prestigious job. 

You are a hypochondriac.  I suspect you were never lactose intolerant.   I pass on to you a bit of advice a doctor once gave me, the one who said my testicular pain was phantom, a sign of hypochondria.  He said, covering his ass, “I cannot officially diagnose that.  I can say to you, you are a young man.  Enjoy your life.” 

And that’s when that pain went away too.

Enjoy your life, Marylander.

Q: From the Empress re today's inking backronym in which Pam Shermeyer announces that OLIVES stands for Only Licorice Is Viler Entree Spoiler: I personally love all sorts of olives (as well as black licorice, BTW), and the Czar told me he didn't know anyone who didn't like olives. I polled the people on my Facebook feed and asked if anyone out there hated olives mixed with other foods. While numerous people announced that they adored olives ("I put them in everything but breakfast cereal") it was clear that olive-hate is definitely a thing: .

 -- "My husband is a foodie. Olives are the only thing he'll never eat. Comparisons range from the simple "They smell like vomit" to "The Devil's toenails." 

-- "Olives are to me what cilantro is to some - inedible." -- "Olives are the only food that I dislike so intensely that I cannot imagine what other people see in them. If I eat one by accident, I gag." 

-- "I hate olives of any kind, and they ruin food they’re added to." 

-- "NO olives of any color!!! " So Pam gets her blot of Invite ink. And she can send me and Gene her olives.   

A:   At work, Rachel is often tasked to order pizza for the Opinions section of The Post.   She confirms that the most common request from staff is “no olives.”   Then, no onions, then green peppers.   Pineapple, she reports, is most controversial, because people either love it or hate it.  

Also, Pam, if you have any Castelvetrano olives just sitting on a shelf…

Q:  I had outpatient surgery at Georgetown in November of last year. I took a look at the bill to Medicare and saw that $4,000 had been charged to Medicare for a bed and linens for an overnight stay which I did not have. I decided that it is possible that this kind of error happens frequently with charges to the government. It took many calls, a few weak answers and being very persistent to get the hospital to admit the charge was not warranted. BTW I discovered at the same hospital during Covid that if you went to the parking garage to get your car to go home and did not have a required wrist band on, it cost $75 to get your car out of the garage!

A: That room charge is terrifying, because it would almost never be caught, since not everyone would read read through a bill they know they will not have to pay, so it’s up to understaffed Medicare – and how would Medicare know if you stayed a night without manpower to call patients, one by one, and check everything?  This is not overcharging, it is bill padding.   Can this sort of thing be routine, institutionalized insurance fraud?

Q: I am SO So glad you are talking about the Great American Heist that is health insurance billing. Look: I spent several years of my life acquiring a PhD in Health Policy from a Fancypants University. I had extended periods of time to assess the healthcare system from all angles under the direction of Policy Experts, weighing all respective stakeholder interests, risks, benefits, processes, systems, costs, tradeoffs, etc. After this rigorous training, my professional opinion is that private health insurance companies are by far the worst players in the whole system; parasites that contribute no social good whatsoever. They can go [redacted] my [redacted]. The health insurance system is opaque and predatory by design, held together by the informational asymmetry between patients and insurers and the cynical (and correct) calculation that most people don't possess the health literacy or time resources to fight back against incorrect or confusing bills. The entire con is also built on the appearance that the insurers swoop in and are the heroes who end up paying your exorbitant bill (which was jacked up by the messed-up private insurance markets) (and which you've already been paying them to do, via your health insurance premiums etc. etc.). It's like punching a guy in the face then handing him an ice pack. By the way, here's an article showing that even people WITH PHDS IN POLICY don't understand their insurance plans - heinous all around: It's Not Just You: Picking a Health Insurance Plan Is Really Hard - The New York Times

Here is a public interest link for readers about your rights when you receive a surprise health bill What is a "surprise medical bill and what should I know about the No Surprises Act? Consumer Financial Protection Bureau https://www.consumerfinance.gov/ask-cfpb/what-is-a-surprise-medical-bill-and-what-should-i-know-about-the-no-surprises-act-en-2123/

A: Thanks.  You’ve done a service. This all seems boring, WHICH IS PART OF THE PROBLEM. It’s like the federal deficit: No one wants to be bothered worrying about it.

Q:  I'm late for this, but one of the smartest animal encounters I ever had was when I had the opportunity to hang out with young orangutans at Dr. Birute Galdikas's orangutan orphanage in Borneo. You're not allowed to grab them, but they have no such rules to follow. When we went to the spot with the toddler orangutans (older than infants; still under 7), one walked straight up to me and grabbed both my wrists. I did what you do with a small child holding your hands: swung it around in circles until I was dizzy. Then did it again. And again. When the orang had enough swinging and spinning, it--still holding me by the wrists--walked me over into a corner and left me there, as if putting me away for later. 

A: Love your last line.

Q: My wife brought a cat into our marriage, in addition to the two I already had. In the days when we were still living in sin, unblest by God or man, we rented the ground floor of a house in Ruritania. One day, my then-future wife saw a deer or bunny or some creature saunter past one of the bedroom windows to the great excitement of her cat. When the creature walked out of view, the cat turned, raced through an intervening room that had no windows on that side, to reach another room with a window to anticipate where the animal would again become visible and watched it from there. We have always been very impressed by that.

A: It’s a little thing but I like it.  It transcends the whole “always in the moment” idea we have about animals.  Yours was in the moment, but spatially and temporally aware. .   I’ve always wondered how dogs interpret elevators.  You get into this box, and it whirrs and shakes, and you get out in a different place altogether!  I wonder if they think of it as a scene-changing machine.  And no, “Ruritania” did not fool me.

Q: There are several typos in your previous newsletter. I’m not writing to complain about that, but it reminded me of what a great advertisement for editors Substack is. Other Substackers (not you of course) often drone on, become unfocused, and just generally get boring. I often finish reading a piece thinking that a good editor could have made it half as long and twice as good. How do you feel, as a former editor yourself, about working without one?

A: I don’t work without one.  I work with one of the best editors alive.   Pat Myers was once the head of the Washington Post copy desk and knows everything about everything.  She saves me all the time on matters of grammar, punctuation, and fixing facts I have mangled.  What she can’t really address are things in the real-time portion of The Gene Pool, where I am writing straight to print, with no time for an intermediory. I spelled that wrong, just to make a point. It went right in.

Everyone needs an editor.  And I am comparatively quite clean, compared to others.  

Q: To put a positive spin on the grocery store situation, you can’t go to hell in a hand-basket if there are no hand-baskets to be found. Al Lubran Rockville, MD

A: True enough. See, Mr. Lubran was smart enough to include his name!

Q: Re— Leaving the scene. Once upon a time I lived down the street from a friend who was a horrible alcoholic. I believe his misadventures have him currently jailed, but that's not pertinent. One night "Adam" chose to drive home from wherever he'd been and put his car into a ditch while attempting the turn into our neighborhood. He was unhurt, but his vehicle was upside down and unmovable. While awaiting the inevitable arrival of the authorities, Adam walked into his house and grabbed a bottle of whiskey. He then went back out, sat down on his stoop, and proceeded to drain off a goodly portion of it. By the time the police showed up Adam had rendered useless any attempt at measuring his BAC, and as such was charged with nothing at all. Which is to say, your poll failed to capture all of the possibilities.

A: Many years ago, an assistant DA in Albany told me to always keep a (closed) bottle of liquor in the car, which you would break out and take a huge slug from when the cop arrived to give you a sobriety test… but you have to let the cop see you drink. I do not endorse or recommend this.

Q: I take care of a king snake, Cal, at the local Nature Center. Although he is very sweet, he "thinks" with his stomach. On more than one occasion, he has mistaken his boss, Liz, for food. He'll sniff her arm, and then sneak up on her and try to kill her by biting her and wrapping around. She'll tell him "no" and he'll unlatch himself, only for him to try again thirty seconds later. Liz is a normal size human. Cal is about a foot long and the diameter of a pencil. 

My partner and I own a small python. When we got her a new enclosure, I had the idea to make a swing with an IKEA basket and some plastic S clamps. It only took her a couple of hours to figure out how to get in her swing without falling. It's a balancing act she has perfected. Our other python still falls out of his swing and it's been a year and a half. His lips move when he reads too.

A:  Snake intelligence.  Who knew?  My brother once had a snake in a large terrarium.  He would feed it live mice, which bothered him on an epistemological level:  “I am feeding a mammal to a reptile.”

Q: My old Lab-Dalmatian mix Blake used to get startled by statues and similar inanimate objects. At the FDR Memorial, he noticed the statue of Fala, stared at it for a moment, then must have realized that it was a depiction of a dog and broke into a sudden fit of panicky barking; but just as quickly realized that it was not actually a dog and stopped, and thereafter looked embarrassed for the rest of the tour. He went through the same progression on another occasion upon seeing a small (dog-sized, if not dog-shaped) snowman: interest, realization, panic, counter-realization, and shame. I never knew if that meant he was smart for recognizing an abstraction, dumb for thinking it was real, or smart for realizing his error (and subsequently feeling bad about it), but either way the story seems appropriate.

A: At Congressional Cemetery, where we walk Lexi, there is a tombstone, for a dog, in the full-size likeness of a cocker spaniel.  Lexi looked at it, once, sniffed, once, and forever abandoned it.  No dog in her world has ever smelled like cement. 

This is Gene. I am calling us down. PLEASE keep sending in questions / observations here, and I will address them in detail next week.

And as always, tediously but neediously, please keep us alive and thriving: