The Invitational Week 86: Call Your Dog

Give us creative names for various pets. Plus winning 'improvements' on sports.

Hello. Just the other day, we woke up in the Invitational treehouse at 4 in the morning, and, with a barely coherent thought, decided: A funny name for a dog would be

Honus Wagger

Pleased with ourselves, we wrote it down, and went back to sleep. Soon, in this indistinct state of quasi-consciousness, we woke up again to realize that a funny name for a pet goat would be

Baa-baa-ber-anne

And a parrot named

The Pittsbird Pirate

And, most importantly, that a funny name for an entire breed of dog would be

The Needlenosed Buttsniffer

That’s when it became obvious to us, bleary-eyed in the treehouse, that we had a brand-new, never-before debuted, contest. It occurred because it also occurred to us that “the Needlenose Buttsniffer” was an entry from Erica Magram, in an unrelated contest from 1998. We hereby urge Ms. Magram, whoever and wherever she is, to become a paid subscriber to The Gene Pool, which allows her to enter, because we need her. And you.

Okay, so.

For Invitational Week 86: Suggest a creative name for a pet — and any kind of animal can be a pet — as in the examples above. It can be a name for a specific pet, or a name for a breed. The field is open. You can add elaborating information if it makes your entry funnier.

Formatting this week: Start each of your entries — up to twenty-five in all — with the kind of animal, (e.g., “Dog:,” not “A dog:”) and, as usual, write each entry in a single line; i.e., don’t push Enter in the middle of one entry. This will let us push a magic button and sort all the Dog entries together, all the Hedgehog entries, etc.

Deadline is Saturday, Aug. 31, 2024, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Sept. 5. 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-86.

This week’s winner receives the stylish eyewear modeled below by some woman whom Google Photos immediately identified correctly. Well, yeah, it’s Google.

She can read a thousand limericks and her eyes don’t glaze over! This week’s prize.

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.

Meanwhile, send us questions or observations, which Gene hopes to deal with in real time today. You do this, as always, by sending them to this here button:

Jest a Game: Sports ‘improvements’ from Week 84

In Week 84, in the midst of Olympic fever, pennant races, and the like, we asked for ways to make various sports more exciting or just funnier. But even the wackiest Loser ideas are challenged to top one real-life fad, which is this vomitous thing. We would like to remind you all that while this fad takes wings — and withers — people are starving in Yemen.

Third runner-up:
Auto racing: When they take pit stops, drivers should have to haggle with their mechanics over the cost of replacing the tires. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

Second runner-up:
Darts: Add a goalie. (Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.)

First runner-up:
Cricket: This would be brilliantly smashing if we had everyone biff a googly and duff a squiffy widdershins, what? Good show! Bob’s your uncle! (Duncan Stevens)

And the winner of the Loserville sign:
Men’s pole vault: Now the aim is to knock over the crossbar with your dick. (Daniel Galef, Cincinnati)

As always, if you feel none of those is the best among today’s inking entries, shout out your favorites in the comments.

They Wuz Robbed: Honorable mentions

4x100 relay racers have to pass a one-pound beef jerky stick to one another and collectively consume it before the finish line. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.) 

Chess: After every move, players switch sides.  (Neal Starkman, Seattle)

Olympic swimming: Whenever swimmers pee in the pool  – and they regularly do –  the water around them turns the colors of their country’s flag.  (Marni Penning Coleman, Falls Church, Va.)

400-meter hurdles: Instead of carefully spaced hurdles, use ones that pop up randomly around the track at the last second. (Terry Reimer, Frederick, Md.)   

Add a dunk booth to the shot put.  (Cheryl Davis, Pawleys Island, S.C.)

All boxing must be done pantsless. — J.K. Rowling (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)

Make the Olympics great again by reverting to the traditional ancient Greek rules: Compete naked, award leaves instead of medals, and sacrifice the losers to Zeus. (Daniel Galef)

Make routines on the pommel horse be done on an actual horse. (Mark Morgan, Bethesda, Md., a First Offender)

America’s Cup: Add grappling hooks and cannons for Sail Like a Pirate Day. (Kevin Dopart, Naxos, Greece)

Raise the balance beam several feet and put a trampoline underneath it, so if the gymnasts fall, they can boing right back onto it and pretend that was the plan all along. (Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.)

Baseball: All runners must literally take a short stop when running from second to third. (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.)

Baseball: Before the game, a guest of honor yells at the umpire in a ritual known as the ceremonial first bitch. (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)

Baseball: Just put a football game on the Jumbotron.  (Diana Oertel, San Francisco) 

Basketball: No more squeaking shoes! Make players wear hospital socks instead. (Pam Shermeyer) 

Bobbing for apples: Replace red apples with live blue crabs. (Kevin Dopart)

Soccer players are positioned outside the pitch, using long metal rods to slide and spin life-size replicas of themselves.  (Jesse Frankovich)

Chess: Electrodes are hooked to each player’s brain and connected to a theremin, which plays the eerie sounds of their thought patterns. (Marni Penning Coleman)

Combine the discus and shot put into a new Olympic event, the shot putz, in which competitors whirl their unfortunate partners, the “putzes,” by their legs and toss them for distance. (Howard Walderman, Columbia, Md.)  

Competitive eating: Use foods even grosser than wet hot dogs,  like live giant beetle larvae. (Kevin Dopart)

Competitive eaters must eat one and only one Lay’s potato chip. (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)

Curling: Instead of brooms, players use leaf blowers. (Neal Starkman)

Replace the baseball with a tennis ball, and all the outfielders with golden retrievers. (Sam Mertens)  

To maximize time for Super Bowl commercials — which are what millions of viewers mainly tune in for — change the 15-minute quarters to 60 one-minute segments.  (Jesse Rifkin, Arlington, Va.)  

Give Olympic breaking whole new meaning by holding the competition in an antique shop. (Gregory Koch, Falls Church, Va.)

Make hockey pucks three times as big — those little ones are almost impossible for fans to see. (Mark Asquino, Santa Fe, N.M.)

Horse racing:  Races are over too fast.  Change the rules to say the second horse across the finish line is the winner. (Rob Cohen, Potomac, Md.)

NASCAR:  To truly test their driving skills, have half of the racers drive clockwise and half counterclockwise. (Pam Shermeyer)

On track relays, the runners have to pass the baton while jumping through a hopscotch grid.  (Neil Kurland, Elkridge, Md.) 

Pickleball: Release a brood of cicadas to drown out the annoying sound of the paddles. (Jesse Frankovich)

Have show jumping contested by humans dressed in those two-person horse costumes. (Jesse Frankovich; Tom Witte, mountain-climbing in California)

Hockey: Put bars and a lock on the penalty box and allow players to attempt to escape before their two minutes are up. (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

Soccer: Get rid of those invisible stinging spiders on the field, or whatever it is that’s causing players to suddenly writhe in agony for exactly five seconds and then recover. (Duncan Stevens)

Simplify the triathlon by having the competitors run through two feet of water while carrying a bicycle. (Jesse Frankovich; Leif Picoult)   

Water polo: Players hit the ball with pool noodles while riding inflatable horses. (Jesse Frankovich)

100-meter dash: The athletes run on top of twenty balance beams laid end to end. (Stephen Dudzik, Olney, Md.)

The headline “Jest a Game” is by Jesse Frankovich; Neil Kurland wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.

Still running — deadline 9 p.m. ET Saturday, Aug. 24: our Week 85 contest to write limericks featuring words beginning hu- to hy-. Click on the link below.

The Invitational Week 85: Hu-boy, It's Limerixicon XXI

Now we enter the real-time portn of the Gene Pool, where Gene will take your questions and observations, and respond to them, in real time. Today, so far, we’ve got a lot of questions related to active, theatrical sex acts. You probably won’t be interested. Send your stuff to this awesome Creamsicle-colored button:

Also, a pitch: You can 1) Support The Gene Pool and get full access to its goodies for the small price of $4.15 a month, or, 2) endorse Donald Trump and everything he stands for by denying us support but reading us for free and then informing on us to your handlers at The Evil Trump Machine. The choice is yours. This is a free country, at least for the moment.

So:

Here we go with questions and responses. We are not censoring them. Orgasms are included. We are not responsible for any hazardous orgasms you might experience while reading them.

It has just occurred to me that “Hazardous Orgasm” might be a good name for a rock band.

Q: I admire Chris Doyle's work EXTRAVAGANTLY! But, is that particular limerick of his that you quoted last week really a "gem"? The enjambment that makes the grammar make sense is at odds with the requisite pauses that the rhyme provides. If one reads to a full-stop on "provide", the next line is exceedingly awkward. If one doesn't the "limericky" part is lost. Again, CHRIS DOYLE is a kind of genius! – D. McMahon 

A: Yes, he is.  And here is his brilliant limerick, which you deride: 

Beleaguered, a lion denied

His own hunger and tried to provide

For his litter of cubs,

But they withered like scrubs,

So he quit and just swallowed his pride. 

You wildly underestimate the quality of enjambment, to the point where I might actually hate you, if I didn’t love all Losers, even ones who are tragically wrong.  So I shall school you now, briefly.  

Enjambment is the poetic form in which interior rhyme is often subtle, in which the meter does not follow the prescribed form, and the rhyme is there, but sometimes deceptively occult.  When done well – as Chris does – it is genius.  When abandoned, as you would have us do, it is often painful.  

Consider one of the worst poems ever written, “Trees,” by Joyce Kilmer.  It does not have to be considered terrible — it has some nice imagery — except it was destroyed by generations of English teachers who insisted that their poor schmucky kids recite it as though to a metronome:  “I think that I shall neh-ver SEE / A poem lovely as a TREE /  A tree whose hungry mouth is PRES’T / Against the Earth’s sweet-flowing BREAST… “

Compare that, please, to Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Ozymandias, which relies and thrives in large measure on enjambment:

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

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Sorry, dude. I’ll take Shelley, and Doyle, over you….

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By the way, it occurs to me that “Percy Bysshe Shelley” would be a great name for a pet turtle.

TIMELY TIP: If you’re reading this on an email: JUST CLICK ON THE HEADLINE IN THE EMAIL AND IT WILL DELIVER YOU TO THE FULL COLUMN ONLINE. Keep refreshing the screen to see the new questions and answers that appear as I regularly update the post.

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Q: Hi Gene, this is your mother. Please come home for Rosh Hashanah and eat my noodle kugel, fish heads, apple tzimes, prune rugelach, nd brisket kugel. I love you very much, Geney Weenie, and I want to see you again.

A: This is not my ma, as my brother can and will attest. Not only did she die in 1991, but she NEVER would have talked about “noodle” kugel. Kugel is potato. Period.

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Q: I was exactly like that guy doing the push-ups in college, who didn’t understand that the lady was propositioning him. I just had no clue.

One time I was going around to dorms and apartments to find specific people I had been assigned to question for a survey for a journalism class. I got to one apartment and found that the girl on my list was not home, but her roommate was home. And her roommate was someone I had worked with for a while at the college radio station and she was clearly happy to welcome me into the apartment. I then proceeded to ask the survey questions of her, figuring she would be just as good as her roommate to answer them. 

One of my questions was, “What is your favorite hobby?“ Her answer, without hesitation, was “Kissing on the couch.“ I simply put that down as her survey response, completed the rest of the questions, and left. Many years later, I realized that I should’ve remarked on the coincidence that we shared the same favorite hobby and taken it from there.

And then there was the time that I was at a party and I met a girl there who suggested that we go out for pizza. We did, and had what I remember to be a very nice time together, chatting, and laughing. And then I walked her back to her dorm. And she asked, “Oh, how are you going to get back into Joe’s dorm? Don’t you need a key to get into the building this late?” And I was clueless enough to respond, “Oh, it’s OK. Joe gave me an extra key so I can get in.” Of course, the night ended there.

A: Gad. Male cluelessness, vol. MCMXII.

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Q: A couple of years ago (maybe 10 by now) I called for Jury Duty here, in Loudoun County. Usually, you call in and they don't need a jury because most cases settle. This time I had to go in. When I got there, there were probably 100 prospective jurors. They got us lined up to go in the courtroom for selection. TWICE. We sat back in the waiting area for probably another hour and were then actually called in to the court room. The Judge proceeded to thank us for our time and explained that the case had finally settled. Further he explained that this was a case that required a larger than normal pool as it would likely be difficult to seat a jury due to the nature of the circumstances... it was case of Loudoun School teacher that had down loaded child pornography. I think I wanted to be on that jury mostly to know about the investigation...how did they know, what did they find and how did find it, did he KNOW it was child porn it was downloaded?  And obviously, if he KNEW why did not delete it? And why would he have waited unit the absolute last minute to settle?

I had SO many questions. 

— Tom Logan, Sterling, VA

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A: Be careful. I once wanted to do a story on child porn – specifically, a profile of a liberal attorney, an executive with the ACLU – who was caught, via a sting,  with a computer full of filth.  He’d never assaulted a child, but his life was over. 

I felt there were complex ethical issues involved.   To research it, I interviewed the dedicated decent people the NCMEC, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.  They chase down and help prosecute child molesters. 

Things went well until I told them that, to explain this story adequately, I had to see some of the filth.  It changed the whole tone of the conversation.  I think they wondered why I was so interested, and they told me it was impossible, even with a judge’s order, which I offered to obtain.  

I tried to explain about the enormous  value of immersion journalism, but that was it. I believe i was done in their eyes. And I refused to do the story without that basic access.   This is a very complicated issue.

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This is Gene. If you haven’t seen this, it is spectacular. Just one minute in length.

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Q: In the spring of my sophomore year in college, a first-year woman was hanging out in my room into the wee hours of the morning. 

Her: "I'm not sure if I can make it back to [name of her dorm]"

Me: "I'm sure you can!"

A: Why is the guy always the clueless asshole in these stories?  

Oh, wait, never mind.

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Q: Describing the couch stuff as "a vulgar slur invented by a troll" seems different from your past analysis of why it was funny, and fair game. Has your opinion on its use changed?

A: Not in the least.  I think it’s great.  It’s funny, and arm’s-length.   It is also phony, which is why it is fair.  Everyone knows it is phony.  It’s just a joke about politics, and — indirectly — about how terrible Trump’s VP pick was.  Clapclapclap. My applause continues.

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Q: Aptonym for you.

A: Very fine. A 18-syllable word Q and A.

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Q: My jury story.  In the jury pool for a serious armed robbery.  Judge asks if anyone has had experience with trials and I raised my hand.  Up to the witness box.  Judge asks what was the experience.  I told him I was a witness for the prosecution for two trials on a bank robbery (2 defendants had separate trials; they ran by me on their way out).  One of the attorneys said "and I guess with your testimony, they were convicted."  I said, "Well the one with the private attorney was acquitted, the one with the public defender was convicted."  The judge and the other attorney burst out in hysterical laughter.  When they finally stopped, the judge said to the questioning attorney, "I'll bet you're sorry you asked that question."  Turns out he was the public defender on this current case.  I was excused. —Robert

A: Excellent story.

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Q: I cannot believe I am sharing this story… but here goes. And I tried to edit it but I am sure you will edit it down more. Feel free to do so. 

I had purchased one of those insane outfits from a mail order place that sold all manner of lacy things because after a very long internship that had separated my long term boyfriend and I for 3 months, I was finally heading home to him in late August. I fully intended to make our reunion a night he would remember for the rest of his life. It was black lace but designed to be worn for all the festivities so it didn’t actually cover any of the areas considered critical infrastructure. It only bedazzled the supporting cast with black lace. It was not the kind of garment one wishes to be wearing when your boyfriend’s best friend comes to rescue you from underneath your unconscious boyfriend. Why was he unconscious? Well, boyfriend’s bestie was house sitting and thought it would be damn skippy to offer us a bedroom alone in the home for the reunification weekend since both of us lived in more dormitory-style situations. The bedroom in question was full of old antique MASSIVE furniture made of heavy wood with metal inlays and ornate carvings. At one point in the evening as that black lace get-up had very effectively produced the desired results, things were getting super athletic on the bed. And then the bed collapsed. This headboard was easily 6’ tall with even taller posts on each corner and the side rails slid through slits in the headboard so when the bed collapsed, the whole bed rocked toward the middle of the room bringing that massive and heavy headboard on top of our most enthusiastic athlete just as he was moving his head upward causing him to take the full weight of the headboard to the noggin knocking him out cold. And because the mattress rail didn’t pull free of the headboard, to push the headboard up off us required me to essentially push the weight of the headboard, mattress, 2 bodies, and a negligible quantity of lace off of us….while being pinned down. Bestie comes flying up the stairs hearing what sounds like injurious activity yelling through the locked door to see if we are ok. I yell we need help that boyfriend is unconscious. The rescue was not a graceful operation and despite his best attempts to avert his eyes as much as possible, bestie got the full show in the process. Boyfriend regained consciousness during the rescue and I insisted he be evaluated for a concussion and he agreed after a brief negotiation. When the ER doc asked why he had waited for over an hour after the injury to head to the hospital he said “look, I hadn’t seen her in 3 months and I’d never in my life seen her in anything that small and lace.” And I saw bestie nodding his head in enthusiastic agreement with this logic out of the corner of my eye as I tried to melt into the plastic hospital chair refusing to meet anyone’s eyes. The er doctor high fived him. He was fine other than a goose egg on his head and a mild headache which did not bench him for the weekend. We spent the rest of the weekend on a mattress on the floor far away from any heavy furnishings that might interrupt the strenuous actions of a couple young lovers making up for months of forced celibacy. That Christmas, bestie and his fiancé gave us both helmets. It was at least 6 months before bestie could look me in the face again without his ears turning bright red.

A: Beautifully done. It required the length. No editing needed.

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Q: Is anything "charming" anymore? Your use of "cool" -- another of those wonderfully redolent adjectives of yore --- had me trying to remember the last time I had heard charming used to describe someone or something -- in its positive sense. Any similar apparently obsolete descriptives come to mind?

A: I am not sure cool is obsolete, but being obsolete myself…

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This is Gene. We are Done.

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And comments, here, where it says “comments.”