The Invitational Week 81: Picture This
It's our caption contest. Plus winning alt-ideas for Independence Day.
PAT MYERS AND GENE WEINGARTEN
JUL 18, 2024

Hello. We’ll get right into it.

For Invitational Week 81: Write a caption — as many as 25 total — for any of the seven pictures above and below. For guidance, inspiration, and plain ol’ entertainment, take a look at the results of Week 61 and the results of Week 49 to see what we like in a caption. (More info below the set of pictures.)


Formatting this week: Begin each caption only with the letter on the picture — as in A. [your caption] — and keep each caption to a single line; i.e., don’t press Enter in the middle of a single entry. If you’re submitting multiple entries (might as well!), be sure to begin every caption with the letter on the picture.

Deadline is Saturday, July 27, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Aug. 1. 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-81.

This week’s winner gets the handy reference volume Farts: A Spotter’s Guide, a board book meticulously describing such species as the Seismic Blast, the One That Got Away, and the Flight of the Buttock Bees. Complete with a sound box purportedly re-creating the various buttular pronouncements — even the Silent but Deadly. Donated three years ago by Pie Snelson and declined by a previous winner who didn’t think his kids needed this on the family bookshelf.

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.


Sillying Fourth: Independence Day ideas from Week 79
In Invitational Week 79, which we introduced on July 4, we asked you to come up with alternative ways to celebrate Independence Day.

Third runner-up:
Celebrate the delicacies of the Colonial table by setting out a buffet of eel soup, roasted beaver tail, boiled pigeons, and calf’s-foot jelly. (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)

Second runner-up:
Sacrifice a cherry tree from the Tidal Basin. Lie about who did it. (Kevin Dopart, Naxos, Greece; Jesse Rifkin, Arlington, Va.)

First runner-up:
Teams with shovels dig up and rotate the skeletons of the Founders in an annual Rolling in Their Graves event. (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)

And the winner of the happy socks:
Doomscroll the internet, hate-watch some TV, and then relax with a rage-walk. (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)


So Proudly We Failed: Honorable mentions
Sell deep-fried copies of the Constitution on a stick. (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)

Celebrate the new national mascot: the combover eagle. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)

Honor the American spirit of excess by eating 7/4 as much as you usually do. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

Shut down social media and cellphones on July 4. All communications must be either in person, via scrolls, or by town crier. (Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.)

Cities replace dangerous fireworks displays with environmentally safe high-frequency signals that are entirely invisible but equally effective at terrorizing dogs. (Frank Osen)

If you’re in Texas, pay homage to your regional cuisine by putting out tamales and tacos, separated from the hot dogs and hamburgers by a miniature wall. (Jonathan Jensen)

On the Fourth, Americans can celebrate freedom by driving without seatbelts, parking on the sidewalks, smoking wherever they please, eating monkey meat, leaving their dogs’ poop in the street . . . (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.)

A skywriting contest in which pilots compete to make the biggest, clearest John Hancock signature. (Jon Ketzner)

Since six of them vow always to think just as the Founders did, the Supreme Court justices must wear powdered wigs all day. (Jon Ketzner)

Let’s celebrate the Second Amendment by holding Revolutionary War reenactments using modern weaponry. (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

Everyone trades in their semiautomatics for muskets. (Neal Starkman, Seattle)

First recall that many of the Founders owned slaves. Then yell at yourself for disrespecting their legacy and call yourself the “woke mob.” Then devolve into a vicious internal flame war that leaves you far sadder but no wiser. (Duncan Stevens)

Fly flags with an inverted image of the Supreme Court. (Mark L. Asquino, Santa Fe, N.M.)

In a symbolic act of protest, drop an Earl Grey tea bag in the Mall’s Reflecting Pool. (Chris Doyle)

Just cut to the chase: Skip the purchasing and preparation of fireworks, and instead amputate multiple fingers in a nice sterile environment. (Duncan Stevens)

Use your phone to take a picture of your butt crack, then send it to friends and family with the caption “My Liberty Bell.” (Lee Graham, Reston, Va.)

Three words: Bald eagle burgers. (Gregory Koch, Falls Church, Va.; Sam Mertens)

The headline “Sillying Fourth” is by Jesse Frankovich; Jesse also wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.

Still running — deadline 9 p.m. ET Saturday, July 20: our Week 80 contest to say how any two items on our random list are alike or different. Click on the link below.

InvisibleInk!
Idea: ()
Examples: ()
Judging: ()
Title: (Jesse Frankovich)
Subhead: (Jesse Frankovich)
Prize: (Pie Snelson)
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VisibleInk!