The Invitational Week 95: What's the Worst That Could Happen?
After the election, we mean. And be funny about it. Plus the winners of our Ask Backwards contest.
Pat Myers and Gene Weingarten
Oct 24, 2024

burning charcoal briquettes
Steaks à la Trump, circa 2025?
Hello.

We’re in the final days before the election. The polls are Gillette-close. The rhetoric has been heating up. The Fear Factor is running high. Conservatives are in a frenzied froth. Liberals are in a writhing perturbation. Dire predictions abound on both sides. D.C. has become Disinformation Central.

Our question today is: In the collective minds of each group, what are some of the worst, most extreme things that could happen if their candidate loses? And yes, we are looking for funny. (For you libs: “The worst? A dictatorship in which all civil rights disappear and oaths of fealty to the Führer will be required for voting and Jews will be …” might be a warranted concern, but it won’t see ink.)

What we are seeking is more like this:

On the left: After a Trump win, by law you can only order your steak either well done or "briquetted," a brand new term meaning you can snap it in half.
On the right: After a Harris win, in every big city there will be licensed dog, cat, hamster, and cockatoo restaurants run by swarthy immigrants.
Okay? Good.

For Invitational Week 95: Give us a comically dire prediction of what could happen if Harris loses or Trump loses, as in the examples above.

Formatting your entries this week: It’s just our regular request that you write each individual entry as a single line (i.e., don’t push Enter until the end of each entry).

Deadline is Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, at 9 p.m. ET. Yup, before the election. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Nov. 7. Yup, after the election. 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-95.

The winner receives this handsome “I Don’t Give a Shitake” plush mushroom, given by Undeniable Shitake-Giver Dave Prevar.


NOT a rendering of any part of a presidential candidate: 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.

Déjà Q: Ink from Ask Backwards XLIII
As we had on forty-two previous occasions, in Invitational Week 93 we presented a list of “answers” and asked for the questions, Jeopardy! style. Of the suggested answers, “A children’s book by RFK Jr.” tickled the most Losers’ fancies, accounting for almost 100 of the contest’s 700 entries; submitted too often: “The Very Hungry Brainworm,” And for the answer “Not a peep out of him,” there was much talk of constipation after eating too much Easter candy.

Third runner-up:
A. A White Sox Burger.
Q. What’s it called when your pitcher tosses a big meatball across the middle of the plate?
(Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

Second runner-up:
A. A children’s book by RFK Jr.
Q. What is “And to Think That I Sawed It on Mulberry Street”?
(Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)

First runner-up:
A. Grip it by the seams.
Q. What did Frankenstein’s monster tell his Bride on their honeymoon?
(Jeff Hazle, San Antonio)

And the winner of the skeleton socks:
A. A children’s book by RFK Jr.
What is “Eat the Bunny”?
(Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)

Waste Ask-Its: Honorable mentions
A children’s book by RFK Jr.:
What is “Hop on Pop’s Legacy”? (Rob Huffman, Fredericksburg, Va.)

What is “See Spot Run Over by a Car, Then Eat Him” (Gregory Koch, Falls Church, Va.)

What is “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Vaccine?” (Karen Lambert, Chevy Chase, Md.)

AI Sauce:
What condiment gets all twelve of your fingers sticky? (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.; Jesse Frankovich)

A White Sox Burger:
What ballpark meal will never give you the runs? (Stephen Dudzik, Olney, Md.; Gary Crockett)

Bond. Percival Bond.:
Who orders his lemon-drop cosmo “shaken, not stirred, and be sure to put powdered sugar on the rim with just a hint of cinnamon”? (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

Who starred in Octoprissy? (Diana Oertel, San Francisco)

Camelot Harris:
Which knight defeated Sir Rantsalot? (Neal Starkman, Seattle)

Who smacked down Sir Vance a lot? (Frank Osen)

Chewing gumption:
What did it take to be the first person ever to eat a snail? (Jeff Hazle)

What personality characteristic often coincides with biting sarcasm? (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)

What precedes swallowing pride? (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)

Grip it by the seams:
What’s the best thing to do with yo mama’s dress if you have fallen out of an airplane? (Mark Raffman)

How does Trump keep his hair on in a hurricane? (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)

What’s the best way to get a soccer ball out of your mouth? (Frank Osen)

Muhammad Alley:
At which bowling center have the pins been knocked down only four times ever? (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)

What is the next street over from JesusIsThe Way? (Stephen Dudzik)

Take it for a spin:
What’s an anagram of “It’s a freakin’ top”? (Jesse Frankovich)

What does the fan do with the shit that hits it? (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)

What’s the first thing an actor does after mastering a Linda Blair impression? (Frank Osen)

The question you’d have asked at another debate:
What is “Mr. President, as you’re the father of IVF, please explain the relative merits of frozen-embryo transfer, elective single-embryo transfer, and intracytoplasmic sperm injection”? (Duncan Stevens)

The Topic of Capricorn:
What would you rather have to discuss with your doctor than the Topic of Cancer? (Jesse Frankovich; Frank Osen; Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)

E Pluribus Um Um:
What is the motto on the planned Trump commemorative $3 bill? (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore; Duncan Stevens)

Washington, CD:
What investment option never matures? (Mike Gips, Bethesda, Md.; Bill Smith, Boqueron, Puerto Rico)

What is the capital of Dyslexia? (Stephen Dudzik)

Not a peep out of him:
How did the woman know her “friendly” neighbor Tom was out of town? (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)

43 Ask Backwards contests:
What, along with Pete Davidson, have been around since 1993 and are questionably funny? (Jesse Frankovich)

The headline “Déjà Q” is by Kevin Dopart; Chris Doyle wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.

Still running — deadline 9 p.m. ET Saturday, Oct. 26: our Week 94 contest for jokes that require specialized or esoteric knowledge to get. Click on the link below.

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Idea: ()
Examples: ()
Judging: ()
Title: (Kevin Dopart)
Subhead: (Chris Doyle)
Prize: (Dave Prevar)
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