The Invitational Week 102: Next Year in Review
Give us some events for our 2025 timeline -- and check out our predictions for 100 years from now
Pat Myers and Gene Weingarten
Dec 11, 2024
Hello. Remember how a couple of weeks ago, celebrating the 100th week of The Invitational, we inaugurated a new contest to humorously predict events from 100 years in the future? Well, we have the results of that contest today …
…AND…
today we once again look ahead. This time, just by a few months. This week’s contest is to come up with things that at least theoretically might occur during 2025.
What follows, as usual, are examples of what we are looking for, but they are examples of a type we have never done before, not once in 32 years of professional Invitationalizing. These are not examples we made up or examples taken from entries to previous, similar contests. These examples were excellent entries to the 100-years contest, ones we felt worked even better as predictions for next year. Behold:
The Department of Governmental Efficiency announces that it has outgrown the Pentagon and has set up a commission to search for new office space. (Steve Smith)
The Alabama Supreme Court rules that 18-year-old frozen embryos have voting rights. (Deb Stewart)
UnitedHealthcare is named Corporate Citizen of the Year for its exceptional, empathetic, responsive service. (Jon Ketzner)
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For Invitational Week 102: Tell us as many as twenty-five humorous events that “happen” in 2025, as in the examples above. Write them in present-tense sentences as in a timeline, not as headlines. Begin your entry with a particular date only if it’s relevant to the entry. (For inspiration, and so you don’t repeat the jokes, take a look at last year’s results; the winner, by Steve Smith: “The NFL announces that next year’s Super Bowl will be the halftime entertainment at a Taylor Swift concert.”)
Deadline is Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Dec. 26. 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-102.
Formatting your entries this week: 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).
This week’s winner gets a Christmas card from us. Up to you whether you’d like us to sign it or leave it usable.
funny cartoon dog christmas card with envelope 4 7x6 3 inches festive holiday greeting for men friends paper fantasy theme no power required red 0
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.
Save the date! The Loser Post-Holiday Party, our annual winter potluck/singalong/schmoozefest for Invitational players and fans, will go down on Sunday afternoon, Jan. 26, at a house in suburban Maryland. Write to BrunchOfLosers@gmail.com to get on the mailing list for an invitation.
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100 Years of LOLitude: Week 100’s predictions for 2124
Third runner-up:
A bestselling book of 2124: 20th-Century Daredevils: The Humans Who Steered Their Own Cars (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)
Second runner-up:
A Page 1 headline from 2124: Canada Strengthens Border Wall With U.S. (Art Grinath, Takoma Park, Md.)
First runner-up:
A news event of 2124: Continuing its effort to retain control of Congress, the GOP majority splits the Dakotas into sixteen separate states. Both residents of West-Southwest Dakota become senators. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)
And the winner of the inflatable pumpkin pie:
Page 1 headline of 2124: Fighting Erupts on Mars Between Jewish and Palestinian Settlers (Rob Cohen, Potomac, Md.)
Not in a Hundred Years: Honorable mentions
Headlines from 2124:
Climber is First Blind Quadriplegic Centenarian From Burkina Faso to Reach Everest Summit on a Tuesday (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)
Musk’s Great-Grandson 5xy7/@& Changes Name to Doug (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)
Mohel’s Botched Bris Traced to Faulty Space Laser (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)
Stock Market Rallies as Last Recipient of Social Security Dies at 119 (Larry Peterson, Brooklyn, N.Y., a First Offender)
Will Voters Hold 138-year-old Candidate’s Youth and Inexperience Against Him? (Tom Witte)
Contractors Who Built Trump Monument Say They Never Got Paid (Sam Mertens)
NIH Alarmed at Thinness Epidemic Since Ozempic Was Added to Water Supply (Kevin Dopart, Naxos, Greece)
Caravan of undocumented Americans threatens to overrun Mexican Border Patrol (Steve Smith, Potomac, Md.)
U.S.-Built AI Qualifies as ‘Natural-Born Citizen’ in 7-2 Supreme Court Ruling; Both Human Justices Dissent (Michael Stein, Arlington, Va.)
Post-Post Malone wins AI Song of the Year at the HoloGrammys. (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)
Ted Williams’s Thawed Head to Manage Washington Nationals (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)
President Disparages Immigrants from Shithole Planets (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)
Invitational’s AI Overseer Declares That Jokes About AI Are Not Funny (Neal Starkman, Seattle)
Bestselling book from 2124:
“501 English Pronouns” (Art Grinath)
“📚 ➡️ 🤪” (Jeff Contompasis)
News developments from 2124:
139-year-old LeBron James becomes the first athlete to play in an NBA game with his great-great-grandson. (Jesse Rifkin, Arlington, Va.)
Now that Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa have become states, the drive for statehood for the District of Columbia picks up steam. (Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.)
Impossible Foods Inc. develops plant-based Impossible People to eat that stuff. (Deb Stewart, Damascus, Md.)
Rising oceans have covered all the land on Earth. But fortunately, people are able to live on floating continents made entirely of plastic trash. (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)
In a press conference, just as President Donald J. Trump IV disparages the current leprosy pandemic as a “hoax,” his nose falls off. (Tom Logan, Sterling, Va.)
A sixth-grader wins the local science fair with a project that proves quantum physics is total bullshit. (Roy Ashley)
After the recent election of the first geranium ever to be president of the United States, commentators agree that “it is only a matter of when, not if” the country would elect its first woman president. (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.)
Cyborg shortstop Dusty Maris collapses in a heap and is sold for parts just 30 games short of tying Cal Ripken’s consecutive-games record. (Jon Ketzner)
The D.C. area Metro system continues its expansion with its 27th and 28th train routes, the Puce Line and the Cerulean Line. There are still no trains that go anywhere near Georgetown. (Duncan Stevens)
The great-great-love-children of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore finally descend to Earth from the International Space Station. (Beverley Sharp)
The final Googlenope has been revealed (Note: The expression “the final Googlenope” was de-Googlenoped Dec. 11, 2024) (Kevin Dopart)
The Trump Dynasty Bargain Health Plan has been amended to exclude benefits to anyone who's ever been sick. (Howard Walderman, Columbia, Md.)
A winning Invitational entry in 2124:
Old idiom: When hell freezes over.
New idiom: When Helsinki freezes over. (Chris Doyle)
The headline “100 Years of LOLitude” is by Kevin Dopart; Judy Freed wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.
Still running — deadline 9 p.m. ET Saturday, Dec. 14: our Week 101 contest for jokes roughly in the format “X is so Y [that] …” Click on the link below.
InvisibleInk!
Idea: ()
Examples: (Steve Smith; Deb Stewart; Jon Ketzner; Steve Smith)
Judging: ()
Title: (Kevin Dopart)
Subhead: (Judy Freed)
Prize: ()
Add:H:1588: ()
VisibleInk!