The Invitational Week 116: Throw Food at Us
Meet 'Bean Weingarten,' and make us some more or less edible art. Plus winning neologisms.
Pat Myers and Gene Weingarten
Mar 20, 2025


Craig Dykstra created this portrait for our 2011 edible-art contest (it won fourth place). Afterward he dumped all 5,000 beans into a jar.
Hello. Gene is on vacation abroad this week, so your humble Empress of The Invitational — whose stateside palace Mount Vermin does have reliable internet — instead offers his image via legume to bring back a contest we last did fourteen years ago, one that’s always brought us fabulous results, some more of which we’ll share below.

To those new readers who learned about The Gene Pool and The Washington Pist this week from Gene’s bang-up piece about them in Mother Jones: Along with Gene’s own subversive humor, each Thursday we also bring you The Invitational, the humor/wordplay contest that used to be the edgiest thing in The Washington Post when we both, in succession, ran it there. (See below.)

For Invitational Week 116: Use real food to create a humorous picture or assemblage (e.g., a diorama) on any topic, and email us a photo or two to TheInvitational@substack.com, along with an optional title plus any other information you’d like to share about it. See the rest of the IMPORTANT!! instructions at the bottom of today’s page.

Here are some classics from three past edible-food contests, from 2006 and 2011.

From our 2006 contest to use fruit: “West Side Story: Finale,” by Jeff Brechlin. (The arms and legs are pipe cleaners, and the blades are pieces of staples.)


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From that same contest, by Jane Auerbach: “Well, the lipo helped, too.”


From a contest later that year for pumpkins and other vegetables: “That’s it, I’m selling the hive,” by Jay Shuck.


And finally, the 2011 winner, “That’s a Wrap,” depicting the burial at sea of Osama bin Laden via a burrito and an ocean of tortilla chips, by Kevin Dopart and his daughter Alethea:


Deadline is Saturday, March 29, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, April 3. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest; if you’re sending a number of photos, it’s better to put just a few on each email. (Once again, that would be TheInvitational@substack.com.)

This week’s winner gets this pair of mini-signs (just four inches tall). So much easier than cleaning up after a food-covered hairball or a little poodle puke.


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.

Make It Out of DOGE: Neologisms from Week 114
In Invitational Week 114, our annualish “Tour de Fours” contest, we asked you to come up with new terms incorporating the letter block — oh, for no particular reason — DOGE, in any order but with no other letters between them (spaces and hyphens were okay).

Third runner-up:
DOGE CHARGER: A car with a loud horn but no steering wheel or brakes. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)

Second runner-up:
DE-GONAD: What Trump does to each of his Cabinet appointees. (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)

First runner-up:
CODGERTATION: How people over 65 try to remember why they came into that particular room. (Diana Oertel, San Francisco)

And the winner of the socks that look like ketchup bottles:
EGO-DACTYL:
Higgledy, piggledy,
I am the president,
Greatest there’s been and there
Ever will be.
Only one person can
Superheroically
Fix all our problems and
That would be ME.
(Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)

EdGED Out: Honorable mentions

DODGEBAWL: “Waaaah, I have bone spurs.” (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

WRITED GOOD: Probably not the blurb to put on your novel’s cover. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

DEAD GEORGE: In the final volume of the series, the monkey gets a little too curious. (Jesse Frankovich)

GOOD EGG: A compliment never meant so much. (Elizabeth Ewert, Washington, D.C., a First Offender)

ArmageDon: The destruction of the universe, except that the Devil wins. (Diana Oertel)

DOG-E BAG: What we’ll be left holding after they’re through looting the government. (Art Grinath, Takoma Park, Md.)

FRIDGE OPENER: Event that leads to stress eating. “The news lately is just one fridge opener after another. Hey, what happened to the Ben & Jerry’s?” (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)

BLODEGA: A shop that sells groceries in the front, cocaine in the back. (Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.)

A BOY AND HIS DOGE: Post-apocalyptic dystopia — but unfortunately, not a fictional story by Harlan Ellison. (Michael Stein, Arlington, Va.)

GEODODO: Someone who can’t find his mailbox without GPS. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)

BLUEDGEON: To render Democrats completely feckless. Usually unnecessary for outside parties to undertake, as they do this very effectively to themselves. (Duncan Stevens)

DE-GONIF: The motto of Project 2029. (Frank Osen)

CODGE: To act curmudgeonly. “We’re not ON your lawn, gramps — quit codging!” (Duncan Stevens)

DEGOTIST: Someone who puts a bully in his place. (Connie Akers, Radford, Va.)

“DIVERGED. OMG. WHAT 2 DO”: “The Road Not Taken,” updated YA edition. (Duncan Stevens)

DOEG: Department of Elon’s Goons. Better name. (Judy Freed)

EGODOMETER: a safety device in sports cars that tells the driver he’s going 80 when he’s really going 60. (Barbara Turner, Takoma Park, Md.)

EYE-NOODGE: That meaningful glance toward the door your partner gives you when they want to leave the party. (Pam Shermeyer)

GEODICK: What this clam ought to be called, by the looks of it. (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.; Jesse Frankovich)

GIVE A DOGE A BONE: Perform minor “asks” so the new overlord feels you’re cooperating. “Sally decided to give a Doge a bone by listing the first five things she did last week: wake up, sigh, commute, sigh, log in.” (Leif Picoult)

THE HEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE: It’s said with one’s fingers crossed behind one’s back. (Jesse Frankovich)

HEY, DUDE, GO ALREADY! A key line in the new children’s book “Marvin K. Mooney Part 2”:
Your thought process rambles,
Your gait is unsteady,
The country’s a shambles
Hey, dude, go already!” (Jim Proulx, Renton, Wash., who last got Invite ink 21 years ago)

ME GOD: “The Art of the Deal” (abridged). (Rob Huffman, Fredericksburg, Va.)

MEINE DOGWHISTLE: Elon’s just-being-friendly arm salute. (Diana Oertel)

OGDEN NOSH:
“Tonight my meal’s only course’ll
Be a single tasty morsel.” (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)

OGDENIZE:
To devise rhymes extremely improbable
With an approach to meter that is make-your-poetry-teacher-sobbable. (Duncan Stevens)

ORANGE-ODOR: Let’s just say it doesn’t smell like money these days. (Mark Raffman)

WAITING FOR E-GODOT: Existentialist play about two hapless computer users and their slow internet connection. “It will stop buffering soon.” “Perhaps.” (Duncan Stevens)

And Last: NEOLOGED: What the Loser Community has done every few months for the past 32 years, including in 21 Tour de Fours contests alone. (Jesse Frankovich)

And Even Laster: EGO DROOP: What Losers anticipate every Thursday at noon. (Judy Freed)

The headline “Make It Out of DOGE” is by Stu Segal; Kevin Dopart wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.

Still running — deadline 9 p.m. ET Saturday, March 22: Our contest for things that could be said in two different situations. Click on the link below.

InvisibleInk!
Idea: ()
Examples: (Jeff Brechlin; Jane Auerbach; Jay Shuck; Kevin Dopart; Alethea
Dopart)
Judging: ()
Title: (Stu Segal)
Subhead: (Kevin Dopart)
Prize: ()
Add:H:1588: ()
VisibleInk!