The Invitational Week 130: Same Difference
Tell us what's the same or different about any two wacky things we list. Plus some useful (and not-so-useful) brand-new words.
Pat Myers and Gene Weingarten
Jun 26, 2025


241 Dead Ducks Stock Vectors and Vector Art | Shutterstock
One of the options for this week’s Invitational contest.
Hello. We’re back with an Invitational Classic®: the contest in which we present you with a list of random items and you compare or contrast any two (or more) in some cleverly funny manner. Here’s this year’s list; many of them were offered up to our request in the Invitational’s lively Facebook group.

A buffet sneeze guard
A dead and plucked duck
A Tesla
Two snowballs
Begging for sex
A bunker-buster bomb
Print newspapers
SpaceX
Jeff Bezos’s yacht’s tenth bathroom
Marcia Brady
Abraham Lincoln’s dog, Fido
A rat’s ass
Google
The Almighty
JD Vance
Some random guy
Nine nipples
The difference between a Tesla and Jeff Bezos’s yacht’s tenth bathroom: While both are the pride of men flush with wealth, it’s the bathroom where the wealthy flush.

Print newspapers vs. a dead and plucked duck: With the duck, the contents are fresher.

For Invitational Week 130: Tell us humorously how any two (or more) items on the list above are alike, different, or otherwise linked, as in the examples above. See last year’s results here.

Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to tinyURL.com/inv-form-130. As usual, you may submit up to 25 entries for this week’s contest, preferably all on the same form. Formatting: It’s just our standard request to write each of your entries as a single line; i.e., don’t push Enter until the end of each entry.

Deadline is Saturday, July 5, 2025, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, July 10.

The winner receives a Squeeeze Banana (yes, with three e’s), a bright yellow banana-shaped squish toy that is waaayyy more satisfying that those foamy stress balls; this one molds to your hand and bends to how you shape it and it stays that way — and its surface is like smooth but slightly resistant rubber, almost compellingly touchable. And we’d say it’s hmm, six inches long. Donated by Dave Prevar, the Universal Donor.

(This is the Czar, butting in, to note that the Empress wrote the previous paragraph.)


This week’s highly Inviting prize.
Twistful Thinking: The word-search neologisms of Week 128
In Week 128, in the recurring contest we call As the Word Turns, we invited you to snake through this random grid we created — in any or all directions — and “discover” a new word or phrase. Like this week’s runner-up “Jerk, Jerk, Pig,” traced out below.


Third runner-up: Beginning at H-4: JERK, JERK, PIG: A variation of Duck, Duck, Goose played in Cabinet meetings. (Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)

Second runner-up: S-5: ADIOT: Annoyingly uninformed character in a commercial. “The actor hated playing the adiot who asks, “Do you mean a Medicare Advantage plan covers Parts A and B plus a whole lot MORE?’ ” (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)

First runner-up: J-16: NAP JUSTIFICATION: I’m old. (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)

And the winner of the chicken purse:
H-8: ROY BIV: Mnemonic for colors of the spectrum, once Trump bans “green.” (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

Every Which Way You Lose: Honorable mentions
A-4: I LIE NICE, YOUR KING: What Trump wants as his epitaph. (Kevin Dopart, Naxos, Greece)

A-11: YELP COOT: Someone who only leaves negative reviews. (Michael Stein, Arlington, Va.)

A-15: QUOOK: What President Richard Milhous Fudd claimed he was not. (Michael Stein)

A-17: SKYWALL: Trump’s plan to keep out Mexican airplanes. (Jesse Frankovich)

B-10: BUGGEROOS: Underwear with a flap in the back. (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)

B-10: BUTTCOIN: Crypto. (Mark Raffman)

B-20: MAHA WELL: Sick. (Mark Raffman)

C-15: SAY BS: Trump’s advice to his press secretary just before she addresses the nation. (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)

C-8: GOUGLE: A search engine for overpriced items. (Eric Nelkin, Silver Spring, Md.)

D-12: PET COOKERY: “They’re eating the dogs!” (Gary Crockett)

D-12: POOT SLAM: A farting contest. (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)

D-17: WASTOO: What comes after “Was.” “Wasnot.” (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)

D-18: MIX-NIPPLED: Having one that’s pink and one that’s brown. (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)

E-3: CLOWN HELL: Where they make you juggle porcupines. (Barbara Turner, Takoma Park, Md.)

E-15: AMPLE PIRANHA: Seriously, one is more than enough. (Gary Crockett)

E-15: APE MA’AM: Mrs. Tarzan. (Neil Kurland, Elkridge, Md.)

F-13: HIMMLED: Action taken by the Trump secret police, er, ICE. “Masked agents drove up and himmled the U.S. citizen into an unmarked van.” (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

F-15: MOM CHECKER: The kid who acts as lookout before others raid the cookie jar. (Neil Kurland)

G-13: COXUP: A knockoff of Viagra. (Stephen Dudzik, Olney, Md.)

H-10: WOYK: To gain employment as one of the Three Stooges. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)

H-19: PINGLE: That thrill you get when the cute guy you met at the bar last night texts you. (Deb Stewart, Damascus, Md.)

H-20: YELP MD: With the downsizing of NIH and the CDC, what might be out best option for medical information. (Diana Oertel, San Francisco)

I-7: VALET PARKER: JD Vance — in my dreams. (Jim Markisohn, Orlando, Fla., a First Offender)

I-15: DJTP: Bathroom tissue for extra-large assholes. (Deb Stewart)

I-9: DELI HECKLER: “You call that a schmear?” (Gary Crockett)

J-19: B-D-B-D-B-D: Porky Pig’s lead-in to “That’s all, folks!” (Neil Kurland)

K-7: LAPJACKER: An intrusively affectionate cat. (Richard Alexander, Grand Rapids, Mich.)

K-18 PURISH: The latest EPA water quality standard. (Sam Mertens, Silver Spring, Md.)

L-19: BVRLAP: Ancient Roman sackcloth. (Jeff Contompasis)

N-10 GOYMIX: Velveeta and bacon bits on a bagel. (Greg Dunn, Alexandria, Va.)

O-11: FECALMOP: Picks up where the bidet leaves off. (Deb Stewart)

O-12: FED NADS: What OMB Director Russell Vought keeps squeezing. (Chris Doyle)

O-13: DEIFECATION: The act of worshiping a piece of shit. (Mark Raffman)

U-3: ZEN/OY: Ratio of inner peace to outer insanity. “America is in a concerning state of zen/oy imbalance.” (Judy Freed, Deerfield Beach, Fla.)

U-19: YYLY: Texting shorthand for “wisely.” (Jeff Contompasis)

And Last: D-12: POO LAW: Unwritten rule that at least one potty joke must appear in each set of contest results. (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)

And Even Laster: H-6: INK DRIVEL: What I will look back on as the supreme accomplishments of my life. (Jonathan Jensen, who has been published 384 times in The Invitational)

The headline “Twistful Thinking” is by Jeff Contompasis; Tom Witte wrote the honorable-mentions subhead.

Still running — deadline Saturday, June 28, at 9 p.m. ET: Our contest to write lines from a Trumpian Gettysburg Address. Click below for details.

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Title: (Jeff Contompasis)
Subhead: (Tom Witte)
Prize: (Dave Prevar)
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