The Invitational Week 139: Bones Mots
Give a line for an obit of a fictional character. Plus 'Ef-U-gees' and other winning neologisms.
Pat Myers and Gene Weingarten
Aug 28, 2025

SNOOPY died yesterday at the age of 525 in human years. There will be a top-of-casket viewing on Sunday.

GREGOR SAMSA, a traveling salesman and recent reclusive, was killed in
his home during a scheduled pest control treatment.

ALICE “TINKER” BELL died suddenly last week during the taping of a TV
show when a stagehand neglected to flash the applause sign.

For Invitational Week 139: Write us a short passage from an obituary for a fictional character, as in the examples above: the first by Rob Cohen, who suggested this contest, the others by Chris Doyle from a broader version of this contest in 2016 (results here).

Formatting this week: Unless you’re writing a poem, please write your entry as one long line, per our usual request (i.e., don’t press Enter until you’re ready to type your next entry).

Deadline is Saturday, Sept. 6, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Sept. 11 (hey, we don’t write the calendar). 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-139.

(suggestion: if you are reading this in an email, please click on the headline to get the updated version of the Gene Pool, where you can see the online version of the column, including any amendments, emendations, etc. made after the email was sent.)

This week’s winner receives what will surely go on our list as One of Our Best Prizes Ever, along with the boluses of dried owl vomit, the bottle of Laotian potency liquor with a preserved scorpion inside, and the package of a snack labeled “Smorked Beef Rectum.” It was custom-made for Longtime Loser Robin Diallo, whom the State Department dispatches to hot spots around the word (e.g., as the de facto ambassador to Haiti), even during her alleged retirement to a farm in Florida. So Robin was recently in Namibia (Trump Atlas: Nambia), where there’s a local specialty craft of carving seeds from the makalani palm tree, exposing the white layer beneath. Thinking of The Invitational — as she did when she sent us a Zulu penis-tip cover — she commissioned a craftsman to personalize this key chain as a 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.

Pumping the Breaks: The ‘Hyphen the Terrible’ neologisms of Week 137
In Invitational Week 137, we once again invited you to find some hyphenated terms among that week’s publications, then combine parts of two of them into a new word or phrase. Those who used print newspapers — stealing them off that elderly neighbor’s doorstep? — had an advantage this week, it turns out: While hyphens do abound online, the word-splitters at the ends of lines proved especially useful for the portmanteau words in several of this week’s inking entries. (Yes, we see that most of the entries are about our T-Ruined World; that’s mostly what you sent us.)

Third runner-up:
Anti-American + sea-sons: AMERICAN SEA: Google Maps’ next name for the Atlantic Ocean? (Beverley Sharp, Montgomery, Ala.)

Second runner-up:
Medium-duty + over-whelming: MEDIUM-WHELMING: Making you feel neither overcome nor unimpressed; it’s when you’re being whelmed just right. (Pam Shermeyer, Lathrup Village, Mich.)

First runner-up: Whatev-er +similar-ity: WHATEVITY: Misfortune that you just have to shrug off. “Edwin summoned his inner Honey Badger and laughed at the whatevity of it all.” (Frank Osen, Pasadena, Calif.)

And the winner of The Book of Totally Useless Information:
Ef-forts + ref-ugees: EF-U-GEES: These days, that’d be everyone seeking asylum in the U.S. except genocide-fleeing white South Africans. (Kevin Dopart, Washington, D.C.)

Split-Seconds: Honorable mentions
Pa-tients + ma-triculated: PATRICULATED: Got into college courtesy of Dad’s wallet. “Jared Kushner patriculated right into Harvard in 2003.” (Steve Smith, Potomac, Md.)

Boston-based + super-fine: BOSTON-SUPER: Polite translation of “Wicked pissah.” (Roy Ashley, Washington, D.C.)

Extrava-ganza + Dia-logue: EXTRAVALOGUE: An interminable tour recap. “Oh, no, not another 137-photo extravalogue of Linda’s trip to Equatorial Guinea.” (Frank Osen)

Of-fense + Shel-don: OFDON: New name for MAGA handmaids. Well, not all of them, just the hot ones. (Kevin Dopart)

Fail-ure + thunder-storm: FAILSTORM: A tempest of destruction that hasn’t let up since January 20. (Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)

Go-go + sto-rytelling: GORYTELLING: The essence of true-crime podcasting. (Kevin Dopart)

Dead-line + motor-cade: DEADCADE: Ten years of politics devoted to one authoritarian narcissist. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

Sub-700 + sup-ported: SUBPORTED: Gave less than enthusiastic approval. “At the end of the day, too many Democrats subported Harris.” (Jeff Contompasis, Ashburn, Va.)

Butter-fly + Flesh-eating: FLY-FLESH: What’s on the menu at Alligator Alcatraz. (Pam Shermeyer)

Bi-den + Jew-ish: BI-ISH: What you discover about yourself on Saturday night as the bar is closing and it’s just the two of you still there … (Jon Ketzner, Cumberland, Md.)

Agree-ment + stand-off: AGREE-OFF: Preliminary round of a Mar-a-Lago kiss-ass tournament. (Kevin Dopart)

Colo-nial + hold-in: COLO-HOLD: The unpleasant last few miles of a road trip. (Neil Kurland, Elkridge, Md.)

Eligi-ble + Cy-press: ELIGI-PRESS: The handpicked media allowed to cover White House events. “The eligi-press are all saying (in unison) how our President’s Big Beautiful Bill is the biggest and beautifulest bill of all time.” (Jon Gearhart, Des Moines)

F-22 + mail-in: F-MAIL: The e-mail you wouldn’t have sent if you’d calmed down from your rage for five minutes. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)

Grand-mother + some-thing: MOTHERSOME: Nurturing to a fault. “Six emails in two days about sunscreen misinformation on TikTok? Mom’s getting awfully mothersome lately.” (Jeff Contompasis)

Ho-nolulu + hump-backs: HO-HUMP: A brothel’s 2-star rating on Yelp. (Chris Doyle, Denton, Tex.)

Inconsis-tent + clothing-optional: TENT-CLOTHING: What you need to pack for the last days of the cruise. (Beverley Sharp)

Insta-gram + se-curity: INSTACURITY: Coming soon by the hundreds to your blue-state city! “Actually, I felt safer when the Army wasn’t patrolling the car wash.” (Frank Osen)

Jelly-fish + se-quence: JELLYQUENCE: When your preschooler holds forth with great rhetorical force about why her PB&J had too much PB. (Duncan Stevens)

Jurisdic-tion + king-size: JURISDICKING: Doling out injustice. “SCOTUS jurisdicked American democracy again.” (Chris Doyle)

Man-ufacturer + in-ventory: MANVENTORY: What you check out when you open Grindr. (Malcolm Fleschner, Palo Alto, Calif.)

Of-ten + sim-ply: TEN-PLY: Industrial-strength toilet paper. “Whoa, after that chili cook-off, I’m gonna need the …” (Chris Doyle)

Pal-est + al-chemy: PALCHEMY: The lost science of turning an asshole into a bro. (Jon Ketzner)

Philan-thropic + un-dergraduate: PHILANDERGRADUATE: An alumnus of Strayer University. (Chris Doyle)

Pow-ers + How-dy: POW-HOW: Batman’s Step-by-Step Guide to Crimefighting. (Kevin Dopart)

Presi-dential + do-minion: PRESI-MINION: Previously “civil servant”; now loyalist dedicated to keeping the leader’s heinie shiny. (Dave Prevar, Annapolis, Md.)

Rheto-ric + millen-nium: RHETONIUM: Destabilizing element of political speech. “Trump accused the mayor of treason, not to mention being dumb and ugly, in yet another rhetonium-filled screed.” (Duncan Stevens)

Tem-peratures + de-ployment: TEMPLOYMENT: These days, how it’s best to think of any job except Supreme Court justice. (Chris Doyle)

Tour-nament + bour-geoisie: TOURGEOISIE: Viking Cruise passengers. “Heavens no, we don’t do karaoke.” (Kevin Dopart)

Zero-emission + pre-venting: EMISSION-VENTING: What an auto mechanic calls a fart. (Frank Osen)

Trump-card + Ras-putin + un-American: TRUMP-PUTIN-UN: A threesome you do not want to fantasize about. (Jon Cannon, Potomac, Md.)

AI-generated + AI-proof + centuries-old: A.I.-A.I.-OLD: That geezer MacDonald has a server farm, but he’s still using Chat GPT-4, if you can imagine. (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)

The headline “Pumping the Breaks” is by Jeff Contompasis; both Chris Doyle and Kevin Dopart submitted the honorable-mentions subhead. And the headline “Bones Mots” is by Tom Witte, from our 2016 contest.

Still running — deadline Saturday, Aug. 30, at 9 p.m. ET: Our contest for writing something humorous in the numerical sequence called Narayana’s Cows. Click below for details.

InvisibleInk!
Idea: (Rob Cohen)
Examples: (Rob Cohen; Chris Doyle; Chris Doyle)
Judging: ()
Title: (Jeff Contompasis; Tom Witte)
Subhead: (Chris Doyle; Kevin Dopart)
Prize: (Robin Diallo)
Add:H:1588: ()
VisibleInk!