The Invitational Week 194: Bank Shots
Reinterpret a headline by adding a funny ‘bank head.’ Plus ‘tailgating’ on Dolly Parton lyrics.
Pat Myers and gene weingarten
Sep 17, 2026




Dolly Parton did NOT have a line about this guy in her song “The Bridge,” but Jesse Frankovich was happy to oblige. See today’s Invitational results below.
Hello. We were just looking at the home page of today’s Kansas City Star, and encountered this headline: “Kenzie Ziegler Frees the Nip and Goes Braless Underneath White T-Shirt,” which is when we realized that some headlines don’t need a smart-ass bank head to be a hoot. And then for some reason we thought of Dolly Parton, which leads pretty directly to this headline for this week’s Invitational results:

LOLenes: The Dolly Parton ‘tailgaters’ of Week 192
In Invitational Week 192 we asked you to choose a line from any song written or co-written by Dolly Parton, then attach your own rhyming line to it, either after or before it. Many of Dolly’s lyrics, classics of the country genre, are sweetly sentimental, expressing joy or heartache with down-home eloquence and sincerity. Our emendations, uh, somewhat differ. It is only out of love that we are glad she isn’t around to read them.

Parton’s own lines are highlighted; click on them to see the full lyrics they came from.

Third runner-up:
His legs were way too long and he was awkward as could be,
And so the Wizards picked him as their number one draftee.
(Jesse Frankovich, Laingsburg, Mich.)

Second runner-up:
You are my rock, a soft place to land —
Talk about mixed metaphors — there’s one to beat the band.
(Jonathan Jensen, Baltimore)

First runner-up:
So with patches on my britches and holes in both my shoes,
I voted him back in just like they told me on Fox News.
(Andy Bassett, New Plymouth, New Zealand)

And the winner of the tiny music box that plays “If I Only Had a Brain”:
I wish Elon luck on half the track
From here to the moon and back.
(Michael Stein, Arlington, Va.)

Busted: Honorable mentions
And the sky is green and the grass is blue —
And the White House press briefing now is through. (Gary Crockett, Chevy Chase, Md.)

My feet are moving slowly…
I guess a sloth should not play goalie. (Jesse Frankovich)

Hey, could I have your autograph
On this alimony check? I’m entitled to half. (Mark Raffman, Reston, Va.)

So I’ll go, but I know
What this urine test will show. (Leif Picoult, Rockville, Md.)

What difference does it make which way I go?
Well, ladies ought to sit to pee, you know. (Jesse Frankovich)

Your smile is like a breath of spring
But your breath is like an unflushed thing. (Kevin Dopart, Houston)

With ivory skin and eyes of emerald green,
You’re the weirdest potato I’ve ever seen. (Jesse Frankovich)

The bargain store is open, come inside …
Hmm, not so sure I like what that implied. (Duncan Stevens, Vienna, Va.)

He talks about you in his sleep,
Says he wants to [bleep, bleep, bleep]. (Frank S., Falls Church, Va.)

We can’t always both be right, we sometimes disagree
But “I like my way better” won’t work at the spelling bee. (Duncan Stevens)

Countin’ the warts on a toad in the road
I once was the reason the Beltway was slowed. (Jesse Frankovich)

He told the people of the need to pray
(And the need to fill up that collection tray.) (Michael Stein)

Love makes your heart feel strange inside, it flutters like soft wings in flight
Though again, it might be AFib — you’ll get that checked out, all right? (Tom Witte, Montgomery Village, Md.)

I’m just a Backwoods Barbie, too much makeup, too much hair,
Shacked up for life with Backwoods Ken, whose package sure ain’t there. (Jesse Frankovich)

I can see you’re disappointed by the way you look at me
’Cause my Tinder profile doesn’t say I’m turning 93. (Duncan Stevens)

“Well, I like beer and rodeos,”
Said no Wellesley girl ever, I suppose. (Mark Raffman)

Well I can’t tell you where I’m going, I’m not sure of where I’ve been,
But Flock Safety has the answer for police who’re tuning in. (Chris Doyle, Warminster, Pa.)

The headline “LOLenes” is by Kevin Dopart; Tom Witte wrote the honorable-mentions subhead. The Loser Community’s website with all the Invitational stats and stuff is now NRARS.net; the Style Invitational Devotees group on Facebook is here. Join and they’ll anagram your name; Kevin Dopart, for example, is DEVIANT PORK.

New contest for Week 194: Bank heads
It’s our perennial challenge to you to misinterpret what you read in the media — we’ve been fake news since before there was Fake News.

Washington Post headline: Postseason hopefuls scramble for spots
Our bank head: The mat game heats up in the World Twister League playoffs
With sex, there’s no age limit
110-year-old man still counts as male, court rules
Resilient Sinner Rises Back to the Top
A look back at the 2024 election
For Invitational Week 194: Reinterpret some actual headline (or a major part of it) by adding a bank head, or subtitle, as in the examples above from the Sept. 15 print Washington Post and a BBC tennis story. The headlines may be from any publication, print or online, dated Sept. 17-26, 2026. Include the source and date of the headline so we can verify it; for online stories, please paste that page’s URL after your entry.

Deadline is Saturday, Sept. 26, at 9 p.m. ET. Results will run here in The Gene Pool on Thursday, Oct. 1.

Quick FAQs:

What do you mean by “headline”? Let’s say it’s any text placed above the text of an article or ad and used as a title. Print papers’ “jump heads,” above the rest of a story on a second page, are headlines, too.

Can I drop words off the beginning or end? Yes, but not in the middle. (We used to insist that the deletion not change the basic idea of the headline, but we don’t want to keep out the funny.)

Can I play with the capitalization? You can, by capitalizing all the major words in a headline, as we did in the example above about the tennis star Jannik Sinner; that way we could pretend that “Sinner” wasn’t someone’s name.

If the original headline is very odd and confusing, how do I explain what it means? That’s a good hint to use a different headline. There are always exceptions, but in general the bank heads work best when the reader grasps the real meaning of the headline — that way it’s funnier to see the meaning upended. See the examples above, plus these top three winners from last year (full results of Week 135 here):

One mighty ancestral river, running free
Grandpa explains frequent bathroom stops on family road trip (Frank Osen)
Elite New York High School Admits 8 Black Students in a Class of 781
DOJ to Investigate Whether White Students Were Unfairly Excluded (Michael Stein)
What is gerrymandering? Why is it legal?
Because of gerrymandering (Gregory Koch)
Easy formatting this week! Instead of having to put your original headline, bank head, and URL all on the same line, just make it clear enough for us to read: First the real headline, then your bank head, along with a URL or some other way to show us where you saw it.

Click here for this week’s entry form, or go to tinyurl.com/inv-form-194.

This week’s winner gets this nifty knob that plugs into your car’s 12-volt outlet (known back in our benighted youth as the cigarette lighter). Most cars still have them, though we had to hunt around for ours, beneath the radio.

fire button car car plug anodized aluminum universal 12 volt replacement accessory fits most vehicles socket size a 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.

Still running — deadline Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026, at 9 p.m. ET: It’s our contest for making a new word or term by changing one syllable to its homophone (sounds the same, spelled differently). Click on “read full story” below for details.

InvisibleInk!
Idea: ()
Examples: ()
Judging: ()
Title: (Kevin Dopart)
Subhead: (Tom Witte)
Prize: ()
Add:H:1588: ()
VisibleInk!