Zohran’s Family Reunion Invite: “RSVP If You’re Not Already Dead From One of His Stories”

NEW YORK — In what scholars of political anthropology are calling the most audacious exercise in retroactive kinship since the Habsburgs discovered a spare archduke in the linen closet, Rep. Zohran Mamdani (D-NY) has reportedly dispatched invitations to a family reunion whose guest list now includes a previously unacknowledged distant cousin who perished in the September 11 attacks. The revelation, delivered via a press release timestamped “whenever the Wi-Fi cooperates,” has prompted a cascade of academic inquiries into the elastic properties of familial memory under electoral stress.

“Historically,” notes Dr. Evelyn Hartwick, chair of Narrative Genealogy at the University of Ann Arbor’s Institute for Improbable Lineages, “politicians have confined themselves to inventing uncles who fought in the Spanish-American War. Mamdani’s innovation—retroactively enrolling a 9/11 casualty into the family WhatsApp—represents a quantum leap in the weaponization of pathos.”

Sources close to the Mamdani clan, speaking on condition of anonymity because they are still processing whether they are, in fact, related to anyone, describe a scene of controlled pandemonium. One aunt, reached while reorganizing her spice rack, reportedly exclaimed, “A cousin? In the towers? I thought that was the neighbor who owed us biryani money.” Another relative, a software engineer in Queens, opened the Ancestry.com app mid-interview and watched his match percentage with the deceased plummet from 0.3% to “statistically negligible, yet emotionally catastrophic.”

The invitation itself—printed on cardstock thick enough to double as body armor—features an RSVP checkbox with three options: Attending in Person, Sending Regrets via Carrier Pigeon, and Already Dead From One of Zohran’s Stories. Event planners confirm the venue, a midtown banquet hall ominously named “Ground Zero Calories,” will offer a cash bar and a moment of silence that doubles as a networking opportunity.

Political scientists are divided on the strategic implications. “This is grief arbitrage,” argues Prof. Lionel Brackett of Georgetown’s Center for Tactical Mourning. “By leasing tragedy at 2001 rates, Mamdani secures a sympathy yield curve that compounds quarterly until the midterms.” Counterarguments from the Cato Institute’s Grief Futures Desk suggest the market may be oversaturated, citing Sen. J.D. Vance’s recent discovery of a coal-mining great-grandfather who “definitely existed, somewhere.”

Entertainment correspondents, meanwhile, report that Netflix has fast-tracked a limited series titled Cousin Zero: The Mamdani Cut, with casting calls for “a soulful extra who can plausibly die in slow motion while clutching a falafel.” Sports analysts note that the New York Mets have offered the cousin’s memory a ceremonial first pitch, provided someone can locate a glove small enough for a ghost.

Business desks are abuzz with ancillary opportunities. Goldman Sachs has launched a “9/11 Kinship ETF” (ticker: ZZZZN), which tracks volatility in Mamdani’s family tree. Early trading suggests a 400% spike every time he mentions a new relative, followed by a sharp correction when fact-checkers arrive with shovels.

As of press time, the cousin’s identity remains fluid—alternately described as “third cousin twice removed,” “second cousin once promoted,” and “emotional support casualty.” Funeral arrangements are pending, though Zohran’s office has circulated a GoFundMe titled “Help Us Bury the Narrative (Literally).”In a statement that historians will dissect for centuries, Mamdani clarified: “My family is large, complicated, and occasionally flammable. We mourn in installments.”