CSotD: Your laughter is very important to us
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I have very little to say about today's Pearls Before Swine except that it put me on the floor.
Of course, the way to score with readers is to send up a common frustration, and spending a session in Touch-Tone Hell is a common frustration that the development of Voice Prompt Hell has done very little to change.
But most cartoons based on the common frustrations of everyday life are not this inventive. A nice job by Pastis — Even when the target is fat, a dead-center shot is still impressive.
Two observations on the topic:
1. After the 1998 Ice Storm, schools in the Plattsburgh area had to cancel their February break to make up the lost time, since the kids and teachers couldn't get there during the crisis, except for the ones who were already staying there because they couldn't live in their homes. But that mid-winter break is a big vacation week and the airlines went hard-ass on the tickets that had already been purchased, refusing refunds or re-scheduling.
That was five years after I'd left the newsroom, but I hadn't lost my consumer-reporter skills, so I relieved the reporter working on the story of the grunt work of contacting the airlines and asking them if anyone there had been following the news and perhaps had any thoughts about what the hell "state of emergency" and "federal disaster area" actually mean.
Trying to reach the decision makers at the various major airlines not only put me in Touch Tone Hell for five or six hours, but most of that time was spent with that incredibly chirpy woman who was voicing all the airlines' phone systems back then, and who made Edie McClurg sound like Garbo.
It was a not pleasant way to spend a day.
(Except that they all caved and agreed to re-schedule the tickets without penalties. Eventually.)
2. The other thing is that, as it happens, I had dinner at the kids' house a few nights ago with my ex, who was visiting them, and one of the grandkids had the hiccups, which reminded me of the time my then-wife came home complaining of an incurable case of hiccups, whereupon I said, "Oh, by the way, American Express called and said they haven't gotten any payments and so they're cancelling your card."
And it worked.
She remembered the story, too, though it's been nearly 30 years.
That's not the only reason we're no longer married, by the way. But she did remember it.
Now, since you've all been so good today and this is a short entry, let's watch this video, which is not particularly relevant here except that it was posted on Facebook by a cartoonist, Rico Schacherl, who has a fine eye for silliness.
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