Comic Strip of the Day

CSotD: Monday Mix

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Mike Peterson Published: November 28, 2016 1 minute 2 comments

Before doing yesterday's post, I thought about waiting until more cartoonists had had a chance to respond to the death of Fidel Castro.

However, I suspected that anyone passionate on the topic would leap into the fray without worrying about deadlines and that everyone else would either draw a cigar or some variant on the Pearly Gates. The first wave of secondary cartoons has not proven me wrong. 

Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar, and not a symbol of anything else. Freud almost certainly never said that.

But I am saying it. Now.

And speaking of Freud

Maybe it's just my dirty, dirty mind, but I'm thinking that "long-term" wasn't the first type of relationship Kieran Meehan thought of for today's Pros and Cons, though it works.

The one I'm thinking of works even better because it is something a person would brag about, usually because he's a liar, the kind who could use the services of, as shown here, a good psychiatrist.

Had Confucius taught on the topic, he would have said:

One who wishes to be considered a mensch restrains his desire to speak of his lovers.
One who is a mensch has no desire to speak of his lovers.

Or, perhaps:

Tsu-kung said, "I have no desire of speak of my lovers."
The Master said. "Oh, Ssu, you have not reached that stage yet!"

And speaking of mature relationships:

Today's Bottomliners brought to mind a question I had while watching football yesterday. 

In this cartoon, we don't quite know the stage of their relationship, but his unilateral decision about his car makes humorous sense, if we assume he's trying to change her reluctance to get married.

You couldn't, in a one-panel, set it up as "If you agree to marry me, darling, I will make this sign of my commitment …" much less, "I've already done this as a sign of my commitment so please marry me."

However, I saw several jewelry commercials yesterday aimed at men and urging them to buy engagement rings and then pop the question, and my sincere question is, "Do people do that?"

You see it in commercials and bad movies and TV shows, and mostly apocryphal stories of the ring being hidden cleverly and disappearing, but do guys really get down on one knee and hold out the bait diamond?

If she says "No," you can return the ring, of course. But what if she says "yes" to the marriage but hates the ring?

My suspicion is that it's more common for the couple to select a ring together.

Though I suppose that, even if she thinks he's a damn fool for spending too much on a gaudy diamond, she'll at least get to wake up Christmas morning, look out in the driveway and find a car he also never consulted her about.

If they can afford it, and he doesn't demand "long-term" relations very often, good.

Elsewise, hock the ring, take off in the car and let him sort out the bills.

Holiday Traumatic Memory

Thanks, Tina. Now I'm going to go curl up in a corner and whimper for a while.

Back when the boys were small, we had a neighbor two houses down with boys nearly the same ages. One Christmas, my folks were flying out to Colorado from the East Coast, and she was going back to Tennessee to her family, so we agreed that my folks could stay at her house, in return for which we would tend her plants.

And her boys' hamster, whom I shall call Rex, though I'm pretty sure that wasn't his name. 

Rex was no problem: Make sure he had food and water and, twice, put him in his hamster ball, change his shavings, replace him in his cage. 

The plants, by contrast, had a complex list of requirements of what days to give which ones how much. It was an impressive collection, but a lot of work.

So we had a lovely holiday, my folks went home, I continued to watch the plants and the hamster and, the day before they returned, I gave Rex's cage a clean set of shavings.

The next day, the phone rings, "What happened?"

"To?"

"Rex."

Apparently, I hadn't turned the little plastic locking nut on his cage door the full 180 degrees and he was gone.

Which the little shit could have done the first day and it would have spared me a lot of work.

He also would have, by then, ceased to scamper around in the furnace ductwork at night, letting my neighbor and her kids know that he was still there but doomed.

Granted, it could have been worse: He was the third of their hamsters to meet that fate.

Had I killed one of her plants, on the other hand, she'd have never forgiven me.

Juxtaposition of the I was so much older then …

(Edison Lee)

(Big Nate)

About the time I was killing the neighbor's hamster, we used to watch "Wheel of Fortune." I think Chuck Woollery was still hosting and Vanna was probably a little girl with hamsters of her own.

Aside from the lack of gaudy, self-congratulatory hoo-hah with which they open each show today, I think the puzzles were less contrived and more challenging and the contestants a little less frantically cheerful.

There must have been a lot of reasons we watched it that are absent from the show now, because what keeps me young these days is the need to quickly shut that damn thing off after the local news.

When you are no longer that nimble, you are officially old.

I've asked my kids that, if they ever see me watching "Wheel," they just leave my latch half-fastened and remove the grates from the furnace ducts.

He's baaack!

Friend of the Blog Richard Marcej has resumed his daily diary/cartoon/blog. If you'd given up on fresh content in his long absence, restore your bookmark and follow along.

Now here's your politically correct response to Black Friday

# BLUEMONDAYSMATTER

Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.