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Comics make us feel better about our lives

Sally Forth, 5/21/06

So I got up this morning and stumbled down the hall to my office, which also doubles as the cat’s dining area, and said cat was acting very agitated and weird. It quickly became obvious why: there was a gynormous cockroach, probably two or three inches long, hanging out in her food dish. Hoagie (the cat) will gleefully carry mice around in her mouth and bat them around the floor until they die of some combination of internal hemorrhaging and terror, but she was a little wigged out by the roach, and with good reason, as it was stomach-turning and disgusting and horrifying. The way it scurried happily around the inside of her bowl, looking for tiny food particles to feast on and no doubt leaving little bug poops behind, was deeply disturbing to both of us.

I went downstairs to where my wife was eating her oatmeal, and attempted to convince her with some passive-aggressive whining that she would kill the beast if she really loved me, but she pointed out that (a) she was in the middle of having breakfast and needed to get to work soon, (b) all cat-related chores fell to me, the cat lover, and this fell into that category because the bug was in the cat’s dish, and (c) she had killed the roach she spotted in the basement last night, so I was on my own.

Going back upstairs, I took off my slippers and put on my thickest-soled shoes and a pair of socks, to get as many layers as possible between me and the foul insect. Then I came back into my office, gingerly picked up the bowl (which only sent my six-legged nemesis into a new bout of repulsive scurrying), dumped its contents out on the floor, and then began stomping on the roach repeatedly. Only after I had truly squashed it dead did I notice that I was flailing my hands around and making a high-pitched, girly squealing noise.

I headed downstairs to get a paper towel with which to pick up the corpse. “Sounded like quite a battle,” my wife said, adding, “Don’t bring that thing down here, I’m trying to eat.”

What’s my point? My point is that even I can open a pickle jar. Or at least I can if I use one of those little rubber mat thingies. They save wear and tear on the hands. You should really try one, Ted!

This entry was posted on Monday, May 22, 2006 at 11:12 am and is filed under Sally Forth.

64 responses to “Comics make us feel better about our lives”

Britbike
May 22nd, 2006 at 11:28 am [Reply]

I’ve never seen a straight guy hug a pillow quite that way. That AND a craving for pickles? Maybe the strip is about to get more interesting.

And the ginormous roach–I know exactly what you mean . . . .I’m creeped out just thinking about it.
AK_Teacher
May 22nd, 2006 at 11:52 am [Reply]

Ugg, that’s why I live in Alaska…no big ugly cockroachs! Moose, bear, wolves I can deal with but a three inch long roach!?! Good God!
Jennifer
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:03 pm [Reply]

Jars? Pfft! WHAT problem? The trick is to pop the air seal which can usually be done with the tip of a spoon or butter knife. Then the jar opens right up — no hassle, no manly or womanly striving, no embarrassing tirades to your significant other that end up in the “funnies.”

I ask you — spoons! Is there nothing they can’t do?
Janine
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:15 pm [Reply]

At my neighborhood corner store in Virgina, they sold pickles in plastic bags…
bear
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:24 pm [Reply]

josh, i wouldn’t tell that story if i were you. too late, you already did.
Donut
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:26 pm [Reply]

While all you he-men are using brute force to open the jars, us chemistry majors are holding the lid under the hot water, taking a few sips of coffee, and then easily unscrewing it, thanks to the differential in expansion coefficients between metal and glass.

But feel free to grunt and pound your chests or your cockroaches…
OnAndOnAnon
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:30 pm [Reply]

Coupla things:

First, what’s with Ted’s arm swinging as he approaches the couch? Is it such a long journey from the kitchen that he employs power walking? Or is he just in a really jolly mood?

Second, what if Sally is shown to be reading her own comic strip? Then the drawing of the panel would have to contain a tiny picture of her sitting on a couch, holding an even tinier paper, and in the panel of that tiny paper… in other words, an infinite series of cartoons! If you have a camcorder, I believe you can get the same effect by filming the reflection of the camcorder in a mirror. Anybody tried this?
Badly_Computer_Animated_Boy
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:31 pm [Reply]

Isn’t that how Pluggers kill cockroaches?
captainswift
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:34 pm [Reply]

Yeah, you can buy individually wrapped pickles in plastic bags.

I think the joke here isn’t the not opening the pickle jar, but that he’s complaining about being in the 21st century while making an “I can’t open a pickle jar” joke that would be more at home in vintage Mutt and Jeff.
Dennis Jimenez
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:36 pm [Reply]

With my feline buddy, its crickets. He’ll consume them except for the back legs. I’ll find the back legs and know that somewhere I’m gonna have a pool of cat puke to clean up – almost always on a carpet. He did it to me this morning. What a swell way to start a Monday.
Anonymous
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:38 pm [Reply]

Maybe Ted can’t open the jar because he doesn’t get so much time off to go and rest and recreate in New York, Hawaii, etc. etc.
Hogenmogen
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:50 pm [Reply]

Why just pickles? Why not put all things currently in glass into ziplock bags? Maracino cherries, peanut butter, caramel sauce for ice cream, capers, olives, cocktail sauce? Why stop at jars? Why not lemon juice, beer or bourbon?

And I don’t know what sci-fi Ted was reading, but I don’t know of any vision of the future that promised that everything would come in a plastic bag. I got vague promises of velour suits, moon colonies and wise-cracking robot maids, but no plastic bag pickles.
mere cog in the machine
May 22nd, 2006 at 12:54 pm [Reply]

I am generally considered to be a somewhat manly man, but a few weeks ago a giant roach fell out of a ceiling panel onto my FRIGGING NECK. I executed a frenzied St. Vitus’s dance and screamed like a woman to keep it from running underneath my shirt and badly bruised my thigh and upper arm in the process. Now everyone looks at me, well, kind of funny. Be thankful you were in your own home, Josh, and not an office full of cynical, backbiting men and women.
Kari
May 22nd, 2006 at 1:20 pm [Reply]

The best weapon for defeating enormous bugs? The vacuum cleaner. Use the hose for maximum distance, and leave it turned on for a while to make sure that the thing isn’t trying to claw its way back out.
I suggest you get someone else to change the bag, though, in case the bug somehow survived, multiplied, and created a civilization bent only on destroying you, its evil captor.
monkeyhawk
May 22nd, 2006 at 1:46 pm [Reply]

All of my girlfriends have pretty much declared that the only reason they put up with me is to kill spiders and open jars.

I knew one relationship was on the skids when her mom gave her one of those $40 Black & Decker jar-opening machines for the kitchen.
Goober
May 22nd, 2006 at 1:46 pm [Reply]

9CL: Premise stretched too far…can’t hold on much longer….losing my grip…

GT: Gil’s assistant transformed into a werewolf. Tough love from Burger ages Jimmy 15 years in panel 1.

DT: The 8th time we’ve seen the same crash.

MT: Tony’s a little pale and won’t eat – get him to the hospital STAT! In fact, how about an emergency tracheotomy, if you’ve got a pocket knife and ball point pen handy.

MW: Kelly loses 100 pounds between panel 1 and panel 2.

RM,MD: More clown paintings! Maybe the plan is to scare the kids straight (since they don’t have insurance, they’re no doubt lower class which = drug addicts). June’s calling Rex to tell hiim that Sarah STILL HAS NO SYMPTOMS!
Melissa
May 22nd, 2006 at 1:55 pm [Reply]

I have experience with huge cockroaches since moving to the West coast. To make matters worse for me I can’t kill bugs. I’ll just feel really guilty for days and days if I do. So I have to catch them and set them free. I have many stories of me, disgusted and terrified trying to catch roaches the size of small kittens. My boyfriend will just hide in another room until I’m done. One time after a protracted 45 minute battle I managed to capture the roach in a cup with a piece of cardboard holding it in. I stepped outside onto the balcony of my apt building, the roach then managed to stick one of his legs or feelers or something out of the edge of the cup, so I freak and drop the cup and the roach scurries underneath the door of the couple in the next apt. I could hear them watching tv in the front room . I’m sure they were thrilled, but I wouldn’t know I ran back in my apt.
Grendell
May 22nd, 2006 at 1:55 pm [Reply]

OMG, Kari, exactly that is my nightmare.
to avoid it coming true, I hold the hose opening to the floor in the hope this will create some kind of internal vacuum in the vaccum cleaner and the bug will explode. Or is it the other way? The pressure gets so high the bug collapses in itself? Either way, it stops it from forming a huge bug army to seek vengeance at night, when I am peacefully sleeping. I hope…
yellojkt
May 22nd, 2006 at 2:01 pm [Reply]

If you buy pickles from the Pickle Guys on Essex Street in the LES, you get the pickles crammed into a quart sized plastic container with an easy tupperware style top. Just don’t let your kid drop the bag because the container will still crack and dribble pickle juice everywhere. Now back to your regular programming.
Howland Owl
May 22nd, 2006 at 2:09 pm [Reply]

16: You’re right about Dick Tracy — the plot keeps moving forward and backward. It moves forward two steps, then they show stuff that already happened. It’s making me seasick.
BigJoe
May 22nd, 2006 at 2:11 pm [Reply]

Once again it’s time to play that popular game show, “What is Johnny Hart Thinking?”

Okay, today’s strip is decent if you stop at panel 2. However, what is the point of panel 3? She is the ump. So what’s the humor in the last panel?

http://www.chron.com/apps/comics/showComic.mpl?date=2006/5/22&name=BC
Anonymous
May 22nd, 2006 at 2:18 pm [Reply]

Pickle jars: use a gilhoolie. Way better than rubber mats.

Ginormous roach: EWWWWWW!
Mister Nobody
May 22nd, 2006 at 2:19 pm [Reply]

Josh: OK, now I think I get why you couldn’t identify a wrench a few weeks ago.

On the other hand . . . three inch cockroaches? Where do you live – Madagascar? Or do you employ Plugger-style cleaning methods in your home?

And Kari (#14), if you aren’t spraying any insecticide into that vacuum, those bugs most certainly ARE thriving inside the bag. Putting a roach into a vacuum bag filled with all the other things you vacuum up is like keeping a lion in a zebra pen.
johnw
May 22nd, 2006 at 2:20 pm [Reply]

The question is… What is Johnny Hart thinking? The answer is… he stopped thinking in 1972. He’s approaching late-Nancy territory, in which the pictures and text are randomly selected, and completely interchangeable. Indeed, if you take the text from panel #2 of today’s Nancy and switch it with the text of panel #2 of B.C., it’s just about as funny.

As for Sally Forth… the hidden message of this comic is that a woman can be a feminist and still fit comfortably within the conceptual framework of a Mutt & Jeff, Blondie, or Leave It To Beaver. It’s a message of comfort in our changing times: hey, feminists are jus’ plain folks too.
Anonymous
May 22nd, 2006 at 2:21 pm [Reply]

A3G: For crying out loud, NOBODY meets anyone at the train station in NYC! Well, maybe if you live there and your 89 year old aunt comes to visit and might not be able to hail a cab on her own. But NEVER when both people live in the same apartment building!

Thank you. I feel much better now.
MotoMike
May 22nd, 2006 at 2:31 pm [Reply]

Jennifer (3) and Donut (6): I like both methods, but the air-pressure release is particularly satisfying because the jar that’s been holding on so hard to that gerschlickefobber top suddenly just loses its grip as the air rushes in – I think of it as a little sigh of disappointment from yet another recalcitrant inanimate object.
I am, of course, looking for a good way to get my wire hangers to behave and quit trying to mate with each other… I go try to hang up some clothes and it’s like Brokeback Closet in there. Pull on one and all the rest wrap their little metallic arms around it.
njkayaker
May 22nd, 2006 at 4:13 pm [Reply]

“gynormous”.

Was that a really big -female- cockroach?
monkeyhawk
May 22nd, 2006 at 4:29 pm [Reply]

“…itâ€™s like Brokeback Closet in there.”

Yeah.

That’s funny.
Mooncity
May 22nd, 2006 at 4:48 pm [Reply]

Jars are easy. If you don’t have the rubber grippy-thing, just turn the jar upside-down so the lid faces the countertop, give it a gentle whack on the counter to break the air seal, turn it right side up, and open. Heck, even Ted could do that!
Jennifer
May 22nd, 2006 at 5:25 pm [Reply]

Mooncity (29), that is a good solution — I’ll have to remember that when I’m in a hurry — but MotoMike (26) is right… it’s that little vwop! sound that makes it worth the effort. Plus, you get to witness the almighty power of the spoon.
mere cog in the machine
May 22nd, 2006 at 5:43 pm [Reply]

Spoons are good.
Beasley
May 22nd, 2006 at 6:10 pm [Reply]

Three words, dearest Josh: Get a dog.

Why? Oh, I dunno. I just like dogs, I guess.
Woodrowfan
May 22nd, 2006 at 6:54 pm [Reply]

Donut, hate to tell you, but us history majors do that too. Of course I learned that trick from my engineer father so maybe you’re on to something there.
Mooncity
May 22nd, 2006 at 7:09 pm [Reply]

Jennifer, I’m SOOOOOO gonna steal that sound effect for my comic.
RetroVirus
May 22nd, 2006 at 7:58 pm [Reply]

Mister Nobody: Spraying insecticide into a vacuum is probably not a very good idea as it’ll be expelled with the air through the back… which means you’ll be inhaling all sorts of wonderful carcinogenic chemicals for days. Bugs should technically die when vacuumed because vacuums work on the principle of not having air inside. (At least I *hope* they die!)
Chuck
May 22nd, 2006 at 8:08 pm [Reply]

#10 – I had a dog that did a similar thing (minus the eating). Very surgical dissections – back legs removed, torso splayed minus wings and head very precisely cut off but intact. These remnants were laid to rest in very precise patterns which I tended to discover only upon crawling into bed (somehow the dog managed to lay out the remains without leaving evidence of his endeavor). Quite a jarring end to the day . . .
Mauricem
May 22nd, 2006 at 8:11 pm [Reply]

Too funny. The story and observation. By the way, I’m afraid to think what I look like when I have to kill a roach. Thank goodness for long vacuum cleaner hoses.
bell hooks
May 22nd, 2006 at 8:49 pm [Reply]

Re #4

Virgina?
Scott Simmons
May 22nd, 2006 at 9:09 pm [Reply]

What kind of cat’s scared of a cockroach? Even a big one? I’m really more worried about that … We have cockroaches like I’ve never seen here in Texas, and my cat’s been in heaven since we moved down here. Only problem is that they’re too big for her to finish at one sitting. “What the hell’s that?” I ask her, pointing to a half cockroach on the living room carpet, legs still feebly kicking. “All yours,” she responds. “I’m stuffed.” :-p
Fred P.
May 22nd, 2006 at 9:12 pm [Reply]

#35
Actually, vacuum cleaners don’t work on the principle of not having air inside, just on the flow of air created by the action of a fan. A localised partial vacuum at best. The filter bag, into which is deposited the cockroaches, french fries, spilt crystal meth and other detritus of modern living, is at an equilibrium of air pressure with the outside world. Otherwise, when you remove the bag, there would be a tremendous sucking noise as the vacuum got filled with air. Nature abhors a vacuum, you know, and I’m not all that fond of sweeping myself. Anyway those cockroaches which escaped being julienned by the fan blades will likely be up to whatever nefarious deeds cockroaches do when surrounded by the filth that one typically vacuums up. But you’re spot-on right that spraying insecticide into your sweeper is a pretty bad idea.
DCBirdblaster
May 22nd, 2006 at 11:21 pm [Reply]

I got you all beat. I used to live in Japan and the 3″ red roaches they got there can fly. I trapped one under a jar, flipped it and sealed it inside. Then I put it in the freezer for 2 weeks. Just for kicks we took it out and let it thaw. It came back to life!
My roomates and I noticed that these roaches has a kinda oily coating on ‘em. Does it burn? Oh yeah! We took a lighter to a trapped roach and it caught, then tried to fly away. We had this little flying fireball for a couple of seconds. That was one entertaining afternoon!
After that, we just filled up squirt guns with dishsoap and water and sqirted the roaches. It disolves that oily coating and they can’t breath after that. It appears quite agonizing, so that was the method of execution from then on.
Athena
May 23rd, 2006 at 2:39 am [Reply]

#36: I also had a dog who loved to each cockroaches. I lived in a squalid basement apartment in college, and when I came home at night, as soon as I flicked on the light Lady would race after the buggers as they tried to scurry back into their holes, and all I’d hear is crunch crunch crunch (cockroaches are crunchy, apparently). Lady would even jump into the bathtub and leap up to snare the roaches climbing up the tiles.

Thank goodness my standard of living has improved since then. But I sure do miss Lady.
mentarman
May 23rd, 2006 at 2:53 am [Reply]

I was taught not to step on cockroaches to kill them because if they are female, microscopic eggs will squirt out and you won’t see them but in a few weeks or whatever you’ll have a whole bumper crop of new cockroaches.

Admittedly this is a bit farfetched but it’s hard to get out of your head at the same time. Chemical agents are the answer.

Actually, I have house centipedes and they are supposedly good at biological control of spiders and cockroaches, though they are quite gruesome looking themselves. Go ahead, Google ‘em.
Firegoat
May 23rd, 2006 at 7:31 am [Reply]

It is even funnier if you just thought that the book was a travelogue for Eugene, Oregon.

God I love being unedumacated.
TheMagicMel
May 23rd, 2006 at 8:30 am [Reply]

#16: I’m so with you, 9CL is wearing thin. Two weeks of dear Thorax, and now back to lying nun & stupid priest (he can’t tell it’s her? Sheesh.). My Sunday paper doesn’t carry this, so I looked it up online thinking: “What am I doing? It will just be a multi-panel line up of eye-gasmic Edda shots.” (Which it was.) To think I started reading this one because I happened upon a well-drawn feline acrobatic day.

Josh, I’m all skeeved out over here about your roach – and #41, your evil delights me. Well done.
Jives
May 23rd, 2006 at 9:07 am [Reply]

Hey Ted, why stop at bags? We should put them in squeeze bottles, or lab-rat-like dispensers. Better yet, have Sally put you in a giant Skinner box that will train you to obey her better. Like a rodent. Get one for Hilary, too. Why try doing things on your own when it ends in three-panel-long-pillow-hugging pregnant pauses and awkward admissions of failure? Get your nourishment like a hamster and let Sally read the damn paper.
Grendell
May 23rd, 2006 at 9:19 am [Reply]

This is the most disturbing comment section ever. I’m itchy all over now. I did, to my regret google those house centipedes.
lilybdcsa
May 23rd, 2006 at 9:22 am [Reply]

We lived in Taft, California for several years. It’s a little hell-hole town a bit west of Bakersfield. It smells of brimstone and the roaches are huge! The local residents try to convince themselves that these creatures are NOT cockroaches by calling them “waterbugs”. Yeah, right. The only way to kill them was spray. Lots and lots of it.
Chuck
May 23rd, 2006 at 9:44 am [Reply]

My neighbors here is Baltimore do the same thing. When I moved in to my house, I needed to do some serious roach removal. I told my neighbor and she said – oh, no honey, those are waterbugs. Yeah . . .
Irina
May 23rd, 2006 at 9:52 am [Reply]

SPOOOOOOON!!!!

Sorry. Channeling The Tick there for a moment.

Go about your business.
ISBN
May 23rd, 2006 at 10:55 am [Reply]

Josh, I feel for you and your cockroach story. WARNING: do not read this post if rodent-phobic. It’s graphic. Once in Manhattan, mice kept visiting us late at night, the TV’s glow lighting their figures like some nightmarish vision from the Nutcracker. So we called the landlord, and he dropped those paper sticky traps. Being somewhat of an advocate for the poor mouse just trying to find some grub, I refused those, and purchased the snap traps. No one deserves a slow painful death. If we HAD to kill them (I was okay with leaving a pile of crumbs outside their hole each night so they never came out, just grabbed the crumbs) then it would be quick.

Then one night, i heard a snap and a cry. I woke my boyfriend and explained that the mouse didn’t die! He said it was okay, the mouse would die eventually. Well, I couldn’t stand that. I got up, and it had dragged its poor little self about 10 feet from the original location of the trap (which, in NY, means half-way across the aparmtnet). It’s leg was still trapped and bleeding. I decided to put it out of its misery–while my boyfriend stood on the bed squealing (and he’s a real man too, Josh!). I covered it with a plastic bag and took a shoe and started hitting. And… missed. Basically, I made this creature’s dying moments a living hell. And all I meant was good. Wound up having to drown the poor thing in the toilet.

My boyfriend says that my own guilt, which hangs like thick death over me, is nothing compared to the images that forever pop into his head at the worst times: me, hysterically crying in my leopard-print underwear and bra, kneeling on the floor, violently slamming my shoe onto the little beast repeatedly. only the light from the bathroom behind me lighting my silohuette, like some B-horror movie. I had to throw away the undie set, as my boyfriend shuddered every time I wore them. This incident has fallen into a category we call “unmentionables.” Thanks for letting me release it. PS: My point is… Josh, I get it. After all this, I’d STILL take mice over cockroaches. Also we moved out of Manhattan.
BassoGap
May 23rd, 2006 at 11:46 am [Reply]

Two observations of others’ comments:

Grendell (#47) – I think I met your mom once.

ISBN (#51) – I feel your pain; what a horrible experience. The image of your bf shuddering at the sight of your leopard-print underwear, though, is pretty funny.
Grendell
May 23rd, 2006 at 12:51 pm [Reply]

Hey, leave my mom out of this! No, really, huh? I don’t follow.
Brownstocking
May 23rd, 2006 at 1:00 pm [Reply]

OMG. #51 (ISBN) thank you for sharing. You have no idea how (despite being totally grossed out, since I’m 1: reading about roaches, 2: am a complete roachphobe, and 3: am eating a blueberry muffin) this has really made my day. I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing sympathetically with you. If it helps, I unknowingly slept with a dead mouse for days.
RetroVirus
May 23rd, 2006 at 1:47 pm [Reply]

Fred P:
Thanks for the info, I wasn’t really sure about how it worked, wishful thinking, I guess!
Doug
May 23rd, 2006 at 1:49 pm [Reply]

I’m not about to read the fifty-something comments to see if someone raised these points, but:
1) If it was in a water bowl, why not just dump it into the toilet and flush it. That’s how I get rid of my gross bugs. It saves me the embarrassment of the squealing and flailing while I stomp.
2) I just moved to New Mexico last year. Out here, they DO sell pickles in plastic bags at the movies. Yeah, pickles at the movies. I don’t understand it either.
Hogenmogen
May 23rd, 2006 at 4:00 pm [Reply]

If Ted were a manly man, he’d have an oil filter wrench handy. Yeah, those things can rip the top clean off a jar no problemo. No, on second thought, the best thing to do is just pout on the couch, clutching a pillow, pickle-less (read pickle as a metaphor for masculinity).
Ces
May 23rd, 2006 at 8:59 pm [Reply]

Let’s just say the “pickle jar” joke is the last time I take a suggestion from an outside source.

But my commenting on the sheer anger and lunacy of the responses I’ve received from the people who took the time to write about the pickle strip–in email, comments sections and blog posts–got a huge laugh at my first stand-up gig last night, so I thank you all.
Fred P.
May 23rd, 2006 at 9:41 pm [Reply]

#51

When I was a kid, I had a couple of white mice in a glass tank, as pets. These were cute mice- clean mice, fond of sunflower seeds and running on their little wire wheel thingy. Not the filth-mongering disease-vectoring vermin that some, lesser well-bred mice might be. I loved those mice! Often, I would take one from the cage and play on the floor, or I’d make space-ships out of card-board, kleenex, and masking tape and launch little Charlie on experimental missions out the bedroom window. We were tight, those mice and I, I’m telling you.

So that made it all the sadder when Charlie made a break for it one day. I know he loved me, and the cage, and the wire wheel thingy, but I guess he just had to see the world. Dad, who was always practical (he grew up in the War, you know), said he wasn’t having no goddam mice running around, and set out some snap-traps baited with cheese.

When the inevitable happened, Charlie (fond, alas, of cheese) was too quick for the trap. Perhaps his reactions were sharpened by the space missions, I don’t know. He managed to jump back enough so that the trap, instead of neatly snapping his neck, took off the end of his nose instead. We found him in the morning, about a foot or so from the trap, with drops of mouse blood splattered all around, all but one of his fires extinguished. He would have wimpered, I believe, if capable of wimpering. My Dad took him out to the backyard, and I think perhaps it was with relief that Charlie watched the spade descending.

(I’ve never told anyone this story before)
ISBN
May 24th, 2006 at 7:17 am [Reply]

Fred P and Brownstocking:

I think either of those stories are more horrific than mine. Oh Fred P that is just heartbreaking! We had a hamster that escaped and got stuck in the wall. It was like the tell-tale heart, it wouldn’t stop scratching. Finally, under the approving eye of my father (it was scratching HIS library walls, right behind his desk, as if it knew that my dad was the one who said “eh, it’ll die, nothing we can do.”) I started putting holes in the wall with a hammer. Eventually, there was one hole about three feet tall. Then I turned around, and l’il Hammie (sorry) was standing behind me.

The same cannot be said of my escapee anoles, so I understand your pain, too. Some stories are too sad to even utter, as if by not doing so, they’ll go away.
ISBN
May 24th, 2006 at 7:53 am [Reply]

Fred P and Brownstocking:

I think either of those stories are more horrific than mine. Oh Fred P that is just heartbreaking! We had a hamster that escaped and got stuck in the wall. It was like the tell-tale heart, it wouldn’t stop scratching. Finally, under the approving eye of my father (it was scratching HIS library walls, right behind his desk, as if it knew that my dad was the one who said “eh, it’ll die, nothing we can do.”) I started putting holes in the wall with a hammer. Eventually, there was one hole about three feet tall. Then I turned around, and l’il Hammie (sorry) was standing behind me.

The same cannot be said of my loose anoles, so I understand your pain, too.
dre
May 31st, 2006 at 11:09 am [Reply]

i have to throw in one for the statistics: as noted by various commenters above, pickles are in fact available in plastic bags. they’re all over atlanta. that don’t make it right, but it is so.
parkyakarkus
June 22nd, 2006 at 12:39 pm [Reply]

Mooncity’s solution is a lot like the one I discovered as a kid: turn the jar upside down and *gently* tap the lid’s edge against the counter top’s side while rotating the jar. This lessens the vaccum seal. Works every time. As for poor Ted… let’s face it, as funny as “Sally Forth” is, the creators should just come out and admit the truth: Sally’s primary mission in life is to keep Ted’s testosterone levels to near zero. In this strip, testosterone has absolutely _no_practical uses. It’s Estrogen City, 24/7. The *one* time he tried to come to her defense in anything like a “manly” way, she reproved him by saying, “Just because I work with neanderthals doesn’t mean I want to be married to one.” Poor Ted has become as neutered as a male protagonist in a Greg Bear novel.
Kathy Baka
April 8th, 2009 at 7:40 pm [Reply]

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