Sad, unsettling Monday
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Pluggers, 9/23/24
An oft-noted source of malaise in American life is a rise of loneliness, as “third spaces” — places where people socialize that aren’t home or work — decline, and more and more people spend all their time with immediate family, coworkers — or, as they age, themselves. My new crackpot theory is that this explains why individual Plugger entries have gotten increasingly weird and idiosyncratic over the years that I’ve read the strip. They used to be the sort of corny and relatable content that emerged from consensus as you and your buddies griped or joked about life’s little foibles at the bar or on the job site. But now? Now that you took your pension and your wife has died and the VFW hall has closed, now that mostly you just sit on the couch with the TV turned out way too loud, so you can hear it and also can’t really think, which is maybe the whole point? Well, now who knows what your old pals who you exchange occasional texts with do. Do they mute the TV before they reply to your text? Probably, right? You do it, so it stands to reason that they do too. Maybe that’s why they haven’t replied to your text yet. Maybe they’re just waiting for their show to end so they can focus some attention on it. That’s probably it.
Gasoline Alley, 9/23/24
In addition to being obviously annoying, Rufus and Joel are also uncanny, in the sense that they alone among the cast stay the same age even as everyone ages around them. Are they truly human at all, or are they strange visitors from the fae realms? Well, today’s strip at least establishes that Rufus was in fact pushed down a human birth canal, which may be more information than any of us ever wanted, but now we have it.
Shoe, 9/23/24
I love the fact that the Perfesser’s eyes are closed here. He’s not just daydreaming about these culinary delights: he appears to be deep in the act of prayer, as if he’s trying to manifest them. This probably hurts Roz’s feelings, as she runs the restaurant where he’s currently sitting and from which he could presumably simply order them.
61 replies to “Sad, unsettling Monday”
Family Circus: AAAAHHH!!! DOLLY POPPING OUT OF A CAKE!!! And I’m all out of the main ingredient for a brain bleach colada!!! Thank goodness she’s fully clothed.
Luann: Wait a minute. Why are the sleazy ho with the sex doll mouth and the sleazy man-ho not in the bizarre fuck tent in the living room? What’s the point of having a bizarre fuck tent in the living room if no one’s going to use it?
Mary Worth Mashups
News Flash: Community life in The Plains, Ohio is disrupted when thousands of Pluggers move there because it sounds so bland.
Shoe: Maybe The Perfesser wouldn’t be daydreaming about food if Roz got her ass behind the counter to take his order instead of yakking it up with the other customer.
MW:
“I’ll bet Mrs. Fitz tempted him with that poodle skirt of hers!”
MW: Looks like Estelle is blinded by her tears and is very likely headed for a very serious car crash. I wonder if the docs at Santa Royale’s HUMAN HOSPITAL subscribe to the same medical practices as Dr. Ed.
“This patient needs to be put down, STAT!”
Does Rufus have a last name? Does Gasoline Alley want us to think about this? Does Gasoline Alley want us to think at all OR IS IT LULLING US INTO eh I don’t know what its sinister plan would even be. Cat plushies?
SHOE: Obviously, the Perfesser has been (very) temporarily scared straight by his doctor. He’s crouching at the counter so that when his will breaks, he’ll be within pouncing distance of the deadly goodies.
MW: Blinded by her petulant tears, Estelle careens off a cliff. She might have made it, but the surgeon who was putting her back together suddenly realized that he was due at a VERY important dinner party. RIP
RMMD: Go ahead, Truck. Give June some of that cranky old man lip. She’ll put your finger somewhere it’s never been.
BB: Don’t army bases have motor pools? Don’t motor pools take care of vehicle maintenance? Isn’t everyone at Camp Swampy always wandering around with nothing to do? Just asking.
H&L: Hi makes a grocery list. Will the yuks never stop.
Pluggers: It’s funny, I feel like it wasn’t thst long ago that texting was something that them younguns’ did, while pluggers still used a rotary phone or whatever. Anyhow, looking forward to this strip in 2030, when we hear complaints about breaking a hip while doing that new tiktok dance.
GA “Yep, my head was no wider than a walnut! Still as long as it is now though. I’m a human freakshow!”
Shoe: There’s a lot of ways you could interpret that last panel, but I personally believe thst the Perfesser is trying to figure out a way to combine his favourite foods. “Let’s see, Chips in the pie and then ice cream on top..? No…A sundae pie with potato chip crust? No…forget it. Roz, do you have a blender? “
The new kitty focus is the final nail in the coffin for Gasoline Alley‘s vaunted real-timeyness, as if the cats only live a normal life span I will… certainly not notice unless Josh covers it for some reason. But target audience would get mad!
HTH: Hagar uses the distraction to produce a sword on his unarmed foe. Unnamed arms dealer remarks; “If you had just shelled out one more doubloon, you wouldn’t be dead right now. Heh, heh.”
Rufus was breach, but luckily that nose of his streamlined him.
GA: Usually when your mother’s doctor tells her that your childbirth was as smooth and uncomplicated as a middle-aged man moving a box of cats, it isn’t a compliment.
MW: Unsurprisingly, Estelle’s idiot brain fails to recall the contents of the upsetting but very clearly worded text message she just read a few minutes ago. Heck, she’s lucky she even remembers who the supposed cause of her distress even is. I’m just annoyed Karen Moy vaulted ahead as she does whenever the story reaches a potentially interesting confrontation and we didn’t get to see how Estelle finally explained to Pam’s (and her own?) family why Ed never turned up after pointlessly lying about him for the entire evening.
JP: Finally, a new week starts and… Neddy and Ronnie are still Sally Forthing in the parking lot of the superlatively fluffy flapjacks diner. This is already starting to compete with the Harwoods’ roadside attraction adventure for the most insufferable roadtrip ever.
CS: Ed’s deli number is called for his turn to bloviate aimlessly about books and cruelty. He’s by far the least qualified person to weigh in on this subject in many ways, but someone’s gotta fill the scientifically-dubious smoky air until Les arrives and smugly takes over.
DT: Did Mike Curtis have ten consecutive strokes while writing this? Every aspect of this is gibberish.
Luann: Judging by the size of Bets’ overlap-censored speech balloon, it seems that boy really knows how to map. Nothing wrong about that, I think most people experiment with cartography in college, though I learned it wasn’t for me after an unexpected finger too far north up my compass rose.
MW: I just have one question about this idiocy. How did Dr. Ed even get roped into this emergency puppy delivery? We established that the dinner was scheduled for a Sunday. If I call my vet on Sunday, I get an answering machine that gives me the contact information of the nearest emergency vet. Is Ed giving out his cell phone number to his clientele? His clinic can’t be open seven days a week because we’d have definitely heard Estelle complain about it already if it were.
And why is even the narration box referring to her as Stell at this point? Have newspapers hit such tough times that printing two extra Es would blow their comic budget? And why is she described as driving angrily when she’s gone from a rabid “SCHOOL MANAGEMENT” rage state yesterday to weeping softly today? And how are we supposed to believe that Estelle, who put up with Wilbur drunkenly humiliating her in public with nary an angry red panel and only broke up with him (the first time) because he threatened her pet, is suddenly completely unmoved by dead puppies?
And how did Ed go from having time to shop for an engagement ring and learn new songs for serenading to being too busy thinking about his job to listen to Estelle even when they were sitting at the same table? And wasn’t Ed miserable being overworked in the last plot and Estelle’s intervention was treated as a godsend? But now we’re back to square one and Estelle is (presumably) the villain? And why would Pam wonder if Estelle would remarry if they’ve been estranged for decades? And how is Karen Moy still employed?
Okay, that was more than one question.
Luann: Are we sure that Stef isn’t a refugee from the Brookeverse?
Curtis: Oh, joy. Wall-to-wall bullying.
yMW: Can’t you have a bit of compassion, Stell? Poor woman just had a double mastectomy.
CS: Now Ed’s gonna make this all about him.
MW: I hope Dr. Harding and Ms. Fitz’ dog have a long and happy life together.
Frazz: She’s not turning on her Christmas lights every night, is she? No, she’s not. So it is different. Nice try, jerkface and jerkface-in-training.
B. Bailey: Even the gods hate these soldiers. “Stay away from Mt. Olympus, Capisce?”
Most people hearing the expression “[whatever] is my middle name,” don’t assume the speaker is being literal, but I guess they needed to set up the gag (if you can call it that).
Pluggers: This is more harrowing that Rhinoman hocking his TV.
GA: Honestly, there’s no evidence here that Momma is a human.
Pluggers – It’s hard to concentrate with the looming threat of monkey pox….
GA – Now the Shit-Fer-Brains cognomen – that’s self-explanatory….
Shoe – Where are the fucking sugar plums – that’s what I wanna know….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
SFx: While Slylock is congratulating himself for his intelligence and snickering over the Count’s stupidity, he is mortally wounded by the shark.
GT: Sexual congress in Gil Thorp? Shocking! But Whigham’s always wanted to draw it, and with just a week to go in his tenure, Why the hell not?
Real Pluggers know that it doesn’t matter if you mute the television, your roommate’s will still be on, as they will across the entire facility, the better to cover the screams of the damned, or the memory care unit, whichever comes first.
Oh, come on, Shoe Brain Trust. After yesterday’s entry on Himalayan duck, you won’t have Cosmo fantasizing about a chicken leg? Don’t keep tempting us – go all out and turn Treetops as a dystopian cannibalistic hellscape.
Gasoline Alley : Rufus’ birth was so smooth and easy, he just slid right out of his mom… and then smacked his head HARD on the floor, which explains why he is the way he is.
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Pluggers : don’t understand how someone can listen to a show and type at the same time, meaning they don’t understand how their children can listen to a podcast while surfing the web.
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Rex Morgan M.D. : for a second there, I thought “nurse practicioner Morgan” meant that Rex had finally been demoted to a title more fitting of his medical “competence” and “knowledge”, then I realised “oh, wait, they probably mean JUNE”.
Gasoline Alley: “Well, Ma’am, y’see, way back in high school during the French-kissing competition…” [Gertie douses herself with gasoline and reaches for the matches]
Phantom: Eight hundred pounds of prime ground horsemeat, comin’ up!
Rex Morgan, M.D.: C’mon, Truck is probably in his 60s, and goes to his honey’s old-fashioned diner every day, and his blood pressure is okay?! Talk about unrealistic!
Frazz: Now that she’s called out Mrs. Olsen’s hypocrisy, she’s free to mock Mrs. Olsen with Frazz later.
Luann: When I first saw this, I thought the “oh! oooh!” was the typical canned sitcom response when someone says something sassy. I thought it was kind of dumb, but it was way better than Tiffany timing whatever is going on in the next room.
CS: We are going to get fistfuls of ham this week. Yum.
9CL: “Why I remember when I was in the NICU, and I did some plies for the nurses. I think you two were there too.”
MW: Luckily, since Estelle has a squirrel’s brain, she’ll have forgotten she’s upset with Ed by the time she gets home.
Zits: I’ve “had the radish.” It’s…unpleasant.
FC: Jeffy starts playing Dolly off with farts.
@Baja Gaijin: I like option 3 the best.
Hold on there, Josh. All this strip has established is that Rufus is a mammal, or that his species is mammalian-like in part of its reproductive process. And that Gertie is disturbingly literal, so she might be a Vulcan or something.
***
I call BS. There’s no way a plugger is going to mute the TV while Tom Selleck is telling them about reverse mortgages.
JP: Three hours in traffic after eating a full stack of pancakes? I hope Mrs Declan has a plunger handy.
“Hi, I’m Neddy. Where’s the toilet?”
@taig:
I checked next sunday’s Mary Worth, and Estelle is threatening to end her engagement with Ed Harding
MW – What is there to not understand, “Stell?” Dr. Ed clearly explained the situation to you.
You know what, I’ve been wrong all this time. Estelle and Wilbur actually did deserve each other.
GA – The really shocking revelation in today’s strip is that at some point, someone in this household bought a whole CASE of Scancarelli.
Josh, you know this plugger’s old pal at the other end of the text has been dead on the kitchen floor for three days. The cat has already eaten the eyeballs and is eyeing the other soft parts.
I hope he was wearing pants when the coronary hit.
Shoe – Thoughtful? Well, they don’t call him “The Perfesser” for nothing. They call him that because he wears glasses.
GT – Gil and Beth put on their clothes to get in bed? Are they into dry humping?
Pluggers – Charlie don’t surf and pluggers don’t text.
Don Abundio, translated:
“Don Abundio, you say you value me as a person and not just for my looks”
“So why don’t you ask me more questions about myself?”
“Good idea!”
“Do you ever consider going back to being a blonde?”
GT – “Correction, I have two things to tell you. YOU NEED A HEARING AID and I LOVE YOU!”
@Lauralot:
You hit on something I’ve thought about re: Estelle becoming “Stell” because it fits better in the narration boxes. Almost all of the strip’s main characters have three or four letter names: Mary, Jeff, Toby, Iris, Saul, Dawn, Zak, Eve, Ian.
Maybe that’s why we see so little of Tommy, Brandi or Mr. Allora. Wilbur gets a pass because he’s Wilbur, and Stell because the two lower-case l’s take up the space of one letter.
CS: Not that story again. And how does a story about Ed’s stupidity fit into a story about book banning?
Luann: Why is Bets wearing what looks like a winter coat in SoCal this time of year?
Damn, I haven’t been paying attention to Mary Worth lately. I just caught up and truly Karen Moy’s willingness to buck traditional narrative always keeps you guessing. Not the actual story, which is proceeding along incredibly predictably, but I appreciate the big deal made about Her Estranged Cousin Pam earlier amounting to absolutely nothing. For the utter lack of complication and conflict she ended up bringing to the narrative, she might as well have been Her Very Close Cousin Pam.
Family Circlejerk – If she’s five, why is Dolly wearing a button that says 75? Did she take it off HTT Grandma’s corpse?
@Scratchy Scrotum LXIX:
Family Circlejerk – If she’s five, why is Dolly wearing a button that says 75? Did she take it off HTT Grandma’s corpse?
I wondered about that myself. Is it the 75th “birthday” of the strip? I’m not checking.
Shoe – Does the blonde bird-lady really dress that way or is she trying out her beatnik Halloween costume?
@Guillermo el chiclero:
CS: Not that story again. And how does a story about Ed’s stupidity fit into a story about book banning?
“See, that bully who exploited Crankshaft’s inability to read to rob him of his career as a pro baseball player is exactly the same as the person who’s trying to burn books to prevent people from reading them!”
My personnal “NO IT ISN’T” objection to THAT is : WE HAVE NO IDEA WHO SET THE FIRE AND WHYRMMD: Sarah Morgan is able to pass herself off as a Nurse Practitioner right up until Truck says he might as well get a prostate exam while he’s there. “(GULP!)”
Rufus is Macduff, not born of woman, and Birnam Wood shall soon come to bring ruin to Gasoline Alley but, given all the heavy metals, petroleum products, and other pollutants in the soil, the trees will quickly wither and die, leaving Walt (our aging Macbeth) alive and in charge for the foreseeable future.
GA: “Easy is my middle name! Because I’m a whore! Well, I’d be if anyone wanted me!”
Is Cosmo a thoughtful person? No, damn it! He’s a bird, not a person!
@Peanut Gallery: I assumed they called him “the Perfesser” because he played piano in a whorehouse.
The lady asked a simple question and Roz answered with a “define the thing you are talking about”. Someone has been reading about Socrates! Though I would have guessed that everyone favourite Aristophanes play would be “The Birds”, not “The Clouds”. Anyway, let’s hope someone will be drinking hemlock
GA: I doubt a skull shaped like that came out easy.
Pluggers need to turn down Judge Jeanine before texting about whatever overinflated outrage she’s inspired in them to the children who don’t talk to them much anymore for some reason.
@taig, CS: More like Boar’s Head.
Pluggers: Sadly, he is texting 911 about his heart attack.
RMMD-Rex made it a hospital day so he could avoid seeing Truck.
Crankshaft-And cue the flashback. *starts to play slowly play the violin*
MW: Meanwhile, Wilbur is biding his time, waiting to bust out his speedo and dance the cha-cha with a plastic rose between his teeth.
MW: The text dialogue box on Sunday was probably one of the clearest pieces of communication that this strip has ever set forth, but hey, let’s not let that stop us from going into an emotional spiral.
DT: Terrans always say that, do they?
CS: Ah, what a smooth transition. Almost as smooth as 30-grit sandpaper.