In these times
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Luann, 3/3/26
Look, man, I get that comic strip time is in some ways just an insurmountable problem for strips where the characters don’t really age, but the way you get around this problem is by just kind of ignoring it and not by having your character mention the impact that an important historical event that happened 25 years ago had on their career journey. Is Brad in his mid 40s now? Is Luann a period piece that takes place sometime before 2012 or so? Does Luann take place in an alternate universe where 9/11 happened in, like, 2019? Those are the three options, and you brought this on yourself by being specific, Luann.
Mary Worth, 3/3/26
“That’s just the way of the world these days! No doubt she’s spending her time convincing a much older man that she’s his girlfriend and getting him to send her intermittent Venmo payments. That’s the 21st century for you!”
Pluggers, 3/3/26
BIG NEWS: Pluggers have heard about ChatGPT and they think it’s for … finding mayonnaise? We might have to consider shutting down human society and technological advances entirely until we can figure out what’s going on.
203 replies to “In these times”
Pluggers: Wilbur Weston needs neither a wife nor a ChatGPT to find the mayo.
I never realized until this day that the goal in life is to make it cradle to grave without hearing Mary Worth tell a handsome (?) bachelor her own age “I can cook up a nice spread.”
Today’s Pluggers is very much like that old SNL sketch about Alexa Silver for seniors.
“Where’s the mayonnaise, chat?”
“I’d like to help, but as a large language model, I don’t know where you are.”
“Sure ya do! You’re always tracking me on this web thing! You know dang well I’m at the Piggly Wiggly!”
“While I don’t know which location you’re in, or the floorplan of specific grocery stores, mayonnaise is typically found in the same aisle as other condiments or salad dressing–”
“I don’t want any salad, gol dangit! May! O! Naisse!”
“*sigh* Have you tried asking your dog-wife?”
In an alternate comics universe, 9-11 didn’t happen; but Brad is still a fireman. He read Fahrenheit 451.
DT: In the middle of the prison break / riot one of the critical missions is to drop a whip ?! Is this a super power thing ?
GT: Credit to the coach for going on the show and taking on the obvious questions but was that event like seasons ago? Marty Moon definite bleeped out the other comment using the 7 second delay.
JP: All of this time, April has been searching through her mind. Where has she met this “Bogdan” before? People can change their looks, even their voices but the distance between the eyes is fixed and odd bits of language and phrasing. Nonverbal clues as well. She’s seen this guy before. They will stop the truck and have “Bogdan” step out …
MW: Please let the big twist be that Sharon, the daughter, hired the catfisher to con her dad to (a) teach him a sorely needed message, (b) get back at him for years of frittering away money on ascots from around the world, (c) get his money because she needs that money now when she is still sorta-young.
Phantom: Does General Chum and the Jungle Patrol all shop at the same place or outsource to Cinta for their garb?
RMMD: Isn’t there like a diner in town that is probably open? You know, run by people he knows? Or is Mud hoping to hook up with some waitress?
I saw the “Hey Chat” and thought that this was going to be about Pluggers as Twitch IRL streamers. My disappointment is immeasurable.
Wrecks Moregone:
Lorna (wanders in, sees Help Wanted sign)
(to herself): “This is my chance to reprise my role in Table For Two that almost landed me an Oscar nomination!”
Doug: “Is that right? What role did you do?”
Lorna: “The hooker with a heart of gold who lands the motel owner. Is that you?”
MW: Sharon is catfishing Wilbur. That’s why she doesn’t want to come visit her dad at Charterstone.
Luan: Oh I get it: when Brad says ‘blob’ he means a mass of indifferentiated on his mother’s womb, which was affected psychically by 9/11, setting his destiny as a fireman. There, timeline fixed!
MW Mary just beside herself in that last panel “Estranged daughter? Could this be a twofer? Toby, put some coffee on we’re going to be planning late into the night…”
Dagnit, Pluggers, why couldn’t you have made the wife a cat? There was a perfectly good chat/chat joke that you just left on the table!
GT Since coach Thorp “supported” Gerads? Milford is so deeply entrenched in the Thorpian personality cult that black is white! war is peace! sending your unrepentant assaulter onto the field against your team to “act intimidating” is supportive!
There’s something a little fishy about Ken “Trixie” Lynch. Go to any box store and you’ll see Pluggers using the store app to find exactly where every item being sold is located.
@Hibbleton: maybe he was referring to the Public Enemy hit “911’s a joke” which inspired him to improve the quality of emergency services in underprivileged neighborhoods?
Pluggers: Addressing your phone as “chat” isn’t really an AI thing, but a Twitch streamer thing. Sure, most Twitch streams are about watching roided-up young fascists or oily-bosomed OnlyFans models play Call of Duty, but it’s a big place, and I’m sure there are some viewers who form parasocial relationships with retired truckers livestreaming their weekly WalMart trip.
MW: Provided Sharon isn’t living in an ashram in Tibet and rejecting all things material, she will DEFINITELY make an appearance when she hears Dad is frittering away her inheritance.
PLUGGERS: Of course, there are those signs over each aisle. There have ALWAYS been those signs over each aisle.
I have no idea if ChatGPT has voice activation or if it responds to “Hey chat,” but on the other hand I spend a bunch of time watching some Twitch streamers who do say “Hey chat” when they want the collective audience to figure something out for them, and to me the scenario in this strip feels entirely plausible – said streamers all have stories about getting in trouble with their loved ones by accidentally calling them “chat.” It may be that Ken Lynch misunderstood something he overheard.
MW: “It must be HARD to be so far from loved ones!” Except for Mary. I think this would be the perfect moment to reintroduce Mary’s son and grandson.
Crankshaft story odds:
+10000 An identifiable regular character makes a major life announcement where it’s reasonable to be trepidatious about informing elderly parents
+500 Mason Jarre has given Max and Hannah some kind of promotion in his movie theater
+300 They’re going back to their jobs at Channel 1 airing John Darling reruns
+200 Hannah is pregnant again, even though she’s already been knocked up once in their movie theater, and they never needed need mom’s permision for that
+150 This is somehow about Cindy Summers’ never-resolved pregnancy
-10000 This is something about Lisa
-50000 They won an award
-1000000 Max wants to buy comic books
The issue with today’s Luann is not so much the chronology as that these characters’ smug insufferabilty could power the entire Eastern Seaboard, but is instead being misused to power THE ENGINE OF IMPLACABLE HATE THAT BURNS WITHIN ME, EVER GRINDING AWAY until it produces this comment. Hi friends!
@Amelie Wikström: But would a plugger misunderstand some overheard reference to contemporary life like that? [haha yes]
Years back, the local Stop & Shop spent several months rearranging all their aisles, just because. When they realized their customers were Pluggers (The brass has never been in the store in the daytime) they hung laminated product lists for the whole store at the end of each aisle. A few months later, when most of us had found them, life got a bit easier, yessirree.
Luann: Brad answers Wesley’s historic ordination question before board of Methodist elders:
Q: Are you going on in perfection?
A: I believe that in Toni Daytona I can be made perfect.
Q: Do you expect to made perfect in love in this life?
A: What, like losing my virginity?
Q: Are you earnestly striving after it?
A: I mean, yeah, in the empty parking lots of amusement parks, and whenever TJ’s not around.
Q: Okay, you just failed the examination.
A: I was drawn to be horny yet unfulfilled!
Q: Go be a Baptist, or die, it’s all the same to us.
A: …
You’re a Plugger if a lifetime of working with your hands has turned them into twisted claws, which can barely use a touch-screen phone.
Pluggers: “Hey Chat, where’s the mayo?” “Look in the mirror.”
@I’m Not Cthulhu, But I Play Him On TV: That is brilliant and also horrifying.
@Guts Dozier: The John Deere cap is a nice touch in that regard.
MW: I kinda feel bad for the scammer. What’s gonna happen to him when his captors find out he’s been catfishing a geriatric android with a bum neck servo this whole time?
Phantom: That side-eye from the colonel tells me that—Patrolwoman Dai’s paeons to freedom and democracy aside—having taken the Jungle Patrol over the border to conduct a police action in another sovereign state without authorization from either government in order to provide cover for a rogue agent, he’s just remembered the mountains of paperwork waiting for him when he gets back to HQ.
@CanuckDownSouth: Ack, time. After Coach Bolton got beat up, Thorp sent Luke to him on a training mission. Like 2 or 3 years ago, when Rodney was a first year senior?
@matt w: I didn’t attend a UMC seminary for nothing.
Brad learning about 9/11 at age eighteen is Brad’s 9/11
Mary Worth: Confidential to J.B.: The ascot is a nice touch, but it’s not going to do very much if the head keeps falling off the cardboard tube you’ve propped it up on.
Luann – Chat-GPT taught me to wipe my ass….
MW – Can you crack the code today…HARD – NICE SPREAD – NEIGHBORLY – EVERYONE – SHARON – DISTANT – BUSY? Time to get busy livin’….
Pluggers – Let’s see your primitive Magic 8-Ball do that….
Adios Amigos, DJ.
wait can we say bribery here?
LUANN: Had she put in the he effort to go of the side her family, Lu could have had an inspiring tale from Mrs. Hornet, a rahs-to-lower-middle-class narrative from her manager of Weenie World, and a story of grift from Ann whazherface.
BF: and it was just Saturday they were toasting their successful 60s. Lesson: Pride goes before a ….
CS: Mirakle Gro at work
CURTIS: Mirakle Gro advisory
LOLA: C’mon, Lola, be kind. This guy’s got more problems than you do
PHANTOM: Oh my gosh, Patrolwoman Han still has her decorative blue scarf. Plus, she lets another patrol member help escort Chump. Plus, she states Chump is OUR prisoner, not MY prisoner. Well done. She’s a good candidate for #22.
6CX: learn, when we teach peaceful protesters their tactics and offer to negotiate dont work
Why is the pluggers wife a dog/bear when she could be a cat? This could be a joke about the know-it-all French!
Also, every time I hear the phrase ‘Chat GPT,’ my brain translates it to “chat, j’ai pété,” which is French for “cat, I farted.” Which is totally something a Plugger might say.
MW – Hey, that’s against the rules, guy whose name I can’t remember! If you’re going to say you’re daughter says she’s “busy,” you’ve got to support it with air quotes.
Pluggers are…Lockhorns?!?
@pugfuggly:
@Hibbleton: maybe he was referring to the Public Enemy hit “911’s a joke”…
And Public Enemy was the band Brad’s dad was aspiring to follow. It all makes sense now.
It was nice of Obviously Rocksafella there to adopt his daughter. She should call him every once in a while.
***
Luann’s parents raised both of these people. They should be well aware of what they’ve done.
***
LLMs are going to hasten the end of pluggers as chatbots leave them starving in the deep woods on a quest for groceries? Maybe I’ve been too harsh on this technology.
Luann: “She’s right behind me, isn’t she?”
@Hibbleton: Brad’s dad was in fact the original Flavour Flav.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Wilbur can smell a jar of mayonnaise from a half-mile away.
Pluggers: I know for a fact that mayonnaise is on aisle four. Pluggers are deliberately feeding chatbots false information because, ironically, they want a future that will be unplugged.
I saw the Doggo Plugger was talking to “chat” on his phone, and assumed he was livestreaming his trip to the grocery store. Gaming streamers ask for advice from their chat all the time, so for the briefest moment, I tried to uncover the joke embedded in the idea of Pluggers gamifying mayonnaise.
RMMD – It was Nice of Beatty to turn on the plot twist landing lights for us.
Zits: Any guesses what the original punchline for this comic was? “This morning I sneezed out a chimichanga” might be the weirdest euphemism for masturbation I’ve ever seen.
@Guillermo el chiclero: I wanted to do a Wilbur-mayo joke but I saw it was the very first comment
Pluggers save money on sex lubricant by using mayonnaise. Try to get that out of your mind.
@Charterstone: Dune: The colonel will be fine.
He’ll just tell the Unknown Commander he now has access to millions of gallons of crude oil.
“That’s neighbourly of you Mary! It was also neighbourly of you to gift me that word-a-day calendar!”
@pugfuggly:
The only French a Plugger knows is “fries” and maybe “toast”.
“What I am saying is that 9/11 helped me a lot and I am glad it happened! Thank you, Bin Laden!”
OK, in the interests of Science(tm), I tried it. ChatGPT says
I really doubt the Twitch streamer explanation that some have floated. Who in gods name would watch a Plugger livestream of their daily shopping expeditions? Nobody is that bored.
Dustin: Posters often use the name ‘Richard’ online when they mean the word ‘dick’ to avoid the censor. We now know what working class lady thinks of rich people —or Dustin. It’s kind of ambiguous.
FC: The joke of Jeffy pronouncing Zacherley ‘Zactley probably doesn’t hit with the modern audience.
DtM: No surprise that Dennis doesn’t get Wilson’s Karnak act. He goes to bed before Carson comes on. Wilson doesn’t have to be such a Richard about it.
FC-Jeffey then messes up when he is out of step with his reflection.
MW-Mary, we haven’t seen your son either.
Six Chix-Man this is one krazy kat.
Marvin-Just don’t take his red stapler.
Luann-“9-11 made me want to be a fireman.” That was twenty-five years ago. How old are you, Brad?
Pluggers-“How should I know? Do I look like I work here?”
Luann: “I was a blob, then Farenheit 451 made me want to be a Fireman. I mean, torching all those books? I was never a big reader, and the flames were so beautiful!”
Mary Worth: “My daughter has been distant lately. She says she’s ‘busy’… I’m sure it can’t be because I was a terrible father, or that I keep bragging about my fake girlfriend who’s younger than she is. Nope, it’s just life in these modern times, is what I tell myself!”
Pluggers: “Chat, why is mayo always on a low shelf at the grocery store?” “Because bending over is the only exercise that a plugger will get all day! By the way, it’s now less than two years before AI bots like me will take over the world — so have some more potato salad, you carbon-based lard-os!”
MW: Intellectually, I understand that this scam sweatshop is going to be in Santa Royale so that Mary can personally save the day, and far it be from me to tell a woman of color what she has to write, but I find it so strange that Karen Moy, who is Asian, is writing an arc about a type of scam primarily located in Asian countries, and chose to make all of the trafficked scam victims white. In fact, have we ever seen an Asian person in this strip? I feel like Dr. Sheila was probably Asian, but I don’t know if that was Moy’s directive or if Brigman just drew her that way.
I may be sloppy like a Plugger, but at least I’m not slop like Chat GPT!
Pluggers: I know some people might complain that Wilbur Weston is everyone’s first thought when mayonnaise is mentioned; but at first glance I (and everyone else, I assume) read
“Hey Chat, what asshole is the mayonnaise in?”
and both literally and figuratively who else can you think of?
MW:
“What does modernity have to do with being emotionally distant?”
“Oh, not a thing, Mary — I’m just babbling!”
@Anonymous:
“This morning I sneezed out a chimichanga” might be the weirdest euphemism for masturbation I’ve ever seen.
A million Quatloos for you!
Pluggers: Josh, considering all the other things LLMs are being used for, using ChatGPT to find the mayo is positively wholesome.
Pluggers:
Pluggers already store troves of mayo for rainy days and nuclear Armageddon. So they never have to ask where it is in the grocery store.
Luann: I suppose you could justify this by saying Brad learned about 9/11 in school and was inspired by stories of the heroic first responders, but I somehow doubt Clan Evans has thought this through that much.
MW: Great, now I’m starting to think Sharon really is trapped in the pig butchering data farm and is going to use “Trixie” as a way of contacting her father for help. It’ll be like a more literal and even creepier version of “Escape (The Pina Colada Song).”
Pluggers: ChatGPT doesn’t “know everything” so much as it reconfigures and regurgitates information from other sources in a way that sometimes produces an appropriate response but is just as likely to come up with something inaccurate, irrelevant, or just plain made up from whole cloth. So I suppose it is pretty similar to the Plugger brain in that sense.
Phantom:
“In the brush, there is no presumption of innocence.”
— Old Jungle Saying
MW-This will end with H@rv3y disappointed that the person he wants to scam isn’t real.
MW – My daughter says she’s “busy.” Ah, well. That’s life in scare quotes!
Luann – Kid, you were more appealing when you were a blob. Burt Bacharach even wrote a catchy song about you!
DT: So, you can use your drones to airdrop weapons to imprisoned convicts and you choose…a bullwhip? Unless you’re trying to rescue Indiana Freaking Jones, you might want to opt for a semi-automatic.
Dustin: Simone, you’re middle management in a temp agency that foists its least productive and most irritating clients onto you. I don’t think you should be throwing stones when it comes to financial prospects.
JP: Is Bogdan hoping to strangle the truck into working?
RMMD: Room service? You’re a roadside motel in the most depressingly dull town in the Midwest; “room service” is a binder of greasy takeout menus from places that may or may not still be in business.
Pluggers-“I don’t know what aisle the mayo is in but here is a recipe for making your own mayo. 1) Mayonnaise…”
Don Abundio, translated:
“Hi, Veronica! Will you introduce me to your beatnik friend?”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse us”
“He’s way too cool to talk to you right now”
Luann, meta: That’s okay, Shannon should be in her twenties by now, on a reality show on social media.
It’s very odd to the Evansiiverse that character growth is driven only by tragic generational catastrophes. I don’t want to think which Seal of the Apocalypse needs to be broken for Luann.
FC-“I keep saying Candyman five times and I’m getting is Sammy Davis Jr.”
@TheDiva: On MW – You know what, I think you just stumbled onto the twist. It’s perfectly in line with such hits as ‘Wilbur falls off a cruise ship but washes up on a resort island’ and ‘Mary’s balloon crashes in an area with no cell coverage but easy road access’
GT: ‘Oh right… anyway, how did you like my getting those two minority students and their families deported to Thorp-knows-where? I could have gone three-for-three but that trans kid just had to be white!’
RMMD: Well, Truck finally got his NicePardner prize in Wandawandabobondabananafanafofondamemymomonda, I guess it’s time for Ass Anthill to finally get his heteronormative partner and settle down too. The desk clerk will just have to wait for the next Mormon wagon train to roll through on its way to Salt Lake City.
Family Circus – So Jeffy thinks his reflection is a self-generated imitation of himself? Recognizing one’s reflection as a measure of intelligence limited to just a few animals — apes, dolphins, elephants, magpies, and, surprisingly the cleaner wrasse fish. Which is just to say that Jeffy is dumber than a cleaner wrasse fish is being generous.
MW — A woman of a certain age who presents as comme il faut does not say ” join me and Toby” She says “join Toby and me”.
Pluggers. Male plugger’s head is perfectly shaped like his hat.
I call foul on Pluggers, they would never use A.I, or a smartphone, or go shopping with their wives.
@Activist:
#33. 6CX: correction: when peaceful protests dont work, when their appeals for negotiation don’t work, before resorting to violence the vermin must first ask for legal relief. The courts are always fair to “riff raff”, right, Ms. Xunise?
@Anonymous: I’ll try…
A few years back, there was a Hannibal Lector miniseries.
One ad, was just a blank screen with a man’s voiceover saying:
“Doctor Lector, what you said to me…. IT’S IN MY HEAD!!”
That was it.
Well, I think I can safely repeat that, in regards to your mayonnaise comment ^^;
With Pluggers, initially, I read that wrong and thought he was calling up some guy name Chet.
FC: Shit, even my dogs know their reflection in a mirror is not another dog.
RMMD: The mudge that predicted Lorna Starr will be working as a waitress nailed it. BTW: I wonder if this plot twist is inspired by the time in 1962 when a reporter found 1940s movie femme fatale Veronica Lake waitressing in a New York cocktail lounge.
With Pluggers, going “online” is attaching a line onto your fishing pole.
And “Catfishing” is as literal as the word can get.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Wilbur being evil incarnate, gets his mayo from the forces of darkness itself.
The HellMan’s mayo.
@TheDiva:
#69 JP: methinks April knows more about “Borgdan” than we do. Or Randy does. (Maybe she scanned his eyes for ID)
@johnny lt: Same, but also, the idea of Pluggers as Twitch streamers is kind of terrifying.
@The Rambling Otter: In my previous job at a library, it was annoyingly common for old people to come up to the counter with some variation of “I need to print something from my email but I don’t know how to access my email from a computer and I forgot my password.” Pluggers absolutely use smart phones, and we’re all worse off for it.
JP: April is thinking this Bogdan guy is actually useful. She’ll soon kick Randy out of the truck and let Bogdan sit up front.
Brad’s mom coming in strong with “how dare my son prefer his wife to his parents!” Some people have been clamouring for some Oedipal content since the end of Momma and if I find those bastards, they will pay!
@The Rambling Otter: A holdover from the days when Pluggers would rely on Huntley & Brinkley for everything information related!
@The Rambling Otter: I respectively disagree re: Pluggers [not] shopping with their wives. I encounter them all the time at the grocery store, standing in the middle of the aisle, motionless, dazed and slack-jawed, blocking shelves and carts alike, and genuinely surprised and a little bit confused every time someone says “excuse me.” The slightly more engaged ones will occasionally ask their wives, a little bit impatiently, “What is it we’re getting here?” before receding back into their comfortable cocoon of obliviousness. I don’t understand why their wives don’t leave them in the car. I mean, you can crack a window. Or not!
JP: “Get out and push.”
”Push the truck? How far?”
”Novosibirsk.”
LUANN: The reference to 9/11 in 2026 is very much like Hi & Lois reminiscing on “The Blizzard of ’78” in 2026. I am issuing a challenge to Blondie to upstage both of these strips: Have her and Dagwood reminisce on their wedding day, and have them specifically mention how hard it was to pay for during the Great Depression.
MW: “That’s life in these modern times”?? Look, Harv, if this were happening in 1800, you still would never see your daughter because she’d be out working herself to an early grave in the fields 15 hours a day. I’m just sayin’.
9CL: Holy cow. A male character who actually has an iota of self-control???
LH: Props to Leroy for lasting until March 3 before giving up on his New Year’s resolution.
Phantom: I’d roll my eyes at a declaration like that, too, but I’d try not to let the patrolwoman see it. Worubu is long past giving a shit what his people think of him.
@matt w: Thumbs up! You made be laugh out loud today.
Pluggers have to ask where mayonnaise is?
HtH:
Soldier: “You mean to tell me I could have left this flea circus at any time?”
Hagar: “No, only when it was funny!”
Soldier: “I got some news for you boss.”
@Ettorre:
You’re interpreting Nancy and Frank’s dialogue as them sniping at each other based on what makes the other upset from what Bwad just said :
Nancy : Oh, that’s weird, he gives NO credit to his parents, almost as if he’s still bitter some idiot skinflint withheld the fire academy money because the miserly bastard INSISTED it was a waste of time our son would wash out of!
Frank : Yeah, I noticed! He gives all the credit to that evil slut who was rooting for her abusive boyfriend to murder our son until it became obvious Brad was the better pick because some idiot insisted to set him up with his own house for FREE, THREE TIMES!
MW:
“I can cook up a nice spread.”
“Ish, no. Don’t you get it? Trixie is my beard.”
(Oversnarkpologies, but c’mon, today’s episode begs for theme-and-variations treatment.)
@Peanut Gallery: I take it that was one of the songs from Burt’s “Eh. It’s a living” period.
@WesC: thanks!
Pluggers: Today’s installment proves it conclusively: Pluggers are men. And they resent when their wives have opinions of their own, in contradiction to the mansplainin’ that Pluggers grace them with. This is peak Pluggerdom. As opposed to Pluggerdomme.
Luann – The DeGroot parents have never been terribly hands on in raising the kids. They’re mostly there as a punchline. If you’ll recall, on Brad’s wedding day, his Dad offered to have the talk with him, and Brad asked if he had to call his wife “hon”. I think Mother DeGroot has been more maternal to Bernice than Luann, but even then, in kind of a weird, “Here, read this smut novel to release sexual tension” way.
Luann: Mary Worth will be suing for patent and copyright infringement, due to the gratuitous use of the floating head today.
@Ukulele Ike: I’d rather it be April tells *Randy* to get out and push, then floors it, leaving his pathetic useless ass alone on the tundra, and goes on to make a new life somewhere in Somewhere with Bogdan who is clearly more capable and therefore useful.
Get ready to meet your new dad, you little raspberry-haired brat!
Luann: Have we seriously spent close to a week on a “story” that consists of four characters sitting ar a table conversing aimlessly? This is bad, even for Luann.
Pluggers: When Pluggers mentions some vaguely current event or subject, you know it’s at the absolute tail-end of it’s relevance and soon to collapse. The AI bubble has been teetering on the edge for a good while now; this is just the nail in the coffin.
@Pozzo: He was originally planning to give the credit to Jesus.
I was jumpscared by the Durham, NH address on today’s Pluggers, as that’s where I’m currently attending UNH… Maybe I’ve made fun of the strip too often and it’s coming to haunt me
@Guillermo el chiclero: “…a reporter found 1940s movie femme fatale Veronica Lake waitressing in a New York cocktail lounge.”
”It’s about time, miss! I’ve been trying to get your attention for ten minutes!”
”Sorry, I couldn’t see you through my hair.”
RMMD: “Waal, guess I’ll mosey on over to Truck’s wife’s place fer my free meal.”
RMMD: “Eatin’ alone in my room ain’t my favorite thing.”
~~~~~
Well, neither is eatin’ at your crappy cafe, but lord knows I don’t wanna go eat at the diner. It’s bad enough to have to go there to see Truck.. and her… Oh, Wanda.. why did you have to go and marry that old fart? I guess I only have myself to blame. I coulda made a move on you… I knew you were sending signals. Was I just afraid of gettin’ too involved? Not ready to commit? Some new-found “loyalty” to Truck? Anyway, it’s all water over the dam now. Wanda “settled” and I may as well move on. Maybe find someone new.. sleepin’ alone ain’t my favorite thing either..
I really need to look into moving to Glenwood. I’ll be having to come here even more now to work on the new deal with Truck. Be nice to have my own place and not have to stay at this dump. Yeah, Doug’s done a few upgrades since Truck made the place famous. but he didn’t wanna to get rid of the “retro charm” Ha, some of these roaches have been here since the place opened in the 50s. And what’s the deal with my picture “fallin’ off the wall” ?? What really happened here?
6Chx: No, Bianca, Ignatz was not fighting the fascist/capitalist system on behalf of the working classes. He was just trying to hit a Kat in the head with a brick.
At this point, I’d be shocked if Xinuse got something right.
@Trademark™: Mel Gibson returns as Max in Mad Max 6: Beyond Pluggerdome
As much as I hate how stuck in the 80s most comic strips are, seeing an elderly manimal say “hey chat” absolutely knocked the wind out of me. I’m glad I never saw the “6 7” strip in person and only had it described to me otherwise it would have had an effect on me not unlike the Elephant’s Foot
@The Quiet Man: #103: April will just tell Alan, “Yeah, that’s Randy. That time in the gulag just turned his hair gray prematurely. He also acquired a thick middle European accent. BTW: Did you keep his gavel polished and his robes cleaned and pressed? He’s eager to do some judiciating.”
Alan is so zonked by now he’ll believe it. Little Dunk inherited his dad’s drug empire and is Alan’s main supplier.
REX MORGAN M.D,: Lorna will gain fulfillment serving the motel’s one customer (Ha! And you thought I was kidding when I said that this strips dedication to heteronormativity makes Mary Worth look “progressive.”)
@Peanut Gallery: Mel Gibson returns as Max in Mad Max 6: Beyond Pluggerdome
Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey in Pluggerdumb and Pluggerdumber.
9CL – That mermaid won’t be around long. Brooke has an amazing lack of self awareness if he forgot that he can’t spend the afternoon drawing meticulously detailed legs if there are no legs.
Rex Morgan – Obviously – and it’s been pointed out – reclusive star Lorna will get a job as a waitress when she makes her way to Glenwood. But don’t worry – there will still be plenty of roots country wankery.
FC – Jeffy is ripping off Harpo Marx but forgot that Harpo never spoke. Thel would feel less of an urge to get sloshed if Jeffy would stop babbling for a few minutes.
@Myrtle: Oh? You don’t remember? Mud actually dated Wanda first, back when he was an interesting character. Unfortunately that all changed when Mud pretended to take an hour-long shit to bump his set from “opening act” to “headliner”, and since that’s an outrageous sin more unforgivable than being in the Epstein Files, Wanda have no choice by to “settle” for Truck Tyler, the Participation Trophy of boyfriends by default.
JP – Bogdan’s about to find out that “coming in handy” means April’s going to slice him open like a tantaun so she and Randy can avoid freezing to death.
@The Rambling Otter: On the contrary, plugger men often go to the grocery story with their wives. That way they can be sure they get the snacks the wife doesn’t buy when she goes to the store alone. In our case, it’s ring bologna.
On a positive note, he can reach the items on the higher shelves that I can’t reach.
@Guillermo el chiclero: Re FC – One of my favorite Far Side cartoons has parakeets in a dive bar, with one telling the other to back off, it’s just his reflection.
@Little Guy:
It’ll inspire Luann to become a vet.
FC-“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I keep saying Bloody Mary and it goes to Mary Worth’s voicemail.”
@Charterstone: Dune: If we’re sharing grocery store peeves, one of mine is how those “motionless and confused” people often give a little twist of the wrist when they stop, turning their cart sideways and blocking the aisle more thoroughly.
I think it’s great the Luann is straight up keeping plot over timeline. That’s what happened. Our characters age slowly. Live with it.
Luann:
– It’s “9-11”, the Ryan Murphy show on ABC that made him want to be a firefighter
– Is “Toni Daytona” related to “Jackie Daytona” from “What We Do In The Shadows”?
@Trademark™: As opposed to Pluggerdomme.
I did not need the image of the chicken plugger-wife dressed in a leather corset and wielding a whip, thank you very much.
@ectojazzmage: And the kink of those four characters is that they like to watch (spicy!), because otherwise can you think of a reason Luann would need the Peanut Gallery there giving commentary and getting up in their interviews?
@2+2=7: Yes, but also remember how Mud cleaned up his act with the Mirakle Method and became a kind, sensitive Better Person. Wanda was intrigued, but by that time she had allowed Truck to move in and ingratiate himself. Neither she nor Mud wanted to be disloyal to Truck, so they both suppressed their blossoming desire. There was definitely electricity between them. It was subtle but *some* of us could see it.
Zits: I first read that as ‘squeezed out a chimichanga’, which is maybe a more accurate description of what a high-fat diet can do to you.
Luann – Twenty years from now the AI that produces Luann will spit out a comic about the impact of COVID shutdowns on the young adult’s career decisions.
Mary Worth – Either Sharon has some Electra Complex, and has hired some AI service that is actually enslaved 3rd world workers to seduce her father, or else she’s running her own hustle to defraud Wilbur, and will not stand for her father being screwed over like Charterstone’ infamous slob.
Pluggers – One contributing factor in dementia is lower education, as the higher educated have more cognitive reserves. Pluggers of every species are being turned in guinea pigs for what handing over one’s cognitive functions to a machine, especially for such mundane tasks as remembering the layout of their local grocery store, does to an aging brain.
@Liam: That’s pretty scary! Imagine Sammy keeping his eye on you constantly….
@Ken: I did not need the image of the chicken plugger-wife dressed in a leather corset and wielding a whip, thank you very much.
It was intended for me, I suspect. Or possibly Maud.
Chicken that might fry you, yum!
Thank you very much, indeed.
@Lauralot: She probably feels that the target audience still reading a newspaper serial comic strip fits that demographic as opposed to the real world.
Although most if not all of the people here read the comics online!
@Dennis Jimenez: Chet Huntley and David Brinkley – now that is a pair of names from the long ago!
@Myrtle: Mud: “What can a skinny guy do fer ya?”
Wanda: “Absolutely nuthin’!”
(Mud and Wanda dissolve in gales of laughter)
Truck (walking in the door): “What-all’s so funny….?”
Mud and Wanda: “….nuthin’.”
RMMD: I know it seems destined for Lorna to get a waitress job as her cover, but I would still like to believe she was once a hairdresser, and she decides to open a shop in Glenwood. She sees a great opportunity here where everyone’s hair is a mess.
9CL — Great, a German mermaid. Not much better than Sunday’s dog taking a dump.
@Ken: That literally happened to me a hour ago.
In this little grocery store, the path that leads to the check-out line has shelves filled with candy.
If someone is browsing the candy, its customary to walk right past them, as we shouldn’t have to wait for them if they’re not directly waiting in line.
This one woman was grabbing a bunch of candy bars, and left her cart right in the middle of the path, blocking anyone from passing through. Me and an elderly man managed to squeeze by anyway but still…
@Charterstone: Dune:
@I speak Jive:
I stand corrected :3
Did I slip into a parallel universe or something?
I vaguely recall the city in Rex Morgan M.D being called Glenview
@Trademark™: Don’t forget that old TV show, Pluggly Betty.
Crank: If you have to add modifiers to using someone’s name as an adverb (or a verb, which is what Hannah’s actually doing), it doesn’t work. “I’m worried your mom is going to try to Pam everything” implies that Hannah sees trying to do everything her way as an inherently Pam-like trait. “I’m worried your mom is going to try to Pam everything her way” implies that Hannah thinks “Pam” means “do”.
But of course, neither we nor Max could be expected to know without context that Hannah thinks wanting to do everything her way is an inherently Pam-like trait, because Pam has no established personality traits beyond “whatever makes her a foil for whatever her husband or father is doing this week”.
DT: Doubleup has his trademark whip back! And they can’t take his trademark word-repetition from him, so now he just needs to work his trademark Scarlet Sting fandom in there somehow and he’s sorted! Dude’s got a lot of trademarks.
JP: Compare panel 2 today to panel 2 yesterday, and wonder if maybe Manley isn’t any more invested in this story than the rest of us.
OTF: “So, I understand you want to replace me as CEO with an AI because my decisions are ‘based on a limited set of options’. Care to give me an example?”
“Well, like most CEOs, your default decision these days is, um, to fire people because you think you can replace them with AI.”
Entire board disappears in a puff of logic.
(I will be so annoyed if it turns out I’ve actually predicted this storyline.)
@Lauralot:. In fact, have we ever seen an Asian person in this strip?
There was the woman Wilbur talked to about French bulldogs (turns out Dogs Are Good, but Wilbur’s so awful it cancels out) back in 2021, but I think we decided she was Actual Karen Moy, so maybe that doesn’t count.
DT: While the character of Doubleup’s signature weapon is a whip, I doubt the practicality of it during a prison breakout, unless whoever’s on the outside arranging this is a fan of the way he snaps necks.
Pluggers have discovered the ChatWBR mayo finder app.
@Horace Broon: Carol (don’t ask me how I remember her name)
@Terry Rhoden: Of course, in a prison breakout, just whip the walls until they crumble to dust, many an adventurer finds roast chicken this way.
MW: Are we sure the Notorious HH actually has a daughter and not just a Tamagotchi everyone agreed to call “Sharon”?
Pluggers: But he’s asking the app instead of his wife. The caption hasn’t read what’s going on in the panel, and you really can’t blame it.
9CL: She’s in the strip where that should work. Given legs, anyway. Time for her to go the whole Ariel route.
C-Shaft: No indication what these two have been talking about for the last two days, but I’m sure it’s something stupid and boring.
Dustin: To be fair, changing his name to “Richard” would give him the chance to disassociate himself from the comic strip Dustin.
DT: Hey, was there ever a MythBusters where Adam and Jamie answered the question of whether you could deliver a bullwhip by drone? Something that ended in a lot of smoke and some broken propellers? Feels like there should have been.
GT: The eyeroll is because Coach Gerads brought an umbrella drink into the studio and Marty knows that somehow he’s going to have to be this guy’s sponsor.
H&L: The real reason Hi is staring in stunned horror is that Abercrombie? Fitch? whichever one looks like Thirsty is one of those people who only read the paper on the toilet.
JP: April have something against tracheal damage all of a sudden?
RMMD: You wouldn’t think that a résumé with only two items on it—“movie star” and “recluse”—would be enough to get you a job as a hotel café waitress, but the plot demands it.
@Ukulele Ike: #107: Poor Veronica. Her movie career was never the same after Zanzibar the talking murder chimp shot her at that party.
@The Rambling Otter: Don’t forget that old TV show, Pluggly Betty.
Or the classic sitcom, “I Plug Lucy.” Does that sound off-color? It should – the broadcast was in black-and-white.
@The Rambling Otter:
With Pluggers, initially, I read that wrong and thought he was calling up some guy name Chet.
________________
Well,Moose Mullins is a Plugger….
@I speak Jive: #118: Lots of times women shopping by themselves will ask me to reach an item on the top shelf for them.
9CL-Lady, you’re in the wrong strip. Head over to ‘Hagar” Lucky Eddie loves to sleep with the fishes.
@Hibbleton: #53: re-Dustin: I had an ex girlfriend who would often say Richard Cranium instead of dickhead.
The Familliar Mucus: Uh oh! Jeffy,of all people, discovered the 2 way mirrors!
I don’t think that that plugger is using chatGPT. I think it’s much worse. He’s a twitch streamer. Those are the only people I’ve ever heard ask chat a question. His three viewers are VERY invested in whether or not he’ll divorce his wife by the end of the month, or the end of the year.
Yeah, a lot of you know what Twitch is and how people behave on it.
@Maude R. Fawker:
Or the classic sitcom, “I Plug Lucy.” Does that sound off-color?
I have maintained that “I Love Lucy” becomes infinitely funnier if you watch it thinking that that the Ricardos and Mertzes are swingers.
Sex Organ V. D.: “Sitting alone in my room eating ain’t my thing.” “Since when,Mud?” “I said ‘SITTING’!”
@Old School Allie Cat:
I have maintained that “I Love Lucy” becomes infinitely funnier if you watch it thinking that that the Ricardos and Mertzes are swingers.
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“Lucy! You got some cavorting to do!”
@Ukulele Ike:
#109. Ike, just finished baking half a batch of chocolate chip bars so will share my experience, amateur baker to amateur baker:
– Shortening used imperial margarine as usual. Bar turned out like cake rather than pastry. Think I should use butter?
– Egg white: I was taught never to get any yolk in the white when separating the egg. Today yolk broke into white but instead of dumping it out, I just transferred yolk parts to batter. When whipping remaining white for the bar’s meringue, it beat up passably well. Glad we can use a tainted white for meringue.
@Old School Allie Cat:
I have maintained that “I Love Lucy” becomes infinitely funnier if you watch it thinking that that the Ricardos and Mertzes are swingers.
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I guess you saw the episode,”First Stop” where Ethel demonstrates how she literally ties Fred to the bed every night.
Lucy: “You do that every night?!?” Ethel: “Yep.It took years of practice!”
Mary Worth, “spread,” and “fish” are forever intertwined, I am horrified to muse.
9CL-“How am I supposed to lure men to their deaths?”
The floating head of Toni will next choose prizes in Wheel Of Fortune, late 80s style.
Pluggers-He’s really in an OnlyFans chat.
Pluggers-“My darling H@rv3y…I don’t know how to pay my bills since I lost my job.”
@Activist: – Shortening used imperial margarine as usual.Think I should use butter?
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Well,you get to fool Mother Nature,but you don’t get the neat crown,so I’d say its a toss up
@Old School Allie Cat:
I have maintained that “I Love Lucy” becomes infinitely funnier if you watch it thinking that that the Ricardos and Mertzes are swingers.
__________________________
I guess you saw the episode,”First Stop” where Ethel demonstrates how she literally ties Fred to the bed every night.
Lucy: “You do that every night?!?” Ethel: “Yep.It took years of practice!”
@A Grave Mind: Mary Worth, “spread,” and “fish” are forever intertwined, I am horrified to muse.
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Fish spread,fish spread,rolly Polly fish spread,eat them up,yum!
@Guillermo el chiclero: I have to do that more than I like. Sometimes a taller woman helps me. Without exception everyone has been kind. If you reach items on a high shelf for a shorter person, I can assure you that they appreciate it. I know I do.
I’ve lost a couple of inches in height over the past fifteen years. I used to be able to reach the top shelf.
@Activist: “Bars?” Are you a Lutheran Church Basement Lady?
Now that everyone knows margarine is worse for you than butter and COSTS MORE than butter, you should always use butter instead of margarine. “The best butter,” as the March Hare says.
@GarrisonSkunk: I woulda thought that he woulda thought it was another stubby redhead invading the house.
@Liam: BF: Benoit: “My darling Maeve….I don’t know how I am going to pay my vineyard bills since I lost my job.”
@ectojazzmage: Luann: Have we seriously spent close to a week on a “story” that consists of four characters sitting ar a table conversing aimlessly? This is bad, even for Luann.
And yet it’s still not as bad as the arc that featured Tiffany’s Epic Pool Party.
@A Grave Mind:
The floating head of Toni will next choose prizes in Wheel Of Fortune, late 80s style.
____________________________________________
Cool, I could always use another ceramic Dalmatian
“Who captured the bad guy, and who helped?”
“Han, solo.”
@Bryan: At least, in that story arc, we got to see how Crystal dresses for the pool. The pleasant memory lingers on.
William Shatner and “Rescue 911” convinced Brad to be a fireman, much like when William Shatner and “Star Trek” convinced him to become a starship commander.
@The Rambling Otter:
Did I slip into a parallel universe or something?
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“Rambling, have you been drinking soda?!? Carelessness with Empire Cleanses will NOT be tolerated! Your agonizer, please.”
Late Thread Cuisine: Enough with the questionable meat pies.
@Baja Gaijin:
Sweet-sour??? Boooo. Even the Chinese suck at that.
Mary’s Worst: “Ascot Man, next time a wife dies in your apartment, please tell someone BEFORE the stench alerts us!”
Family Circus Mashups: Yeah, like Jeffy’s smart enough to have a reflection.
@Artist formerly known as Ben: @GarrisonSkunk: I woulda thought that he woulda thought it was another stubby redhead invading the house.
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That was probably Bil’s original caption.
@GarrisonSkunk:
One wonders what would have become of Bwad if he had been one of the few people who watched TJ Hooker or TekWar.
@Baja Gaijin:
A starving vulture would turn its beak up at this mess.
@1 Guillermo el chiclero: Reading between the lines, you’re saying Wilbur’s a
trufflemayo-sniffing pig? I can agree with that.@69 TheDiva: on Rex Morgan: You travel a lot for business, don’t you?
@109 Ukulele Ike: At least her doppelgänger isn’t trying to bang the mouse…this time.
@118 I speak Jive: I had to look up “ring bologna.” I thought it might be a candidate for a Late Thread Cuisine.
@124 Ken: Whereas I thought of Pluggerdome, with a spiky-haired Tina Turner in chain mail…
@136 The Rambling Otter: Sounds like Canadian Tire to me, and that’s me looking at all the candy.
@151 Guillermo el chiclero: They’re flirting with you, you cheeky devil!
@160 Activist: I wouldn’t use something white from a taint in cooking. At all!
@Baja Gaijin: RING BOLOGNA: The secret indulgence and shame of those who grew up in the urban arc including Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis. AKA the Rust Belt, AKA the Kielbasa Belt. See also: summer sausage
@Baja Gaijin: Seems OK on the beige scale.
@Baja Gaijin: The turkey seems like the most appropriate reflection for Jeffy.
@Ukulele Ike: #177: Was Crystal even at that party? All I remember is Tiffany, Luann, and Bernice peeking at Kip through the window blinds.
@Ukulele Ike: #189: To those unfamiliar with ring bologna it resembles a pink toilet seat, the public restroom kind with the gap in front.
Late OTF comment/question: Didn’t Rose put her own 2nd husband on her company’s board at some point? How big is this board of directors that between her, her husband, and her granddaughter that she doesn’t have a voting majority?
@Anonymous: I liked “TJ Hooker”. Adrian Zmed rocked!
@Baja Gaijin: Onwards to the questionable meat fillings that don’t even bother with crust!
@Guillermo el chiclero: I thought we were talking about the high-school-era pool party, where Ox offered to throw bikini Tiffany in the pool to be “fun” (ignite a bacchanalian orgy). She declined (politely!)
I believe that was our first hint of Ox’s crush.
MW, panel 2: There is something about these 45 degree front angle views of Mary that really emphasizes her true nature as a thinly disguised lizard Person.
@Ukranazi Stepan: @Anonymous: Or “$#!+ My Dad Said”
Pluggers have lived their entire lives buying mayo, and then by the time they are 55+ they forgot that it’s always in the aisle with the salad dressings.
@Ukulele Ike: I grew up in that urban arc and all my relatives lived in four cities in that arc, except for a few outliers in Indianapolis and St. Louis. And yet I missed out on ring bologna. [stares again] I can live with that.
That plugger isn’t talking to AI, he is an IRL streamer talking to his chat. Pluggers have not only simultaneously been exposed to AI chatbots and millenial/zoomer live streams; they have started streaming themselves for large? audiences without fully knowing the difference.
Is it better or worse that this beastman is getting advice from a bunch of anonymous brocolli headed young dogmen rather than an algorithm driven computer program? Not sure, but for the first time I genuinely wish Pluggers had more than one panel to explore this question.
@Ukulele Ike: LUANN: Crystal wasn’t at that party. That was 2023 and Crystal hasn’t been seen since 2017.
Luann reminds me of the famous 9/11 issue of Amazing Spider-Man, which Comic Book Time has necessarily erased, because if Peter Parker is going to stay perpetually on the cusp of 30, he had to become Spider-Man sometime in Obama’s first term. Also in that 9/11 issue: Doctor Doom crying amid the wreckage, as if he hadn’t himself done worse things, some of them in New York.