Conversational follies
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Mary Worth, 10/22/26
I guess we all could’ve guessed that if someone was going to ruin this pleasant evening by blurting out something about the vicious rumors that had been going around the condo about Mary and Ian, that someone was going to be a Weston, right? It’s nice to see that father and daughter are coming together here to engage in their shared hobby: being socially inept in ways that make other people feel bad. Also, I just want to say that absolutely nothing they’ve seen here tonight disproves any of the rumors they’ve heard! What, do they think that guys who are cheating on their wives never take said wives to nice dinners and on elaborate and expensive vacations, as compensation in their own mental accounting or, if the wife found out she was being cheated on, as an apology? Do Wilbur and Dawn not know how infidelity works? Well, infidelity is a type of human interpersonal relationship, so the answer is obviously “no.”
Pickles, 10/22/26
It’s great to have a true intimate friend in your old age who you can ask big, searching questions like “What’s your biggest regret in life?” This is the sort of person you know so well so you can be sure that they’re going to answer with some kind of goofy vaudeville bit rather than actually tell you what their biggest regret in life is, which would almost certainly turn out to be a huge downer.
37 replies to “Conversational follies”
Mary Worth Mashup: Is this extended scene realistic?
Mary gives Ian the signal: each races home, and empties out the strongboxes. The moon laser plans are burned, the smuggled lion tamarins are released. The operation has been COMPROMISED.
MW-“Rumors about me and Ian? And you two my closet friends believed them?”
Uh oh, off-model Mary isn’t happy. Someone is going to get meddled right into the emergency room.
Wary Morth:
“Rumours about me and Ian? *I* do the rumour mongering around her, thank you very much!”
Curtis:
It’s Chutney, using a false name.
After all, Chutney is the resident genius who can do no wrong.
Wilbur would like Mary to know that Charterstone is a very gossipy place, and if you hear something unsavory about someone it probably isn’t true. In fact, maybe he’ll say it again, louder, so a few more people at the party can hear. Are there single women here? Maybe he should call them over, it’s very important to Wilbur that they know this.
“I regret what I did in those jungles, Earl, can’t ever take it back.”
“Killed kids in Vietnam?”
“Tried to drag a small steamship over a mountain in Brazil. Jesus, Earl, you go dark sometimes.”
@Baja Gaijin:
Cardinal flaw: Mary being aware of the existence of the activity of fucking.
Pickles:
“Okay, so what’s your third biggest regret?”
“I have no eyeballs in my eye sockets. Just an empty space behind each eyeglass lens — same as you!”
Over the past few days the general mood seems to be “as you age, you will see everything you once thought was so important crumble to nothing and leave you with only regret for what could have been”. Aren’t the funny pages great? So comical!
MW Mary is not only learning about the salacious rumours, she’s also getting a lesson in not eating just any old cake with an “EAT ME” tag no matter how peckish you feel heading out to a party. Hopefully her water was poured from an odd bottle labelled “DRINK ME” and she will be able to rectify the situation. That also just might distract her enough that her so-called friendships will survive the disclosure that they all thought she was an adulterous slut…
Mary Worth:
“Why the coprophagous grin, anyway, Wilbur?”
“It’s fun spreading dirt about you!”
MW: So is this meant to imply that Wilbawn *didn’t* actually believe the rumors? ‘Oh you know how our home is! Someone’s always saying something wacky! It’s just part of life’s big adventure!’
Luann: Bernice’s look says ‘Even though I’ll make it look like an accident, no jury would ever convict me…’
GT: Consider this karma for all the times *you* got in everyone’s face to no demonstrable positive effect, you malcontent.
MW: “And then there’s the rumor that you are turning into a giraffe.”
MW: The ruffles on Mary’s collar perk up like goose hairs as her voice rises. “Easy Mongo.” She whispers to the alien symbiote attached to her neck.
Mary Worth:
“Hey, Dawn and Wilbur! — check out the Karl Malden-Streets-of-San-Francisco face I just put on!”
MW: Compliments to the Art department; Mary’s expression in P1 is pure, unadulterated “WTF?”
RMMD: The future: Augie delivers a buzzkill speech after receiving a Pulitzer, and is the biggest fun sponge at the Oscars when he wins Best Screenplay.
GT: That’s sarcasm, right? Or is it a Varsity Pouting team?
DtM: Oh, come on. Dennis would say, “What if he dies before the card gets there?”
GT: Besides, Keri, it’s girls soccer. Nobody gives a shit if we win or lose.
Mary Worth:
Only a complete idjit like Dawn would actually bring up the topic of the rumors during the happy celebration, as opposed to, say, in a private conversation afterwards — all of which, of course, begs the question of why supposed “friend” Dawn wouldn’t have broached the rumors with Mary long before this.
BB&SS: Gotcha, the Hootin’ Holler newsreader is some kind of hillbilly “I only know that I don’t know” Socrates. The only question is how are they going to execute him for corruptin’ the youths? I’m thinking they’ll make him drink the aftershot from some radiator-distilled corn likker.
MW: And what happened then? Well, in Charterstone they say that Mary Worth’s neck grew three lengths that day.
MW I am loving Marys expression in that first panel. Her right eye has nearly doubled in size as it looks directly into Dawn’s soul searching for the truth.
Gotta say, if the happy surprise party turns out to be a ruse for Mary and Ian’s secret relationship, it would be the greatest narrative twist in comics history.
Pickles: This is what AI is for! Why, with a couple of prompts you can write a symphony and get it performed by a virtual orchestra without doing anything! Who needs regrets any more? AI will write that memoir, reconnect with that estranged daughter, create that beautiful family and romance that long-lost old flame, leaving you more time for the important things – being asked non-sequitur questions by that belligerent half-demented old man no-one likes!
MW: “The rumours that we went to the Kayan people of Myanmar and engaged in months of painful body modification with heavy brass rings to stretch out my neck until I practically resemble E.T.? Ha ha ha, where on earth did you get that idea?”
MW: Why is it that during this arc, any characters facing each other stand like they’re hand puppets failing to make eye contact because the puppeteers can’t see what they’re doing?
Gearhead Gertie: This single-panel snoozer gets regularly ragged on for being a “one-joke” tale about the titular old biddy and her monomaniacal NASCAR obsession. But come on. Today’s strip is an almost exact copy of August 13’s “regular or premium?” rib-tickler (see the Comics Kingdom archives). Seriously, has the cartoonist already run out of stock car racing-related punchlines and had to reuse one from just over two months ago?
Mary Worth: Ironically, upon first hearing all this ribald gossip, Wilbur had to go home and take things wildly “in hand”…if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
Six Chix: Raymond Burr wept.
MW: Yes, that’s the facial expression I’d expect to see on anyone who contemplates sex with Ian. (I would have said “anyone except Toby”, but defining “anyone” to include Toby seems like a perversion of language.)
MW: Is it a rule in Charterstone that eye contact is impolite? Why does everyone stare at each other’s foreheads?
Pickles: “You’ve never picked up an instrument in your life and you have a tin ear.”
“I know, but my life is so boring I have to make up things to be unhappy about.”
MW – It’s another dream, isn’t it? Today, Mary’s neck begins to extend sickeningly as Wilbur’s head rotates beyond human flexibility. Tomorrow, they morph into parrots.
RMMD – apparently the new method of running out the clock on a legacy strip is to Google a fact (do authors get rich from selling options) and then have a character repeat the facts from the search results in agonizing detail.
@Charterstone: Dune: I’m hoping for a reverse-Grinch, where Ian sees the look on Mary’s face and his ego shrinks three sizes.
“I’d have to say my biggest regret is continuing to hold you with some level of esteem even when you continue to be nothing but a net negative influence on my life and well-being.”
Very poor choice by Wilbur to turn his back and look over his shoulder as he says this. The glass that Mary has lowered is about to go up his bunghole.
Dustin: Honestly, that’s the greater mystery.
GT: No, no, you don’t rotate the bad players in when the game is tied up, you do that when you’ve got a huge lead that they can’t easily blow!….Or rather, you would do that, if Milford was ever good enough to rout an opponent.
JP: “Okay, Charlotte, but this is a working stable and–”
“I mean it, anyone touches Bailey and I’m putting their head in her stable.”
Luann: This dialogue only makes sense if you assume Luann is being insultingly sarcastic.
Phantom: “It doesn’t actually think for itself; that’s just loaded language I use to distance myself from any responsibility for the consequences of its use.”
Pluggers don’t carry cash because they’re broke, unlike the vast majority of people who don’t carry cash because pretty much everything is paid by card these days.
RMMD: “The option is still something to be excited about, even though I keep listing all the reasons why one in fact shouldn’t be excited about it at all.”
LUANN: When I was a kid, I had a friend who grew up to marry at least twice. Her second husband put her through college with money he brought to the marriage, only to be divorced for another guy after she graduated. I think it’d be cool if Bernice did something like that. Spend another 6 years freeloading off the DeGroots, then, diploma in hand, dumping Nancy for a new sugar mommy.
Mary Worth:
Notice that Mary’s wineglass is empty. That’s because she belted it down as soon as she saw the Westons coming over to talk to her.
MW: Read Wilbur’s dialogue in the first panel as “Those were some crazy clams, Mary.” Well, he could hae been talking about some of the food served at the party (beats salmon squares).
@Baja Gaijin: Nice!