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They’ll Do It Every Time, 6/4/07

As a freelancer, I have a kind of … relationship with the postal service. Traditionally, most businesses pay their freelancers via paper checks, sent through the mail, rather than via the direct deposit that most folks with 9-to-5 jobs (and, for that matter, Social Security recipients) can get. Plus, you can never really be sure how quickly some of your clients are going to pay you (past speed isn’t always an indicator of future performance). Some of my biggest clients have in the past couple of years finally switched over to electronic payment, but I still get enough money in the mail that I’m always a little bit anxious about when it’s going to arrive.

Thus, in my six years as a freelancer, I admit to being a little bit of a mailbox hoverer. Especially when I lived in apartment buildings, in urban areas where the mail carrier and his or her schedule was likely to change from day to day, the game of “Is the mail here yet?” was a fun one to play, and gave me a little chance to walk around a bit, get out of the apartment (if not actually outside in the fresh air), and, occasionally, open my mailbox and find a check. It was a little like playing a slot machine, except I didn’t have to pay any money. And, once in a while, I admit to griping (to myself, of course, since I almost never encountered the mail carrier in person, and would never be mean to them if I did) that a check had arrived too late for me to take it to the bank that day.

Then I moved in with my wife-to-be, which also marked the first time that I lived in a real house (as opposed to an apartment) since I graduated from high school. This move also meant that I lived two doors down from Bill. Bill is a bachelor retiree, and is a very nice and helpful guy; he’s got spare keys for everyone in the neighborhood, and he brings in packages if you’re not home. He also has something of a … relationship with the mail, more for something to do than anything else, I imagine. The problem was that his relationship started interfering with mine. Because Bill watches everyone and everything in the neighborhood from his front room, he’s very much aware of when the mail gets here, and, more to the point, when I was looking to see if the mail had gotten here. If I opened the door to check, before I could even open the mailbox, I’d hear, “Not yet, Josh!” from two doors up.

For a while, this really bothered me. The “Is the mail here yet?” gig was my obsessive game! How could I enjoy it if Bill kept interrupting me? Eventually, though, I made peace with it. In fact, I like to think that seeing Bill’s obsession with the mail allowed me to let go of my own obsession a little bit, to realize that if a check sat in the mailbox for a couple of hours, and didn’t get cashed until the next day, it would really be OK.

Plus I figured out that I could see the mailboxes across the street from our living room, and thus didn’t even need to go outside to check.

Anyway, my larger point here is that I feel a tiny bit of resonance with Old Man Lugar’s attitude here, although like every TDIET character he takes it to a place of horrifying bitterness and negativity, cursing at an underpaid worker who probably does not, in fact, draw up his own duty schedules. I would like to say that it’s probably best to keep on the good side of someone named “Luger” if at all possible.

Blondie, 6/4/07

Mailman Beasley is getting a similar bit of blowback today, but since he rightfully doesn’t perceive Dagwood as any sort of threat, he responds not with terrified cringing a là TDIET but with passive aggression.

The Phantom, 6/4/07

Never mind Newt Gingrich’s attempt to psych himself up to murder in panel two; what the hell is the deal with that giant forearm in panel one? The perspective makes it look as if the elbow to which it’s attached must be hovering somewhere around Captain Poor SAT Verbal Score’s thigh. My theory is that it’s been hewed off of a Bob’s Big Boy statue and bolted permanently to the floor of the ship’s bridge, as only such an enormous fiberglass hand could properly hold the gigantic sandwiches that these seamen crave.

Dick Tracy, 6/4/07

I really hope that this isn’t how a lot of law enforcement and intelligence gathering works — “Sure, it would actually be faster to just look at one of the arrival boards, but that would mean we wouldn’t have a chance to intimidate someone by flashing our badges!” — but I fear that this might be one of Dick Tracy’s more accurate installments.

Herb and Jamaal, 6/4/07

Dear Herb and Jamaal artist checking to see if anyone at the syndicate is actually reading your cartoon to ensure that it makes some vague sort of sense before sending it on to the newspapers: Sadly, nobody appears to be doing so.

Update: It’s apparently a black thing that I didn’t understand. Point withdrawn, though the punchline is still pretty convoluted.

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Herb and Jamaal, 6/2/07

In an attempt to put a fresh and non-copyright-infringing spin on a joke that’s been cracking ’em up on the message boards outside churches around the country since 1998, today’s Herb and Jamaal ties itself into serious theological and philosophical knots. “Knee mail” (i.e., prayer) is of course the preferred method of making contact with a deity of the type that most religious folks today believe in: a God of pure spirit who exists on a plane separate from the physical reality we inhabit. Thus, Rev. Croom’s answer to Herb’s question (about which he looks rather disgustingly satisfied, incidentally) doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. We already talk to the spiritual God via knee mail, rev; Herb wants to know how to make contact with a hypothetical physical God. My suggestion: poke Him with a stick. Not too hard, though.

Blondie, 6/2/07

If I were a clerk at The Book Barn (or, well, you can’t see the “k”, so it might be The Boon Barn or The Boob Barn, but never mind that) and a customer brought me a copy of every mid-sized book in the store with a cover the same exact shade of blue, my first response would be less “You sure enjoy all kinds of different books” and more “Sir, I know that obsessive-compulsive disorder can be a life-afflicting problem, but the first step is to admit that you need help.”

Beetle Bailey, 6/2/07

So … does this strip make any sense to anyone, anywhere, at any level of familiarity with golf? I thought I had it — Gen. Halftrack is about to be caught cheating by Lt. Flap and Hitler-Mustached Mid-Level Staff Officer Whose Name And Rank I Forget Or Perhaps Never Actually Knew as they Keep On Truckin’ towards the reader, and Lt. Fuzz is demanding advancement in rank in exchange for his silence. But if Flap and H-MM-LSOWNARIFOPNAK have already seen the general’s perfidy, then Lt. Fuzz’s collaboration won’t help matters; if they haven’t, then their presence in the second panel, which seems to be the incentive for Fuzz’s sudden blackmail bid, is irrelevant. O wiser heads on the Internet, answer this conundrum!

A more philosophical question: Why are these two golfing together in the first place? Usually Halftrack is willing to humiliate himself by hiding under his desk or hanging out the window just to avoid a few loathsome moments spent with his subordinate. Surely any golf outing with the two of them would result in the younger man being brained by a club somewhere on the front nine.

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They’ll Do It Every Time, 5/26/07

For many, TDIET is a glimpse into a kinder, gentler past, when doctors and nurses wore bright white starched uniforms and little kids of both genders wore plaid vests and inevitably responded to obscenity with a hearty “Oh, what you sa-a-a-a-i-d.” But today’s installment for me offers a look into the future — specifically, my future wearing dentures. Who knew that this seemingly innocuous prosthetic device came with its own elaborate code of shame? Who knew that breaking your dentures while eating is somehow socially acceptable to explain to a licensed dental professional, but that breaking your dentures while brushing them is not? I think I’ll redouble my flossing efforts so as to avoid ever having to navigate this complex sea of lies.

Herb and Jamaal, 5/26/07

Yes, isn’t it odd that people are willing to idly pass the time discussing potentially untrue things written in a modern publication, but aren’t willing to wholeheartedly base their moral code and belief system about how the universe works on the exact wording of a series of books written between three thousand and seventeen hundred years ago and painstakingly copied by hand by semiliterates over and over again in the intervening centuries? I sure see exactly how this might confuse you.

On another note, I dare you to brightly say the following to one of your friends: “Wow, check out the latest on the hotel socialite! The stuff they say about her really makes you think, doesn’t it?” I’m pretty sure you’ll soon find yourself in an interrogation room at CIA headquarters, since obviously the only person who would construct such a sentence would be a sinister robot scouting out our planet and reporting back to an alien invasion fleet.

Pluggers, 5/26/07

Wow, I was really torn between saying “Pluggers are almost unfathomably lazy” and “Pluggers really don’t understand how this stuff works,” but then I realized that I didn’t have to choose! That made me feel better.

Gil Thorp, 5/26/07

“That’s right, I have it on good authority that he’s being scouted by the Baltimore Elite Giants and the Pittsburgh Keystones! Believe me, Mike’s got what it takes to have a real future in the Negro leagues.”