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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!

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Sally Forth, 5/4/06

Tune in for future installments of Sally Forth’s alcohol-fueled blackouts and ancillary hilarity:

• “Gee, Sal, you say the car had four tires when you came home from work?”
• “All I know is that Ralph says you were the most giving and nurturing lover he’s ever had.”
• “Mom, Faye says she won’t come over for dinner again until you get rid of that gun.”
• “So you say you remember punching the other softball coach in the face, but you don’t remember kicking him in the gut after he went down?”
• “All I know is that Alice says you were the most giving and nurturing lover she’s ever had.”

Judge Parker, 5/4/06

I’m not familiar enough with the rich Judge Parker backstory to know whether Abbey was born to fabulous wealth or if she came by it by marrying (or just shacking up with? I can’t keep it straight) Sam Driver, but she clearly has a lot to learn when it comes to ordering her henchpersons about. She’s got the part where you make them dress up in ludicrous uniforms right, but she doesn’t really know how to talk to them:

• Incorrect way to respond to relayed information from an underling: Allowing to them learn unnecessary details by engaging them in a rousing game of Exposition.
• Correct way to respond to relayed information from an underling: “Did I give you permission to make eye contact with me? Return to your duties at once, Unit 39-D!”

They’ll Do It Every Time, 5/4/06

This panel ignores the tremendous pressure anyone named “Neato” is under to be tidy. As if four grueling years of male nursing school weren’t enough!

B.C., 5/4/06

OK, but see, this is just totally insane.

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Pluggers, 4/24/06

I have tried — I mean, really, really tried — to restrain my college-educated, East Coast-dwelling, liberal urban elitism while reading Pluggers, holding my tongue as I am lectured day after day about how simple, down-home folks are morally superior to me. But this one really just pushed me over the edge, and I’m not what you’d call particularly clean. All right, Pluggers, listen up: If your response to spilling something on the floor is to aimlessly push it around with your sock, you live in filth, OK? I know your kitchen tile is already invisible under a layer of grime and sticky Fanta residue, but try to make a goddamn effort, for Christ’s sake. I hope social services comes and takes away your undernourished kids, the Humane Society comes and takes away your chained-up dogs, and the dentist comes and takes away the last of your meth-loosened teeth. And don’t try to tell me that you represent the “real America,” because I live in America and we have these things called paper towels.

Judge Parker, 4/24/06

Meanwhile, in the other America — the rich, white, freaky-red-haired-fright-wigged America — Sam and Abbey have turned from ruining Ned’s love life to cramping Sophie’s academic style. See, earlier this morning (by which I mean two weeks ago, JP-time), Abbey’s youngest received praise from her teacher on her latest school paper, which praised the concept of outsourcing. Today, the upcoming conflict is being telegraphed with a total lack of subtlety: Sophie is outsourcing her homework to India! This presumably includes the aforementioned paper about outsourcing, which may be a desperate attempt on the part of this strip that it does too understand the concept of irony.

Who’s to blame for this sad state of affairs? Evil, greedy CEOs, who have set a bad example to the nation’s youth by demonstrating that labor should be sought at the lowest possible prices, wherever you can find it? The Indians, for being so smart and yet working so cheaply that good old fashioned American fraudulant-paper-writers can’t compete? My vote goes to Sam and Abbey: I don’t care how many acres your estate is and how many pretty, pretty horses frolic prettily on it, nobody Sophie’s age (which is indeterminable due to crappy artwork, but is surely somewhere between 8 and 13) needs access to international wire transfer capabilities.

Sally Forth, 4/24/06

Boy, is Hillary in luck! She’s bonded with a moody goth girl just in time to learn about death!