CSotD: Talking About Something More Pleasant

La Cucaracha (AMS) confesses to having faced lead time, but Alcaraz did a nice job of predicting where we’d be at this stage.

Mind you, Alcaraz has long been on record against Latino voters who support Trump, as this political cartoon from June attests. It may be disappointing, but not surprising, that he spotted the current situation as a possibility.

Darrin Bell also did a bit of safe reflection in Candorville (KFS), though it seems he didn’t really allow for the way things turned out, given that Lemont is content to sit around waiting for the next presidential race rather than focusing on the midterms in 2026.

There will be 33 Senate seats up for grabs, of which 20 are currently in GOP hands. We’ll see how folks are feeling about things then.

Meanwhile, I’m burned out on this week’s news. Can’t we talk about something more pleasant?

And, yes, I owe Roz Chast another dime for again stealing the title of her excellent book, which you need a copy of.

Juxtaposition of the Day

F-Minus (AMS)

Bizarro — KFS

Chast’s book is about aging parents, so this juxtaposition is a good place to start.

I’m lucky in that, while it would be nice to be in a paid-for house, it’s also nice to be in a small apartment because I’ve already shed an awful lot of stuff that my kids weren’t going to want.

When your kids are just starting out, giving them a few pieces of furniture and some kitchenware can be helpful, but by the time they’re up and running, you’ll see they’ve replaced most of that with newer models.

If you’ve still got that four bedroom house, I think the trick is to get a reverse mortgage with a clause that will force Tom Selleck to clear out all your junk.

Speaking of Tom Selleck, this cartoon suggests that Walt Handelsman is not working hard enough.

Before I retired, I never saw Daytime TV, but now I get to trip the light fantastic with the hucksters and con artists while I do dishes. I’m suspicious of anyone who has the time to do likewise.

Not that I don’t admire clever marketing, but there was a time when I was paid to uncover marketing that was a little too clever.

I always admired Big Sur Waterbeds, who sponsored all-night movies in the early days of cable channels. Anybody up at that hour obviously had a sleep issue and was a good target for a nice, relaxing waterbed.

The assumption for Daytime advertisers, however, seems to be that anyone home watching that crap is some kind of sucker, either old and gullible or in poor health and gullible or maybe just unemployable because they’re so doggone gullible.

Which isn’t that funny when you see it play out. Aside from the people who send in their grocery money so they can get this adorable blanket, and those who fall for some charlatan who promises to send them a free book with no obligation, there are people who genuinely get their resources drained.

When I was a consumer reporter in the early 90s, there was a fellow with brain damage — possibly from Agent Orange — who ordered truckloads of stuff from one of the shopping channels. Fortunately, I didn’t have to step in on that one. His wife was in contact with a local Vietnam Vets group that pressured the channel to take it all back and refund the money.

Others aren’t so fortunate, and, man, this sure stopped being funny, didn’t it?

But, yes, the political ads are over and now we can go back to dishonest ones.

Right? Right!

Betty (AMS)‘s current arc demonstrates that the strip can take a potentially tired concept and breathe life into it. Every domestic strip, I think, is required to do a “husband screws up the plumbing” gag, but Bub is being completely believable in the role.

There’s a lot of refreshing realism in this strip.

I was also glad to see this Red and Rover (AMS) cartoon, because while I’m sure Rover spends much of his day wishing Red were home, the family dog is still part of the family.

Kids are not the only people qualified to give bellyrubs, after all. Granted, the strip is set in a past in which one parent was often home during the day to give bellyrubs, but I’m sure the dogs didn’t object.

Cornered (AMS) mentions another factor from those days when one parent could stay home: Affordable homes and affordable cars.

We paid $23,500 for our first home in 1972. Zillow now values it at $539,900, and, no, I don’t wish we’d held onto it, because it was one of those early 1950’s chicken coops that they threw together for the returning GIs.

The problem with affordable housing is that you have to constantly pour money into it to keep it inhabitable. The prices have skyrocketed but that factor hasn’t changed.

Meanwhile, as seen in the cartoon, cars have also become expensive. You can still get something for $23,500 but not a whole lot. You might (gasp!) have to settle for something other drivers can see over and that you don’t need a stepladder to get in and out of.

I’d like to see motor vehicle registration fees based on weight. Maybe we could offer some kind of tax credit for the five or six people who actually use their monster crew-cab pickup for work.

Reality Check (AMS) deals with a flawed objection. While “9 items or fewer” would also be correct, there’s nothing wrong with “9 items or less” because it designates the size of the order, not the number of items.

Both are grammatically correct, but the issue is that the store is speaking to its staff instead of to its customers.

The disconnect is embedded in her response, since the corn flakes are rung up as a single item, like a six-pack of beer or a dozen eggs, though the customer likely chooses them based on number of servings. Eggs, for instance, also come in half-dozens or packs of 18.

Besides, while fussbudgets will always find something to carp about, most shoppers take small orders to the self-checks that fussbudgets are so scared of.

Though, heaven knows, these days anything goes.