CSotD: I’m your Comic Weekly Man

My first impression of today’s Barney & Clyde (WPWG) was that Barney had, indeed, been taken, since most coats of arms are bogus.

Having “Arms” at all is, as he says, up to the Heralds’ College, but I looked and, by golly, there is indeed a set of arms for Pillsbury that looks like what he’s holding.

Though the fact that it exists doesn’t give him the right to display it. As the College explains,

Similarly, I don’t have the right to wear a McMahon tartan, though my g-grandmothers’ forbears were part of the clan, because we are a patrilinear culture, so my being in the line doesn’t mean I’m in the right line.

My Danish surname simply means that not all that far up the line was a man named Peter. My grandfather used to say that, if the Danish government had clamped down on patronymics a generation earlier, our last name would be Johnson, or, I suppose, Jansen.

Absent any evidence to the contrary, I assume I am descended from farmers on all sides, and I’m fine with that, though my Irish g-g-grandmother was a Doyle, so I’ve got at least one Viking back there somewhere.

 

The whole business reminds me of this classic Fred Pegram cartoon from Punch.

 

Arlo & Janis (AMS) strike at a more recent portion of my roots. Arlo is usually the one obsessed with growing older, but he seems more accepting of it than Janis this time around.

A half century ago, then-wife and I bought a modest home in Denver, and, like the neighborhood Arlo and Janis are walking through, it had a fair number of young couples starting out, mostly because they were cheap little chicken coops that young couples could afford.

Today, I live in a neighborhood that is also largely made up of people my own age, and, while I like them all, it’s not healthy to not have a mix of ages, nor is the cause any great mystery.

The house we bought for $23,500 in 1972 is now priced at $485,000. It’s still a chicken coop, but there aren’t a lot of young pregnant couples moving into the neighborhood.

They’re off in apartments, paying rent that is seven or eight times a month what we made in house payments.

 

Candorville (WPWG) hails the present but left me scratching my head over the notion of a 22% tip.

But a little poking around revealed that, indeed, that amount is sometimes suggested, though with the math done for you. However, that site makes tipping a lot more complex than it has to be, and, even then, suggests 20% as the default.

I don’t think, however, that the gag would work with 20%: Even Lemont could find 10% and then double it in his head.

I’d like to see wages raised to a point where tipping was unnecessary, and “tipped wages” banned entirely.

 

And if I am supposed to tip for simple counter service where I have to tote my own food and bus my own table, why not tip at a hardware store?

This Free Range (Creators) is referencing big box stores, but I’ve become reluctant to ask questions at the grocery store, because apparently they are telling their stockers not to simply answer the query but to stop what they’re doing and take the shopper to the item.

Which is really nice, but more service than I wanted. I didn’t mean to interrupt you, I just wanted to know where they stock the horseradish.

Though here’s a tip: If you worked at the coffee bar, you could just yell my name and I’d pop right up and do the rest, plus I’d have to tip you.

And this sad loss: I remember when tipping maitre d’s, bell hops and valets was done in a dance of subtlety, such that you made it a discreet move which a well-bred woman pretended not to notice, but, of course, marked as a measure of your cool. Which was a measure of hers.

That dance of subtlety has, I think, gone the way of the foxtrot.

 

Cornered (AMS) continues the Old Man conversation, since I liked the gag but think it’s been a long time since I’ve seen TVs in store windows, or anyone offering to repair them.

So I looked up “TV Repairmen Near Me,” and got this, which isn’t much. (And also isn’t near me, since I’m on T-Mobile Internet and nobody can figure out where the hell I live, an added though unintentional benefit of the service.)

They gave me one repairperson and a bunch of advice including this brilliant breakthrough:

Which brings us back to Candorville and things you probably should be able to figure out for yourself.

 

Stephanie Piro scores with this Six Chix (KFS) gag, which manages to boost adoption and take a poke at unwarranted snobbery.

Designer mutts are popular, but, as mentioned here the other day, there’s still a roll of the dice involved, in that you can’t be sure which attributes of which breed will emerge.

The difference between dogs of different breeds who have been formally introduced and those who have met on the street is theoretical, as is the relative value — though not the relative prices — of their offspring.

Fact is, it takes little expertise to persuade dogs to ****, which is why we have so many rescue groups.

We don’t have a lot of loose dogs — in either sense of the term — up here in Yankeeland. Most of our groups bring dogs up from the South, where the people don’t wear masks and the dogs don’t wear condoms and the results are predictable.

Question is, are we simply enabling them by working so hard to place their unplanned canine pregnancies?

Here’s what I’d like to see: When you donate to a rescue group, half should go to pay their expenses and the other half should go to lobbyists to persuade the Dumbass States to pass some spay/neuter laws.

 

Finally, the Argyle Sweater (AMS) leaves half the gag on the table, and I’m willing to pick it up.

When you get to the top of the stairs, fellas, show some manners:

Don’t just burst in without