CSotD: Do They Know It’s Easter?

Bizarro (KFS) strikes a nostalgic note, intentionally or not.

I don’t think of Easter eggs as empty shells, but then I don’t think of them as this elaborately decorated, except in Eastern Europe where I doubt pysanky are mixed in with the candy.

But it did remind me of being a tiny tot some 70 years ago. We got sugar eggs at Easter that were hollow, but decorated inside with festive landscapes that you could see by peeking in the hole at one end.

The advantage of chocolate bunnies being that you could eat chocolate bunnies but you tried to keep the egg intact because it was art. Until you broke down and ate it.

Jonesy points out that eating the chocolate bunny is an immersive experience, though I blame the parents if the bunny is more than about four inches tall. I used to see two-foot chocolate bunnies advertised, but they were probably sold at the Noncustodial Parents’ Gift Shoppe.

And Fiona Katauskas suggests maybe we should stick to eggs and jelly beans, or else quit building coal-fired generation plants and driving gigantic SUVs and monster trucks and so forth.

Over at Rhymes With Orange (KFS), it seems the bunny is quiet quitting, and I hope he likes his Easter side gig, because he’s blowing his chances of promotion at his main job.

Just kidding. He never had a chance of being promoted. Take the day, Bunbun.

Which, speaking of rabbits walking out the door, reminds me …

The late Margaret Shulock still holds the record for Best Easter Bunny Cartoon for this 2007 Six Chix (KFS).

Also in the category of seasonal humor, Daddy’s Home (Creators) brings up an old legend I’d forgotten about.

Rice does not make birds swell up and explode. Nor does it make brides swell up and give birth, though that was the original intent.

But when the exploding bird rumor became popular, people had to come up with an alternative handful of grain. Because, of course, you have to throw something.

This 1950s-era Dennis the Menace (KFS) has been a lifelong inspiration and one of these days I’m going to do it.

Frazz (AMS) also goes for seasonal humor, but with some relatively easy-to-answer questions.

You don’t play baseball in the rain mostly because of a small, hard ball that moves at blinding speeds and becomes slippery when wet. Ray Chapman is the only player to die directly by being hit with a ball, and that was in dry weather but it would have to be, because they halt the game when it rains.

As noted.

Chapman’s death lead to a banning of the spitball, but I also remember when we had baseball first activity period at Camp Lord O’ The Flies, while the grass was still dewy. We were practicing baserunning, but when Andres — who was a big 14-year-old — planted to round first, he slipped on the dew, landed on his hand and spent the rest of the summer in a cast.

It was a boxer’s fracture. I don’t think there’s such a thing as a baserunner’s fracture.

Probably because they don’t run bases in the rain.

This week’s Betty (AMS), in which Bub cooked frozen fish and chips at her direction, while wearing a tie, reminded me of what I learned the year I was a waiter at Camp Lord O’ The Flies, which was to call the head cook “Chef.”

I don’t know what he was called the other 10 months of the year, and the rest of the kitchen crew just called him “Virgil,” but we were told to call him “Chef” and one thing you learn as a waiter is not to piss off the cook, and so “Chef” it was.

Apparently that’s not a universal rule. A decade later, I did a mercifully short stretch waiting tables, and automatically referred to the head cook as “Chef.” I was the only one who called him that, which gave me astonishing benefits in terms of getting what I wanted when I wanted it.

As it happened, he wasn’t a chef and he wasn’t even a very good cook, but that’s not an issue with which waiters need concern themselves.

The fact remains that job titles can’t change the way frozen fish and chips come out.

You might be surprised how rarely real chefs say “Pass the ketchup.”

You might also be surprised at how an advancement in job title can be a decline in everything else. As Non Sequitur (AMS) notes, a promotion can come with little more than an exalted position in the line of fire.

“Job Title in Lieu of Raise” is for mooncalves, while, if there is a raise, it won’t compensate for stress or the height of the fall when you get pushed over the edge.

I knew a Circulation Director so skilled in leaving others holding the “Here” that he got an innocent assistant to resign over some bookkeeping irregularities rather than be charged with embezzlement.

Then he tried to offload a shortfall of several thousand dollars on my department but I drummed up sufficient sponsorships to escape.

He left us to be circ manager at a much larger paper and then on to one even larger than that, but I Googled him just now and he’s a consultant, so I guess somebody finally wised up and caught him.

I love a happy ending.

Tony Carrillo takes a step into media and politics with today’s F Minus (AMS).

I once wrote a column wondering what would happen if the fellow rushing to tell Congress not to regulate children’s television because it’s really not all that influential, were to accidently swap briefcases with the fellow rushing to tell McDonald’s they should buy ads on TV because it is unsurpassed at getting people to buy things.

Meanwhile, over in the news department, they honestly believe that polls reflect public opinion. They are blissfully unaware of their own role in shaping that opinion.

With 1 as “very much” and 5 as “not at all,” how much do you believe in self-fulfilling prophecies?

The kids of Grand Avenue (AMS) have discovered ancient documents. My teacher brought in candle molds and flatirons. His brought in some books the thrift shops won’t accept.

Which brings to mind this ancient song: