Institutionalized

“We’re wondering, Heather – have you ever considered circular breathing? See how I can talk to you while snorting my coffee?”

“Why? Will you give me a job if I do?”

“Yes, we’ll give you my job.”

“But… you’re an institution!”

“No, but if I don’t blow this Popsicle stand soon I might be in an institution. All I wanted was a retirement package, and he wouldn’t give it to me!”

“Seriously though, I got a lead from Mr. Bakst on a sweet condo outside of Charleston. Once you accept, I’ll be out of here quicker than you can say ‘shrimp and grits.'”

Can it be? Rubin’s gonna retire a long-running character to make way for a new one?

Faithful TWIMer (and host of his own Gil Thorp blog) Mopman predicted in yesterday’s comments that the Star would offer Heather a gig, rather than a job, “providing the ‘inside scoop’ for a season of Mudlark football” à la ESPN’s Hard Knocks. That might be an option, but then what becomes of Marjie? Once editor guy realizes Heather can add more to the Star’s sports reporting than simply reciting a list of names Gil reels off to her, Marjie’s fate is sealed. Lower pay, fewer benefits, no more employer-funded pensions – it’s a no-brainer!

Know what else is a no-brainer? Including the phrase “conflict of interest” in at least one panel between now and Saturday. Let’s see if it happens!

Heather Rennt (oder “Run Heather Run”)

I wished I could play soccer

I couldn’t, though I tried

I wished I could play football

I didn’t have the size

I am my daddy’s princess

He thinks I’m really grand

And when I was in high school

Played everything but band

I wish I was a writer

Who rakes in lots of green

I haven’t got a prayer

You know just what I mean

I wish I wasn’t desperate

To pay off student loans

I wish I could leave Milford

Who knows just where I’d roam?

Today’s strip is another clear example of Rubin’s horrifically poor pacing ability. Heather’s interview at the Star was featured in the first strip of this arc. If he drags out the hiring decision as long as he dragged out the Milford Library Board decision it’ll be mid-to-late August before she gets the offer – just in time for football season and wacky conflicts of interest. Watch the unpaid offensive line coaching assistant get paid to report on the team she assistant coaches! Watch her stonewall Marty Moon to keep WDIG from getting the inside scoop from the Milford locker room! Watch the Mudlark players give Heather the silent treatment for fear she’ll put anything they say in print!

If only this strip had the same time loop premise as the movie. Heather might’ve kept on running and knocked Marjie to the pavement. The subsequent skull fracture would’ve sidelined Marjie indefinitely and made the job all Heather’s.

meta: I added the “Make and Model Mystery Mobile” tag because I couldn’t figure out if the cinder block on wheels behind Marjie was a Scion xB or a Mercedes-Benz G-wagen. Thinking the latter sent me down a German rabbit hole that led me to the inspiration for today’s post.

Getting Hammered at the MCC? What Else Is New?

“How small of a stipend are we talking about, Mr. Coach Thorp?“

“Remember how far I held my fingers apart earlier? That’s how small your stipend will be.”

“Seriously? I thought you were talking about your post-practice shrinkage in the showers.”

“Just for that crack, no hot dog for you. Just a drink per game.”

So between her internship at the Star and her stipend from Gildeaux, Heather’s gonna pay down those student loans. Yeah, sure. Maybe that’s where the “I’d love to have you” part comes in. (Offensive line coach at a Big Ten school? Only if she was coaching them the way Clara Bow was alleged to coach the boys at USC.) But hey, at least she’ll be making more than Steve Boone. Can any of the faithful confirm whether he ever got a raise? Will he quit once he finds out about Heather?

Back to the golf mooks. TIL Vegas is a golf betting game for foursomes that involves combining each of a pair’s scores to get a numerical value; the pair with the lower value for a hole wins money from the pair with the higher value of a certain amount per difference in stroke (see here for an example). It’s just more filler to hammer home the point that gambling’s going on at the MCC, but the fact that Hendricks is still wearing his red polo shirt might lead us to think he’s an MCC employee, in which case his betting would be either doubleplusungood or quickly swept under the turf.

Suspension of Disbelief? More Like Expulsion of Disbelief!

Gentle readers, I am no less flabbergasted by this strip since Saturday than you are. The time jumps, the unstated assumptions and the unprecedented presumptuousness on Mimi’s part are so mind-boggling that I barely know where to begin and what assumptions to make. That’s the main reason it’s taken me so long to get this post up today.

Going back to Saturday’s strip: Despite her protestations that she doesn’t want or doesn’t intend to go to college (BTW, her eyes were blue when she made that statement; they’re brown now so since then she’s become full of shit), Corina took the ACT. Taking the ACT costs anywhere from $60-80, so it’s not money easily blown by a family tight on money to begin with. How worried is she about her mother and her family finances then, really? Couldn’t she be mopping floors nightly like Zane Clark if she was really worried?

Now let’s try to figure out what kind of machinations Mimi went through to get us through today. Did she apply to the community college in Syracuse (and why Syracuse? Because all of the out-of-conference games for Milford this season were against Syracuse high schools?) and to Le Moyne (also in Syracuse) on Corina’s behalf? Forge her signature? Write her application essay? How do we know Corina’s community college grades will be good enough to allow her to transfer to Le Moyne? How do we know the Le Moyne players will still need a roommate more than a year from now, when the time comes to transfer? There’s just way too much assumed here for us to suspend disbelief.

In today’s last panel, Mimi’s got Jack Elam eyes. Please tell me Corina slapped her walleyed.

metapost: robmize isn’t the only one who can take off for Myrtle Beach on a whim. yhs isn’t spending any time on a golf course, however. Instead I’ve been hobnobbing with the mascot of Myrtle Beach’s minor league baseball team. (They’re a Cubs affiliate, BTW; rob, did you catch ’em while you were here?)

Ya think that librarian should be history?

The level of realism in this strip keeps hitting new lows. Can you imagine a librarian asking a question like that?

The only conversation I ever had with librarians involved either checking out books, donating magazines and needing a slip for charity purposes, and the occasional question about finding something in the stacks. They never had the first word. I would be so shocked at such a question I would report her to the library board. Oh yeah, Zanes running for a seat. Then just tell her to MYOFB (mind your own fuckin business)

We then have another unexplainable chain of events. If Zane texted Katy before his convo with the librarian, why doesnt he know already if she will be joining him in the history section? ( goddammit why the hell is the librarian snooping around checking on just 2 people in 1 section? Do your own job lady!) And you (yeah you Zane) dont have to elaborate about her being mad at you. Just say “I prefer not to answer that thank you” So its just one uncomfortable moment after another today. Thanks Rubin. Nothing like kicking off your holiday weekend analyzing this pile of manure.

I think Mr. Brito has his fingers all over this, trying to scare Zane off the election ballot. He filled the librarian in on everything and she now subtlety is trying to scare him away from the library with her inane comments. You can fly solo all the way to the unemployment office Miss Librarian.

Nothing like the good guy in the strip getting treated like dirt.

Baby Brito

Abel Brito is a pest
Fixating on the library
Why can’t he give it a rest?
Why must he be so contrary?

Katy Brito loves her guy
She’s thankful that her dad isn’t meaner
Gonna give Zane a surprise
After swinging by the Cantina

She knows what it’s about
You’d think she’d thought this out
You might as well just shout
It’s gonna get Zane kicked out

And then they started sucking face
Katy brought a little cream and sugar
Can’t bring food into this place
Who said anything about coffee?

Though he didn’t play last year
Zane should remember ’bout the former Mayor
If he gets tossed out on his ear
It’s the end of him as a player

She knows what it’s about
You’d think she’d thought this out
You might as well just shout
It’s gonna get Zane kicked out

You know it’s no butter knife
But if he gets banned for life
What will he do at night?

What will Zane do after this?
Can’t buy a new computer
Maybe he’ll take his bro and sis
Sit in the car and wait and be a commuter

If Abel Brito has his way
No computers, no drinks, no eating
Family’s gonna make him pay
Givin’ him a verbal beating

He knows what it’s about
You’d think he’d thought this out
He might as well just pout
When he sees his daughter make out

(apologies to the late Elliott Smith)

Saying the Quiet Part Loud

Odds are you heard this phrase a lot in the news over the past year. It has its origins in an episode of The Simpsons I referenced once a couple of years ago.

Now in a heel turn the lies of which would have made Andre the Giant proud, Tessi says the quiet part loud.

To be honest I think Tessi’s remained quiet on the really quiet part. Using a guy’s car as an excuse to go out or not out with him might’ve been a thing back in 1958 when this strip started and it might still have been a thing for quite a few years after; now, not so much. It probably started becoming less of a thing after the OPEC embargo in 1973, but I could be wrong. In today’s world where fewer teens are getting drivers’ licenses, it’s become even less of a thing. Maybe that’s why girls don’t compete with Goats for Doug Guthrie.

I doubt it’s fear of being seen in Vic’s GMC (Grandpa Motors Corporation?) van – or of what could happen to her inside it – that keeps Tessi from accepting his invitation. But even Tessi can’t state the obvious and she can’t be entirely wrong in P2, either. Those dueling exploding eyes with a head bobble are part “Oh no she din’t!” and part “She says what we’re all thinking!” If any of those Lady Mudlarks’ eyes should not be exploding, it’s Corina’s. It’s impossible that a tank town like Milford didn’t get the news about her little ménage à trois with the dueling QBs last fall.

Tune in on Monday when we see how high off the floor and onto a horse Corina gets at that postgame pizza party. Let’s hope she takes that flyswatter off the pizza first. (What? You can’t tell me that’s a spatula!)

Some Wak! Haiku

Tom Muench on the bench

And Doug Guthrie off his game:

Central by thirteen

But it’s not a bench

It’s only a folding chair

Thanks to budget cuts

“Everything happens

For a reason” – Grandma Muench

Like ankle sprains

Anytime Doug makes

Car-related decisions

Mudlarks always lose

Vic Doucette could see

Doug was no Schumi when he

Smacked him on the ass

Clearly Doug isn’t

Firing on all cylinders

He needs a tuneup

Gil needs to send him

To a garage upstate where

He can drive all day