They Might Be Quarterbacks

Back to football and a pending transition to Mouseketeer Roll Call. Kaz practices his Carol Burnett Tarzan yell tells the guys to wrap it up with some cals. Back in my day we started practice with cals to loosen up, then ended it with wind sprints or a couple laps around the field. Then again we also had salt tablets and Gatorade was just a new fad, so what do I know?

Will Thayer is “an experienced criminal defense and family law attorney at Momkus LLC.” Charlie Rapson is a New Zealand schoolboy athlete, or a one-shot British actor. Here in Milford they are both gym rats, or one-uppers, or one-upper gym rats. Their jersey numbers suggest they might be quarterbacks, so we might be in for a competition a la Jarrod Hale and True Standish, only closer. Enough speculation; hope you TWIMers enjoy the rest of your Labor Day weekend.

A New Thayer, Not in New Thayer

As much as Corina wants to be in Milford, I get the sense she really doesn’t belong there. First off, she’s wearing this tiny-ass backpack and asking about lockers. At son of teenchy’s high school there are lockers but nobody has enough time between classes to stop at them, so everybody carries all of their day’s materials in backpacks big enough to use on an extended Appalachian Trail hike. Then again, more of the class materials are becoming electronic and are accessed via school-issued Chromebooks. This is especially the case now since more and more schools (including son of teenchy’s) are going remote this fall. So maybe Corina is ahead of the curve here.

Where she isn’t – and where it appears she doesn’t really belong in Milford – is in keeping up this tough chick front. Wasn’t Corina’s problem with authority figures, not fellow students? So why mouth off to two girls who are innocently offering help? If either of them had any sense, they would take Corina’s reference to hiding a couple of bodies as a threat, report it to Dr. Pearl, and have Corina’s ass on the next bus back to Valley Mod so fast it’ll make her head spin. People have been expelled from Milford for less. But since Rubin has seen fit to carry her into a third story arc, she’s here for the duration. No softball this fall, so will she stay in shape playing soccer? Let’s hope so; <a href=”https://gilthorp.wordpress.com/2016/09/14/those-soccer-balls-seem-very-large/“> Coach Dawes</a> won’t put up with her shtick.

Rubin uses the bodies joke to transition us to football where, again, he and Whigham remain committed to detachment from reality. These two rando Mudlarks are already suited up in game unis and helmets fully decaled before even having played their first scrimmage. They’re scoping out a Will Thayer and how he fills out those pads. Is this a broad hint at steroid use? Isn’t that what we said about Saad Shamoun before he told Steve Boone he’d been working out with John Pascoe and Tipp Nunn?

metapost: Obviously I haven’t figured out yet how to embed hyperlinks in the new WordPress editor. Hopefully I can come back later today and work on that.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and Shut Your Piehole

Corina must not have gotten enough free meals out of Milford, so she whipped out Mim’s* business card, punched up those digits, and set up a lunch date at the diner to glom one last one. Wow, that diner table sure is shiny, ain’t it? Looks like Steve Luhm must’ve dropped in and applied his mop skills to it. You sure as shootin’ know Maureen didn’t, since her nosy ass has been spending so much time burning up the phone lines.

This feels like an arc-ender, what with Maureen’s snappy one-liner and the fact that this is the last weekend in August. What, really, have the last couple of months advanced in this strip, besides laying the groundwork for two possible long-term (by Gil Thorp standards) characters? That Milford has its own version of Mary Worth in Maureen? That Mimi’s gonna end up with a decent catcher for the Lady Mudlarks next spring? That Golden Boy True Standish isn’t so golden?

Tune in Monday when we’ll see if Kaz and Rick Scott are attaching face shields behind the Mudlarks’ face masks.

*Not a typo; see Thursday’s strip.

The Jedi Mind Trick As Recruiting Tool

[Insert bow-chicka-wow-wow here]

“Recruit you? No. Groom you? Hmmmmmmmmmmmaybe…”

“Whaddaya mean, ‘groom’?”

“Well, look at that hair of yours. Just yesterday you had a bob, and today you’re rocking a mullet. Besides, the only way to convince players to come play for Milford is to actively encourage them not to come play for Milford.

“No, if I’m recruiting anyone, it’s the guy on my – er, our mound. Say, True, you’ve filled out quite nicely. Bet you could fill up these big boxes. (Seriously, is Whigham ever gonna be able to draw batter’s boxes consistently?) I’ve got an itch that needs scratching – I mean, a pool that needs tending. What’re you doing in your free time this summer?”

“Well, Mrs. Coach Thorp…”

“Call me Mimi.”

“Well, Mrs. Coach Mimi, I was just gonna swing by CVS and pick up my mom’s Zoloft prescription then go back to the country club and get some more pointers from Mr. Coach Thorp. But first I gotta pay Corina here for this catching session.”

“Wait, you’re paying her to catch for you?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Well that settles that. Corian, or whatever your name is, you’ve forfeited your high school eligibility, so you won’t be playing for Milford or anywhere else in the Valley for that matter. Come, True, let’s see how else you’ve grown.”

Plan 9 from Town Park Lake

Greetings, my friend. We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. And remember, my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future. You are interested in the unknown, the mysterious, the unexplainable. That is why you are here. And now, for the first time, we are bringing to you the full story of what happened on that fateful day. 

Today we find Corina, Alexa and Phoebe have pushed up their pedal pushers, waded into Town Park Lake, and stumbled into the shooting of a remake of Plan 9 from Outer Space. A perfect backdrop for the backstory of how Corina became so incorrigible. Alexa continues interviewing her replacement as Pheeb’s BFF her hard line of questioning, and quickly finds a crack in Corina’s armor. None of the authority figures in Corina’s younger life listened to her when she tried to tell them something was wrong with mommy, so now Corina won’t listen to any of the authority figures in her current life.

Okay, now that that’s settled, let’s move this plot forward. How deep into a pitcher of Long Island iced tea do you think Gil and True are at the MCC’s 19th hole?

At least Corina didn’t call Alexa Phoebe’s sidekick.

You Should Leave Your Hat On

August 14, 2020

Alexa hasn’t had many opportunities to throw her weight around since graduation; pressing her line of questioning on Corina gives her one. Mama Karenna may not be behind bars after all, since she’s going to “appointments,” but that still doesn’t explain why Corina’s able to call her own shots when it comes to moving to Milford. Emancipated minor? Mom on parole? Wearing a chunky ankle bracelet? Corina’s not giving a straight answer, speaking in metaphors about depression until finally she makes up some story about a hat to break off the conversation.

August 15, 2020

co·mor·bid·i·ty /ˌkōmôrˈbidədē/, n. comorbidity; plural noun: comorbidities; noun: co-morbidity; plural noun: co-morbidities. the simultaneous presence of two chronic diseases or conditions in a patient.

Okay, so the hat wasn’t a red herring. Where did it come from then? We didn’t see it at any time since Wednesday, when first we saw these three at the diner. And where did Alexa go? The depression song and dance might’ve been enough to satisfy her curiosity. Maybe she had to go buy some more stuff for her dorm room. Corina’s not her problem anyway…

… and she sure as hell isn’t Maureen’s problem either. Mo better keep her trap shut else Corina comes back to the diner and lobotomizes her with that pencil.

In Which Phoebe Keener Taps Her Inner Horatio Caine

(must… resist… urge… to… write… another… “Tom’s Diner”… song… parody…)

Maureen the waitress has become the Milford equivalent of Mayberry’s Sarah. How else does she have her finger on the pulse of Milford’s past, present and future jockocracy? Piecing this together the best I can, I’d conclude that:

1. Maureen knows Phoebe’s mom if not Phoebe

B. Phoebe told her mom that she was gonna be hanging with Corina, whose background Phoebe told her mom about as well

iii. Pheeb’s mom told Maureen about Corina’s background

d. Maureen knows True from way back

(5) Maureen called Pheebs’ mom with the deets re True’s needs

Besides slingin’ gossip, Maureen’s also slingin’ some substantial hash. Corina looks to have put on 20 pounds since the Valley Mod/Milford scrimmage cum picnic. Good thing she’s bulking up if she expects to catch True’s heater!*

Seriously, though: why couldn’t True have just asked Gil if Hiawatha James was available during one of their meet-ups at the MCC? Why couldn’t Maureen have told True of ‘watha’s whereabouts, she knows so damn much? This whole setup is weird, and Pheebs knows it. Y’all can’t tell me Whigham hadn’t been watching CSI: Miami before he drew today’s strip.

 

*What? Get your minds out of the gutter! Either True’s a true gentleman or we’ll find out more than we ever expected about statutory rape and the age of consent in the Valley.

Les Expos(ition) sont là, part deux

Called it! Well, kinda sorta, except for the wearing one’s employer’s uniform in public part.

Phoebe has a habit of pointing at everything and everybody a lot, even by Milford standards, so pointing to the diner door to call out True seems a bit belabored. Corinna’s words say “big whoop” but her rapidly swelling hands say otherwise. Careful, Ms. Karenina: sassy, athletic girls who get involved with True come to bad ends.

Corrina’s zinger in P2 pretty much sums up every summer Gil Thorp arc ever and, in a more normal world, should’ve been today’s post title. But nothing is normal these days. Major League Baseball is getting ready to kick off its regular season tomorrow evening, with a 60-game schedule, new rules straight out of the sandlot, and no fans in the stands. Anything and everything that happens in the game this season will be forever tagged with the mother of all asterisks. Besides, it also gives me an excuse to post this, again, something that every wise NL East scoreboard operator should play when the Nats come to town:

Now let’s sit back for the rest of the week and wait for True to explain how he went from being Wake Forest’s QB of the future to a potential future playing in front of sparse crowds in the worst stadium in the majors, and somehow giving Gil credit for it.