“We’ll have none of that fancy Latin talk around here. Leave that for those St. Fabian’s kids. Besides, I heard enough of that in law school. I said ‘no charge’ and I meant ‘no charge.’ I’ll even throw in my mom’s face to sweeten the deal.”
“Now let’s get to tweakin’.”
“Uh, Ms. Baxendale? You’ve got the wrong strip. Tweaking is more of a Santa Royale thing.”
“I don’t think so. We’re trying to get you to stay in Milford, right? In an apartment?”
“Uh, yeah, but you might have us confused with the Aagards.”
“Hmmm. Jaquan, dear, don’t we have some weight training to do?”
I kept wanting to drop the Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner reference in the past but I was really trying to shoehorn it into a plot. This week probably has been the most appropriate time to do it to date, what with Ed Asner V. Baxendale putting potential son-in-law Jaquan through the wringer. Granted Ed’s wringer is as dated as the one grandma had on the washing machine on her back porch, but having gotten a hand stuck in one of those once I can attest that they can do some damage.
Speaking of damage, check out Hadley going all Malory Archer on that glass of wine at Ricozzi’s. Girl’s got some pent-up hostility working there. Don’t check her out as much as Mimi’s checking out Jaquan, though. That would be awkward. Hadley manages to steer the chat toward something Gil’s more comfortable with… sportsball. Here comes the pivot to the tale of Tiki Jansen – the one we’ve all sussed out will be about Hadley doin’ some fierce lawyerin’ to get the Jansens into Trey Davis’ house, open a satellite office of her firm in Milford, and convince the Memphis GrizzliesNew Orleans PelicansCharlotte Hornets team Jaquan plays for to move there as well.
Summer’s in full swing here. Break out your beverage of choice, sit back, relax and see how this all falls out.
Added the Ricozzi’s Pizza tag, will apply it retroactively as time permits.
Picking up a few of the pieces of the meet-cute backstory from yesterday. TWIM old-timers, you may want to fast-forward through this (or read this kinda summary from two summers ago).
In 2005 Jaquan Case, then playing for Bishop Tardy, was under pressure to turn pro straight out of high school. The pressure was coming from his Uncle Rudy, who was Jaquan’s guardian after the death of both of his parents, and from the sporting goods company Tronix (which would rear its head years later by sponsoring a football camp for college prospects). Meanwhile Hadley V. Baxendale, spawn of lawyers, was making her case that the Lady Mudlarks weren’t getting the perks and attention that the boys’ team was getting. Gil shot Hadley’s demands down whilst manspreading, except the one for letting the girls have the gym on a Friday night because the boys wouldn’t be using it.
After meeting Jaquan in Gil’s office (where he ducked his handler to study), Hadley decided that she needed to help Case make his case to postpone his NBA plans and go to college. With then-boyfriend Steve Luhm’s help, Hadley arranged a meeting between Jaquan, Gil, and Hadley’s lawyer father, Ed (what is it with lawyers named Ed in the comics?) who confirmed that Jaquan’s dealings with Tronix wouldn’t harm his college eligibility. Turned out Rudy could fail and Jaquan could go to college.
As a way of thanking Hadley for helping him make his case, Jaquan pulled some strings and had Tronix send new practice jerseys and game unis to the Lady Mudlarks, who proceeded to work their way through the playdowns against several teams from the Philly suburbs. What Jaquan still thought he owed Hadley is best left to the imagination.
Hello, TWIM readers. We’ve come to the point in this post where those who didn’t read through all of this will have to stand up, or sit down and scroll down the page. In fairness to those readers, we’ll now take a few seconds before we begin side two.
Thank you. Here’s side two.
Once again Gil reminds us that Milford is a man’s man’s man’s world. He can’t be bothered by such trivia as wedding dates and locations, knit hats, rally hippos, merit badges, and winning ball teams. Those spatula-shaped second-degree burns on the back of his hand might bother him, though.
Oh look, another old character pops in this summer to make us forget about golf. This time we don’t have to go back a decade and half but only a few months to revisit the tale of Tiki Jansen. You’ll recall Tiki was a New Thayer football player who wanted out of New Thayer because he was being bullied there, so his fam rented an apartment in Milford to give him a fake address and let him play there. Looks like the Jansens are keeping up this charade but the MHS School Board has no interest. How do these plot lines come together? Probably by letting Hadley get in some pro bono work.
This season has really put us through the ringer. However, just when you thought it was safe to drink a hard lemonade and enjoy some golf shenanigans, here come the PLAYDOWNS! Well, maybe we will see playdowns, as in actual sports competition on the field. We might just see more of this panel 3 nonsense: Too Cool randos (bagel salesmen, screenwriters, bowlers, etc.) paying homage to the softball champs.
Shout out to the two Lady Mudlarks (probably Jamila and unknown teammate with a feminine take on the Bobby Bittman hairstyle). You got three panels to tell a story of pleasant surprise that the school follows the softball team (and model a weirdly childish backpack with a frog or bear or something.) But your glory is shortlived as we had to go right back to TCFS. Which TCFS dude is holding the HISTORY 101 textbook? Did we meet him before or is he a very successful teenage worm farmer or other Too Cool feature?
In the real world, this past week saw league championships won by franchises that had never won them before: the NHL’s St. Louis Blues and the NBA’s Toronto Raptors (contrary to popular belief, not named for Brent and Jolene Raptor). I always enjoy seeing first-time champs; I think it’s good for the sports. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been pulling for a Mariners-Nationals World Series for the past fifteen years. Both the Blues and the Raptors won on the road and, while it’s not the same as winning on home ice/court, it didn’t diminish the joy in their respective fan bases.
In the Thorpiverse, it’s not like the fans have been packing the bleachers to watch the Lady Mudlarks rip through the Valley. If anything, the TCFS scandal that wasn’t may have alienated large chunks of the student body. Since we seldom see the stands in any Milford baseball/softball action, it’s hard to say. My guess is that the Lady Mudlarks return to campus to three cheers and a tiger and a big TCFS banner honoring them for winning, for reading Animal Farm, and for passing out spirit buttons to anyone who asks nicely.
Today’s strip doesn’t have the feeling of a story wrap-up, but it does have some foreshadowing in the form of Jocelynn’s twisted ankle as she crosses the plate. Just enough of an injury to get the girls knocked out in the first round of the playdowns but not enough to end the self-congratulation. Maybe Mimi can lord it over Gil this summer; it’s no state championship but it’s the most recent championship either Thorp has brought back to Milford.
metapost, kinda: Mea culpa for getting it wrong earlier this week that Linda was going to David’s to break up with him. I still don’t give them much longer.
So now, with the Conference Championship and the plot, as a result, on the line, Mimi meets Linda Carr out on Main Street in Tombstone for a showdown. Better make this good, Mimi, Wyatt Earp is at The Tombstone Bucket downin’ a hard one (you know how Bucket Hard Cider Shakes can affect the large intestine) and the Clanton Boys are pointin’ a gun at the sock hop cuz The Bucket still ain’t got its Liquor License. They likely to shoot first and ask questions later. What happens when you don’t take “no” for an answer.
Betcha by golly wow
That your team is gonna hit the pits
Forever
Betcha by golly wow
That we’ll suffer through another blitz
Of volleyball
The group of choice, The Stylistics. They have always been one of my favorites. I dunno, that falsetto voice with a chorus behind him, plus catchy melodies that go for the throat. They got my respect and have for decades.
If yore volleyball team goes through another losin’ campaign cuz yore setter don’t know how ta spike a cow bladder over a clothesline and yore server scratches over the second grease stain that demarkates the dimenshuns of the volleyball court, ya might be a redneck.
And now I’m confused. I know that Linda was with a traveling volleyball team and that she wanted to go for the gold, literally and figuratively, by hooking up with the big boys rather than accept a full ride scholarship at Milford Community College and play volleyball there.
Fair enough. I’d say a bit overambitious but she’s a teenager learning about life. I get the feeling she will know where she stands in the grand scheme of things.
But now we have Mimi rattling off teams I have never heard of and I’m bettin’ the readership never heard of, the reasons almost having to do with Mimi convincing Linda to, what?, go full bore with the softball team? Convince her that being Michael Jordan on Milford Community College could land her as an early round draft pick in the National Volleyball Association? That Australians know more about kangaroos and dingoes than they do about volleyball? That her volleyball career is gonna crash-and-burn on Ayers Rock if she doesn’t find new friends and quit hanging around the volleyball thugs? I’m sure things will start to unfold and the Finger Math lessons that Mimi took at the Symposium for Teachers With LD in Mathematics in the interim are paying off in P1. Look at her using the Enumeration Method, reducing those volleyball teams to a status equivalent to a group of church members playing pick-up volleyball at the 4th of July picnic at Milford Park. I’ll never try to spike it down the music minister’s throat after Mimi has reduced volleyball to ashes.
Just don’t let those volleyball thugs spray paint YOUR volleyball net or badminton net, if the former is still in the garage and is buried somewhere under the riding mower, in your front yard. Might wanna call the Sonitrol man on that one.
There’s a spark of ennui before my eyes
Apathyland appears so bad, I cry
Never thought this fairy tale would cease
Mimi’s calculator endows me with state of peace
This plot’s “Police Squad” in disguise
Full of bull that’s homogenized
Betcha by golly wow
Linda will go back and spike it up Gil’s derriere
Betcha by golly wow
Mimi will be watching, learning to design another play
Ooooooooookkkkkkkkk, so before we leave P1, I’m still not satisfied with who these teams are that Mimi is listing, though I THINK they’re the local yokels Rockville will be playing in their quest for another conference title and, perhaps, Linda’s chance at a spot on the U.S. Olympic team.
“Yeah, sure, I think the Pirates have a chance at the NL East Title if they can get “Pops” Stargell off the DL. And with Trout and Sutcliffe, the Cubs ought to be right there with them. Man, speaking of Mudlarks in the dumpster, why did the Cardinals EVER trade Hernandez???? That was worse than the Carlton-for-Gil trade. I think Dr. Pearl was the GM at the time. What did they get in return?????? Henry “Hank” Finkel, Joe Sharkey, and a bunch of volleyballs. Yeah, I know the Cardinals are stingy with their money but look what happened. Finkel went on to the Celtics where he continued his Off-The-Bench-When-The-Team-Needs-A-Body-When-The-Starters-Lose-Interest status, Joe lost his fingers trying to catch one of Hernandez’s line drives, or was it Silent George Hendrick, and what are they gonna do with a bunch of volleyballs?????? Watch Ozzie do flips over them between innings??????? And Hernandez won another World Series. Linda, stick to water polo.”
Boy, finger math does wonders, doesn’t it? Fred MacMurray was onto something.
If I could catch a falling volleyball
To throw at some random player’s head, big or small
Order rainbows in my favorite shade
To show this plot ends, that it will fade
Write it off as bas nouvelle
Anything but a prized Nobel
Betcha by golly wow
It’s the one we hope will ride to Mars forever
Betcha by golly wow
And always will our hate for it keep growin’ strong
Keep growin’ strong
Now it’s bad enough that P2 is representative of the Frida Kahlo collection that is gracing our comic strip today but do I have to get Robmize mad at me by continuing discussion of trades like what is going on in P2? Okay, Linda, the Cubs shouldn’t have traded Lou Brock and wound up on the Australian National Team but the Cubs needed cash, some pitching and a right-handed setter with power. Perfect with that wind blowing out.
Linda is perhaps playing one card too many and I think that is where Mimi is going with this. Well, she had the volleyball schedule of the National League East down cold, give her credit. I’ll bet she even knew Lee Smith’s ERA. Hey, gotta be in the know when you’re trying to close it out with Rose (Wind blew out to right also, Rose a switch hitter, yes, I’m onto that) , Bench, and Morgan in the lineup WITH that wind blowing out. Still, Mimi is desiring Linda to ride on Trigger and ride off into the sunset, the sun shaped like a Spalding volleyball, then dismount off the horse and get her ass over to the softball complex. It might get a bit more complex (pardon the pun) than that, but that HAS to be the gist of it. We’ll know if there’s no volleyballs or horse chips in the dugout.
Today’s headline in the Milford Enquirer
“Brian Eno And Herb Alpert To Colloborate On ‘Volleyball Fusion In Tijuana’ At Milford Memorial Coliseum!!!!!!!!!!!!”
sub headline
“Eno points out acoustics of bouncing volleyballs and synthesizers works perfectly at his venue, particularly on ‘Zorba the Greek’.”
Linda, Linda, please listen to me, says Mimi in P3. Not only are your fingers shaped like Ore Ida Fries like mine, you really shouldn’t bet on volleyball. The odds makers don’t read page 4 of the Milford Scoreboard to see who won between Milford and Oakwood (“Milford won in 5 sets. Joe, go to a phone. Tell the OTB guys, Milford with a 2 1/2 spread on New Thayer. Hey, the Mudlarks are the home team!!!”) and we need you for this Tournament. Plus, I’d like to put my hands down. Edward Scissorshands is due to show up anytime and he’s been flirting with me. I’ve tried to tell him that I’m married to Gil but he keeps insisting that my Ore Ida Crinkle Cuts look sexy, especially soaked in Palmolive. Can you just say yes and skip the Jimmy the Greek tripe?
Hell, no. I like my Casual Bud Powell “April in Paris” attire that accompanies my corn dog appendages and I need to find a way to stretch P3 into a topographical nightmare because P4 would get a grievance filed by the Amalgamated Printer’s Union. Betcha by golly wow, I might even sing another Stylistics tune like “Stone in Love With You” or Break Up To Make Up.” It can fit.
”
You know, with all this talk of volleyball and softball and newcomball and hopscotch and squash and Lordy knows what else Linda McCartney is involved in, we sometimes forget that people die.
Hi, this is Dr. Pearl, on behalf of Milford Funeral Solutions. That is what happened to me recently as my second-cousin-twice-removed-uncle-cum-father-in-law passed away at the Milford Senior Care Center. His life was full, having been the oldest Civil War Veterans, fighting for the Union in the 171st Wisconsin Corps of Engineers. Somebody had to build the bridge across the Mississippi to lead the charge against Pemberton at Vicksburg. He was rewarded with a fine pension but, MacArthur was wrong. Old soldiers do die. He may have digested his 1,000,000th Big Mac by the time he croaked but they still meet their Waterloo.
The people at Milford Funeral Solutions understand that with a peoples’ non-stop, hectic, go-go, seat-of-the-pants schedules, that they are surprised when one of their relatives dies. Land o’ Goshen, when I learned that Lieutenant Wilfred B. Harrington bit the big one at the Senior Center, I was at a staff meeting discussing ways to cut costs on the repairs of the football team buses. When they slipped the note, someone thought I was thinking about the expenditures on the Alison transmission that put us over budget.
That’s where care and compassion and a good casket that doesn’t cost as much as that transmission comes into the picture. They showed me the adjustable reclining board where he was laying in state to set my mind at ease. It’s important when he’s being embalmed because I have bad images of Elmer’s Glue being applied to his scalp and eyeballs, not to mention Canola oil being applied to his body to keep blood, semen, mucus, etc. from needlessly seeping out and damaging the merchandise, even if it’s dead merchandise. A dead Sears Die Hard battery deserves a decent burial, complete with minister to spread the ashes.
And after all the embalming and he is airlifted from the board to the casket, it’s nice that he will get a nice viewing with his arms folded the proper way. The last funeral home shoved my father’s hands in his pocket and he not only cut himself with the Boy Scout knife but the suit ripped. Try explaining to a dead man why his seersucker has a hole in his crotch. Embarrassing.
AND Milford Funeral Solutions was voted “#1 Funeral Home in Milford” by a reader’s poll in Milford Today. When they can lay my relative’s sword and engineering tools, straightedge included, so that they can be buried in one fell swoop so that the casket door can close smoothly, all at a fraction of the cost of the other funeral homes in Mudlarkland COMBINED, you have a business that will keep growing. No argument from the gravediggers.
Come to Milford Funeral Solutions today. And to show how badly they want your business, if your uncle or mother-in-law, etc. dies this month, they will pay for the funeral notice in the Milford Enquirer. Why go through the pointless worry of how many grandchildren Grandpa Thorp had when Milford Funeral Solutions can do the Finger Math? Just bring the ad that is printed on the Internet, download it, and your troubles are over. No more concern of whether your aunt was from New Thayer or Madison.
Isn’t it time you lay your troubles to rest along with that sword? That was fool’s gold anyhoo, I understand. An alchemist’s dream. Come to Milford Funeral Solutions and put Excalibur 6 feet under.
Gang, comment away. I still think Lou Brock can help the Lady Mudlarks win the softball tournament. Speed on the basepaths is important.
“No!!!!!!!! Don’t fold Gil’s grandpa’s arms like that!!!!!!!!! He looks like an accordion!!!!!!!!!!”
Two high school girls power tripping on who they get to include and exclude from their clique? One high school girl practically begging to be let into their clique then getting pissy when they don’t let her? Riveting reading!
Just you wait: Linda will have her revenge! She’s gonna tank the season for the Lady Mudlarks. Kind of ironic given that we’re coming up on the centennial of the Black Sox scandal. Staring into the bleachers is her prearranged signal to Arnold Rothstein that the fix is in (or is it switching her glove from her right to her left hand?). Pity she didn’t time that a little better; that sharply hit ground ball off her toe is gonna ruin her meal ticket out of this tank town.
Without that volleyball scholly to fall back on, Linda will be doomed to stay in Milford and stew about things that happened to her in high school for the rest of her life. Maybe she can spit in the brisket when she’s waiting the mean girls’ tables at Bob’s BBQ.
A rare glimpse of the Milford mascot atop the scoreboard there. Let’s blow it up so we can get a better look.
More like a turkey than a lark, the better to fit this plot.
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