It’s the Latest, It’s the Greatest

There’s a place for you and a place for me,
it’s the local public library.
They have books and things that they lend for free
It’s the latest, it’s the greatest, it’s the library.

Educational, informational,
entertainment that’s sensational.
It’s a way of life, it’s for you and me
It’s the latest, it’s the greatest, it’s the library.

They have histories, they have mysteries
And for mothers, books of recipes
See a movie show, hear a symphony
It’s the latest, it’s the greatest, it’s the library

Not a song parody but an actual song. Originally written as a jingle for the New York Public Library. Dated lyrics but the sentiment is there.

Times are tough in the Clark household. Zane is having to share the family PC with his siblings, driving to the library (likely not in a car of his own, much less a Tri-Power Goat or Jeep) to use a PC, and cutting his own hair. Awfully nice of Katy Brito to cut her own hair in the dark in solidarity.

Credit where credit is due: Over the past several years Rubin’s done a fair job of working a lot of the same socioeconomic issues as the larger society into Milford. How he’s worked them in has been hit or miss, and the kids’ responses to the issues – from opioid addiction to the aftermath of Hurricane Maria to mental illness to alcoholism – have been as varied as kids are themselves. So far he’s made Zane into a fairly sympathetic character, and it’s unfortunate we’ll have to slog through six to eight weeks of designated red-ass Abel making things even more difficult for the kid before he has some sort of epiphany. I still think Abel’s getting pink-slipped before it’s all over.

Don’t Worry, Luhm, Zane Isn’t Horning In on Your Turf

Okay, so the young lady with the tendrils hanging down isn’t a teacher but a fellow student, Priya (no last name yet), and this isn’t an academic class but a senior class meeting. I don’t recall what gets done in these meetings: cap and gown ordering, picking a class song or theme, deciding who’s “most likely to succeed” or “wittiest” or some other “superlative,” choosing a class trip and a prom theme, etc., usw. Really, just a bunch of stuff to pad your resume when applying to colleges, and there’s always that kid who takes it just a little too seriously and makes it uncomfortable for most everyone else involved. Here, Priya is that kid.

Among the suddenly dumped upon us exposition is that Zane has somehow managed to get himself elected senior class vice president. With everything that’s going on at home it’s hard to imagine how he would’ve run for and, if he won, agreed to serve in that role. Maybe that it serves as another form of therapy is what kept Zane from going all General Sherman on the Milford High Class of 2021.

Obviously Katy Brito doesn’t care if Priya’s nose is out of joint. Nor does Zane for that matter. Only When Abel Brito Charlie Delta sticks his nose in will things get truly snippy.

Two Nights – and One Mouth – Running

In the days before the Internet when dinosaurs roamed the earth and yhs was a teenager, part of my weekday routine during sportsball season involved walking uptown from the high school to the public library after classes ended, studying and doing my homework there, then walking back to the high school for late afternoon/early evening sportsball practice. After practice I either hitched a ride home with an older teammate who had his license and lived near me or called my folks from a pay phone at the convenience store nearest the high school and waited there for them to come pick me up. (Oftentimes dinner on those nights would consist of a Stewart hot sandwich and a Coke with salted peanuts in it. Training table of champions.) Same thing applied on game days/nights, though my folks almost always came to games even when I wasn’t a starter or guaranteed to see any playing time.

Guess what I’m trying to say is that the public library’s busiest hours don’t always come in the evenings. Not that it matters to old culo rojo Abel here. Nope, if that place ain’t hummin’ when he’s there, it ain’t hummin’. Speaking of which, why isn’t he there during normal business hours if he needs online access for work? Pulling on his widow’s peak to make it peakier? Oh wait, the pandemic hasn’t hit the Thorpiverse and neither has the concept of working remotely (though that’s what Abel’s doing at night, isn’t he?).

I’m sure that router will be delayed by another day – long enough for Sr. Brito to go back to the library and find out from Dr. Pearl-with-a-dye-job that there’s an opening on the Milford Library Board which he can fill. (Damned if this comic strip isn’t filled with boards and board meetings! You’d think Milford’s adults would find other ways to make life difficult for their children pass their time.) He’ll be slashing budgets and locking doors in no time flat.

Not sure what Sra. Brito is reading but it could be one of many books titled Blue Moon or this. Wonder if she got it at the library.

Spread the Word. How Easy Is That?

Finally we learn who the Lady Mudlarks were playing the past couple of strips, as well as the outcome. Vic either must have said “Co-Co-Rina” off-panel yesterday or unnamed Lady Mudlark randomly tagged Corina with it. Painfully apparent that the Thorpiverse exists in another dimension as she hasn’t been called the painfully obvious and not entirely inappropriate “Corinavirus.” Of course the obvious question is “If Vic Doucette slaps a wacky nickname on you and there’s nobody there to hear it, does it stick?”

It will if The Contessa has anything to say about it. There’s precedent for guys coming out to girls’ games if it means that those girls will keep talking to them. Throw in a pat on the arm and they’ll get the bleachers packed. Maybe the nerd on the left in P3 will have added a few more whiskers to his scraggly mustache (which earns him a Pantheon of Hair tag and earns The Chief kudos for the accurate teenage boy facial hair) in time for the next game when Vic whips people into a frenzy.

Soggy Milford Breakdown

I was out of town yesterday so wasn’t able to get a post up until now. Mea culpa. I spent most of the day in Delaware, where I didn’t find a Wing-T but I did find a Milford. Doesn’t look like Gil found a Wing-T either.

Thankfully Whigham cut away from Marty’s bukkake video on Friday to show us this grind. Wing-T or no, the run-heavy Mudlarks should have thrived in these conditions, no? No! One has to wonder if this was due to fallout from Gil’s little reaming out of his QBs last week. Team Rappson may have thrown lookout blocks when Thayer was under center while Team Thayer did the same for Rapp. The Jeffs laying a WWE-worthy body slam on either Rappson or Thayer is just icing on the cake.

Doubtful we’ll hear any analysis on the bus ride home, not with it raining inside the bus like it is. (Nice of Weird Al to body double for Rapp so he wouldn’t have to make that trip.) Monday-morning quarterbacking will come on Monday, if it comes at all. With a second conference loss, winning the Valley is out of reach for Milford. How will Gil save face, salvage the season, and stifle the controversy? I wouldn’t bet against emergency QB Leonard Fleming starting from here on out. Then the Mudlarks can truly be called Leonard’s Losers.

Corina’s Shakin’, Not Stirred

Boy, Central pretty much sucks at everything this season, don’t they? Too bad we didn’t see how badly they sucked at volleyball. Then again we haven’t seen much more volleyball action than Rapp has – just that one panel about a month ago. We should get to see some more soon, though, since Corina has made that a prerequisite to getting down the base path with her.

That is Corina, isn’t it? The coarsening of her profile in P1 looks like a throwback to Berrill’s style and that’s not her usual mullet she’s wearing, either. Next panel she looks like a completely different person as she has a seizure describing Becca’s performance against Central. Finally all hairs are back in place as Rapp hates to see her leave but loves to watch her go.

Now it’s a matter of time to see which of the dueling QBs shows his face first at a Lady Mudlarks volleyball match. I’ll laugh if it ends up being Leonard Fleming. Heaven knows we need a good laugh right about now. Hope you TWIMers had a fun and safe Halloween, shook one, not stirred one, in Sean Connery’s memory, and remember to turn your clocks back before you turn in tonight.

I’m Coming Out, So You Better Get The Perky Started

Hey y’all, it’s your old pal teenchy, subbing for Rob tonight. Have we ever had a dedicated volleyball arc? The closest we’ve come during my tenure here was last spring when one of Mimi’s softball players, Linda Carr, got burnt out on playing for the Valley Elites while not being TCFS so she quit the Valley Elites but went off to college to play volleyball anyway. Valerie Okumbe was a player (and rejector of infamous locker denizen Jamar Gaddis) for Milford (not the Valley Elites) in 2009, but she was never actually shown playing volleyball. I defer to our TWIM statisticians for additional background.

So we may finally get a bit of a fall girls’ sports angle, if only to showcase new resident jerkface Corina Karenna. Frizzy-haired girl Becca (who gets a Pantheon of Hair tag from me) asks an innocent question and gets called “perky” for it. Dark-haired girl Susan drops a hint that she won’t let Corina off quite so easily, even as Corina flips her a comeback (and the bird) as she strides off down the hall. Here’s hoping some of Mimi’s “bigs” tape Corina to a locker, Jamar Gaddis-style.

It’s Different for Girls

As robmize and you faithful TWIMers pointed out yesterday, this turned into a farce pretty quickly. Players in jeans, an umpire in a zebra shirt, one team’s pitcher coming in to pitch for the other, and now this. Since story arcs always end on Saturdays, I was hoping for the ten-run mercy rule to be invoked today. No such luck; we’re gonna get dragged through this for at least another week.

Confession time: I have owned at one time both a baseball catcher’s mitt* and a softball catcher’s mitt. They are indeed two different creatures. I probably could’ve gotten away with using my regular fielder’s glove to catch softball and, eventually, I did, sending the softball mitt on to someone playing at a more competitive level than I.  Has it been that obvious that Lotus Cortina Anna Karenina has been catching with a softball catcher’s mitt? Click that last link and look at the ball in the pocket of her mitt. It’s proportionately large in there, innit? There was nothing to lead us to believe she wasn’t catching a baseball in that “softball trapper,” a term so loaded with innuendo I ain’t even gonna try to touch it.

 

*Two, actually. My first was an Howard Elston Elston Howard model, my second a Bob Boone.