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
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
The plot is now spinning its wheels as if it were stuck in the snow we’ve gotten over the past month. I get home from Muskegon Feb 1 and there’s a foot on the ground. Then last Monday we get 17 inches more. A reporter on the radio said his table in the yard had 35 inches of snow on it. Sheesh, if I stood on top of the snow piles at the bottom of my driveway I could see the top of my roof. My neighbors have 2 grills and furniture on their deck, and theyre all loaded with snow. Roofs are collapsing every day out here, and I’m praying one of those huge icicles doesnt slice me in half when I walk under em delivering packages to houses. The business strip mall I service is like an ice rink with inumerable hazards on the ground and above.At least the parking lot is clean. Ive got so much salt on the bottom of my shoes I could fill my shaker in the kitchen. My car was so dirty last week I couldnt find it in the parking lot at the grocery store. Hasnt been purple in a while. I went to the car wash and came out driving a block of ice on wheels.
And did I mention we hardly had anything in December and January? Ah, winter in the Midwest.
The 2 guys are engaged in a discussion connected to being late because the cop stopped him and yada yada yada. Yeah everything happens for a reason. But nothing has happened in a week in this plot, and that cop basically stopped Doug twice, and wasted Both of their time in the process. Is Tom on crutches? For a mild sprain? I’d say anything mild you just walk it off and limp around for a day or 2. I never once needed them and I’m sure I sprained my ankles half a dozen times here and there. So Im calling bullshit on the diagnosis.
And shouldnt Doug be ahead of Tom, holding the door for HIM, instead of vice versa? When anyone figures that out, let me know.
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.
Vic Doucette can do anything – pep up Doug Guthrie, possibly wipe the hair dye running down behind that kid’s ear – but getting traction with Tessi Milton? Put it there, pal!
Any sincerity Tessi might have in trying to gain attention and excitement for Milford girls’ hoops is blunted by her ham-handed appeal to Vic’s raging hormones. Of course Vic doesn’t realize that “us” means “the Lady Mudlarks,” so his head has been set to bobblin’ at the thought of cutting class to go tidy up the interior of his GMC Safari.
Wonder whether Tessi knows that getting guys to do stuff for her using broad deceptive hints is part of Corina’s “brand”? We (blessedly) haven’t seen Corina in a few strips, so it’s about time she pops in and pops off at the mouth.
Now we come to the part of a Gil Thorp season arc where the multiple plot lines come crashing together like a Jeep Compass and a pickup truck with a loose CD rolling around in the cab (or a GMC Safari and a Tri-Power Goat). It’s also the part where lines between protagonists and antagonists become a little less clear.
Take the case of Tessi. She’s a bit of a social butterfly, schmoozing it up in the locker room and at The Bucket. Kinda like one of those kids who start out running for student council and eventually end up in Congress. This somehow makes her “shallow” in the eyes of Corina (and maybe some others, if “some people” means “more people than the one person I’m talking to”), yet somehow the fact that the other girls are listening to Tessi recap a Kardashian show ep doesn’t make them equally shallow. Tessi’s less disputable flaw is an inability (or as Corina sees it, an unwillingness) to play defense, focusing more on her scoring and her stat line. Yo, Tessi, blocks and steals show up in the stats too!
About that Corina, then. She’s become Milford’s spunky righter of wrongs who, through the power of sheer snark and playing the new girl angle, managed to settle Gil’s quarterback controversy and increase turnout at Milford volleyball games concurrently. How’s it gonna play with her when Tessi moves in on her turf by suggesting Vic Doucette work the PA system for the girls’ games? Dare anyone else suggest a way to draw more attention to Lady Mudlark hoops? Not even Paloma Padilla and the Milford Pirate Network could do that!
meta: I’m a bit relieved to find out that it’s been reported that Henry Aaron’s death (see Saturday night’s soapbox) was due to natural causes. This, sadly and unsurprisingly, has not stopped numerous people from running with rumor.
meta2: Sorry so late with this post; lost my first draft and got caught up with work.
The Rogers Rams jet to a ten-point lead and hold on to that double-digit lead for the rest of the first half, hitting the locker room up by two touchdowns and leaving the Milford Mudlarks mere shadows of themselves. Did the Rams come out hot, or did the Mudlarks come out cold? Does it really matter? Gil’s made his determination and is letting his boys have it with both barrels.
If Gil’s accusation is true, where do you think these kids learned about saving their best stuff for the conference schedule?
Cant believe a whole week later and I’m AGAIN describing the last game of the season. Like shooting a dead horse to put it out of its misery, the Larks manage to run out the clock instead of risking a heroic pass like Dickhead Lineman suggests in the huddle. But they take so long to end the season that alien ships have time to get to earth and pull them all into orbit, never to be seen again.
If you think I’ll miss these morons, you got another one coming. Good riddance. Hope they took Gil with em too. Hows that Delaware T gonna look on Mars, Gildo??
Geez, Marty, why so surprised? Have you killed so many brain cells with Johnnie Walker that you can’t remember Gil trotting out the Wing-T in 2007, also late in the season? (Hint: It was right after you called out Cully Vale as a convicted killer.) From the sound of it Milford may have practiced the Delaware offense but not so much with Leonard Fleming under center. Good thing New Thayer sucks this year.
Today’s strip has the feel of an arc-ender, what with Gil’s “wait ’til next year” spiel to Marjie and his fourth-wall-breaking, shit-eating grin in the final panel.* Gil’s counting on two things here: (a) No one reads the Milford Star (b) Chance Macy doesn’t get blowtop mad for a second straight season. He didn’t lose his cool this season; must have gotten some decent anger management training. Anna Corinna Karenina could stand similar to knock that chip off her shoulder.
Still the Mudlarks have to wrap up their season against traditional rival Valley Tech. Think Rubin will remember that?
*If this does end up being the last strip in the fall arc, I may come back for a metapost.
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