The Comic Strips

I thought the comics where unusually insightful this morning. Bits of life seemed to fit into the black and white strips of humor.

Garfield enjoyed one long quiet day alone. Jon, the master of the house, disturbed the peace by knocking on the door and demanding to be let in. Garfield on his way to the door thought, “Darn, it's back.” The same thought floats around my day and my visiting house guest. Maybe this afternoon, or tonight or even tomorrow he shall return from the Other Side. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the peace, the lack of edge, as my cousin described the three minute encounter he witnessed.

Which brought me to Dilbert. Dibert admitted he had nothing useful to say in his presentation, but cleverly prepared a pie chart which revealed nothing. My pie chart: There won’t be any more about this guest. Unexpected results for Dilbert’s. His audience was wowed and pledged their lives to the pie chart. That brought me to Doonesbury.

One cast member (I never know who is who, but the guy who looks like he is about to go on a fly fishing expedition) lamented the responsibilities of tweetering. If you don’t know what that is, then good for you. Tweetering is a nightmarish obsession to slobber bits and pieces of your life on the internet in real time fashion to all your friends and cultish “followers.” It is a week into March and I have not posted a blog. My thoughts about Tweet: Get a Life.

Economic woes were found in Bizarro. It always proves to be its name. A pirate gave his captain grief about burying the treasure. “What are we? Squirrels?” he asks. No we are not, but maybe we should have been more like the captain and squirreled something away for tomorrow. Of course, there are those of us who did and now have very little left. Maybe we should have lived “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we shall die.”

Our inabilities deal with reality was reflected in Born Loser, a strip I always hated because of the oafish characters. Same reason why I dislike Marmaduke, Scoobie-Doo and Goofy. (Why are man’s best friends portrayed in such an uncomplimentary manner? Since I’m not a dog person, I got my theories.) Anyway, back to reality. Sorry.

Most of us don’t have lives like our nighttime dreams, or what comes on TV. As stated in Born Loser, we can't take the clicker and change the channel. But we can pretend. Last fall, my older brother and I twisted the phrase “just like in the movies.” When something in our lives happened or when we were telling a story, we compared it to something that happened in the movies. Thank goodness it was just a weekend. Our lives never had a chance to make it to the big screen. We were released straight to a DVD. Now I’m waiting for the thriller movie about the economy. The hero? The villain?

Next came Shoe, that crusty old bird reporter, writing a helpful hints column addressing ways to eliminate clutter. Ironically, the Oscar Madison-like character was surrounded by a cluttered-filled office, complete with an old spare tire. All perched on a tree limb, mind you.

No, my office is not rat’s nest of disorganization, despite the unknown whereabouts of my house guest. I thought this comic reflected the recent onslaught of governmental legislation without stopping to think. I had always thought the advice about stopping to smoke a cigarette before responding to a crisis was a good one. If your neighbor knocked on your door and asked for 100 bucks wouldn’t you ask, “What for?” And when they said, "stuff" wouldn't you laugh?

$787 Billon later... By the way, Obama thinks the market is a good deal. Hey, I got some Florida swampland you should look at.

A good comic page isn’t complete without Family Circus. Perfect reflection. Little Billy stared at the clock and wanted to know if he was going to be an hour younger or older when the clocks get changed tonight.

Tonight? Really? Are we to change the clocks? Now that's reality. Of course, we don’t do such things in Hawaii.