Running Out of Grandpa Snark
Today I went through the last of the obvious jokes about Grandpa Jim that I had gotten from looking over the strips and letters about him over the last 3 years in the For Better or For Worse website archives. The joke being that Grandpa Jim complains about his health all the time, and then turns around and says that life is beautiful or some such thing as that. In the monthly letters on the FBOFW website, he mentions sneaking a smoke and eating candy (specifically peanut butter cups) provided by April (the candy, not the smokes) that he keeps hidden in a bag in the linen closet. Those 2 elements combined for today’s Grandpa Jim snark, i.e. I complain about my health, then I say I don’t complain and then I do something quite unhealthy. It was not particularly funny stuff, but as I said, it was the last of the obvious jokes.
The rest of the day was spent trying to set up another Garage Opera kind of scenario, except with Becky’s mom taking the place of Elly and as before, leaving qnjones as Becky plenty of places to insert her own stuff, should she care to. It was fun putting together the Becky’s mom poem/song. There is a tune that goes with it, but it doesn’t translate well with Blog posting. The dinner was made up of a series of Canada-specific food items. Since I live in the U.S., it was fun researching the kinds of foods that might be served in Canada, but not in the U.S. The on-line pictures of beaver’s tail look pretty good, but the pictures of poutine râpée on-line look disgusting. Maybe it looks better in real life. If I can believe the on-line Canadian food guide, pheasant and maple syrup are popular in Ontario, although not necessarily together. I apologize to any Canadian food-lovers that I may have just insulted.
qnjones also posts as April’s boyfriend Gerald, and has expressed a desire for me to somehow get Gerald involved in a storyline, by introducing the possibility that Gerald’s father become Howard’s surety in his legal case, replacing the sexually voracious Rhetta Blum. phatsmacky has not done his “RHETTA!!” scream in several days, so I have lost my enthusiasm for her. I will have to put my poor feeble brain to the task. Once Gerald posts that his father has agreed to be Howard’s surety, then we will be on our way. To what I don’t know.
Today was also my day for missing jokes. the_berserker posting as Duncan had a very funny sequence involving some children’s book that I had never heard of. I was unfamiliar with the story, but once I was, the Duncan posts were quite funny. Then aprilp_katje slid in a subtle joke about the many ways to spell Kimmie, Kimmi or Kimmy, which I also missed until she explained it. Then qnjones posting as Becky indicated that Becky’s mom Krystal’s maiden name was Carrington, from the TV show Dynasty. This was another joke I did not get until it was explained to me. Then after that qnjones posted that the judge in Becky's case was Judge Joseph F. Crater, a judge who disappeared mysteriously in the 1930s, until evidence found just last month uncovered that he had been murdered. My Grandpa Jim stuff felt like a giant baseball bat compared to all this devastatingly sneaky humor.
Meanwhile in the actual For Better or For Worse strip, my fears about Elly meeting Howard in the prison seem to be alleviated by Friday’s strip, where it appears that police stations also substitute as free hotels. If they had met, I was working out in my mind an elaborate scheme involving evil twins to reconcile the last 4 weeks of April’s Real Blog Howard posts and the actual contents of the strip and monthly letters.
The rest of the day was spent trying to set up another Garage Opera kind of scenario, except with Becky’s mom taking the place of Elly and as before, leaving qnjones as Becky plenty of places to insert her own stuff, should she care to. It was fun putting together the Becky’s mom poem/song. There is a tune that goes with it, but it doesn’t translate well with Blog posting. The dinner was made up of a series of Canada-specific food items. Since I live in the U.S., it was fun researching the kinds of foods that might be served in Canada, but not in the U.S. The on-line pictures of beaver’s tail look pretty good, but the pictures of poutine râpée on-line look disgusting. Maybe it looks better in real life. If I can believe the on-line Canadian food guide, pheasant and maple syrup are popular in Ontario, although not necessarily together. I apologize to any Canadian food-lovers that I may have just insulted.
qnjones also posts as April’s boyfriend Gerald, and has expressed a desire for me to somehow get Gerald involved in a storyline, by introducing the possibility that Gerald’s father become Howard’s surety in his legal case, replacing the sexually voracious Rhetta Blum. phatsmacky has not done his “RHETTA!!” scream in several days, so I have lost my enthusiasm for her. I will have to put my poor feeble brain to the task. Once Gerald posts that his father has agreed to be Howard’s surety, then we will be on our way. To what I don’t know.
Today was also my day for missing jokes. the_berserker posting as Duncan had a very funny sequence involving some children’s book that I had never heard of. I was unfamiliar with the story, but once I was, the Duncan posts were quite funny. Then aprilp_katje slid in a subtle joke about the many ways to spell Kimmie, Kimmi or Kimmy, which I also missed until she explained it. Then qnjones posting as Becky indicated that Becky’s mom Krystal’s maiden name was Carrington, from the TV show Dynasty. This was another joke I did not get until it was explained to me. Then after that qnjones posted that the judge in Becky's case was Judge Joseph F. Crater, a judge who disappeared mysteriously in the 1930s, until evidence found just last month uncovered that he had been murdered. My Grandpa Jim stuff felt like a giant baseball bat compared to all this devastatingly sneaky humor.
Meanwhile in the actual For Better or For Worse strip, my fears about Elly meeting Howard in the prison seem to be alleviated by Friday’s strip, where it appears that police stations also substitute as free hotels. If they had met, I was working out in my mind an elaborate scheme involving evil twins to reconcile the last 4 weeks of April’s Real Blog Howard posts and the actual contents of the strip and monthly letters.
posted by howard at 9:49 PM
7 Comments:
Aw, you are much too hard on yourself! I enjoyed Grandpa's passive-aggressive not-complaining complaining and his secret bag o' vices. The former reminds me of that rhetorical device where you claim you won't discuss something: "I could mention my opponent's history of drug abuse and mental illness, but I won't. That would be wrong." ;)
(I didn't get the references to rainbow parties or the missing judge either. Google is my friend. BTW, I think the book in question is just one more reference to a supposed teenage phenomenon. I guess there's some dispute as to whether it's real or apocryphal.)
I am hoping apocryphal, but I have taught high school and junior high classes, and the young ladies are a lot more aggressive than they were when I was in high school. So I cannot dismiss the possibility it's real.
I have never heard anyone claim that a kid was involved in a rainbow party (although I've heard many, many, other allegations of sexual misconduct,) so either it's an urban legend or they just haven't caught on in the Great White North.
It is really news to me that pheasant is a popular dish in Ontario: I have never eaten it in my life and I have never seen it in a grocery store or meat market. I do have a bottle of maple syrup in my fridge, but it's only used on pancakes and waffles. There's maple sugar candy (which is sort of like fudge,) but it's a touristy item.
Poutine is Quebecois but widely available in Ontario. It is much better than it sounds. You can even buy it at the fast food chains here (Burger King and Harvey's have it.)
Butter tarts. Plain, or with raisins, or with walnuts. If I moved to the States, that's the Ontario food item that I would miss the most.
I'm not very fond of beaver tails. They are kind of like a funnel cake or fritter or sweet frybread. The only beaver tail place in Toronto that I can think of closed down. I think they're more popular in eastern Ontario (i.e. the Ottawa area.)
qnjones. Thank you for the compliment on my stuff. However, I must disagree most strongly with your self-assessment. The whole setup with Becky's mom drugging Howard was because I thought, "How funny would it be for qnjones to write Becky having to deal with an amorous mother and an incapacitated Howard? She writes that slapstick stuff so well." I wouldn't go through the effort to set you up, if I didn't think you could pull it off and make me laugh.
theberserker. I think the website I latched onto about Canadian foods, must be paid for by the pheasant people. I have should have consulted with you before I wrote the stuff. I am really anxious to try Butter tarts now.
I used to take shipments across regularly until it became impossible to day trip to the US. (And it is now impossible to mail food from Canada to the States without a permit.) I can give you a recipe, though....
I will glad to accept a recipe. Thanks.
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