An indeterminate period of time has passed since Fred’s stroke. Jessica’s gung-ho “marriage, not a dorm” attitude has diminished to the point where she no longer feels she has to accompany Darin on his hospital visits. Fred’s regained consciousness, but his speech has been affected by the stroke. TB’s going to attempt to derive a chuckle from this situation by likening it to the communication gap between between parent and child. The difference, of course, is that Fred likely understands what’s being said to him, but he’s suffered a serious impairment to the part of his brain that allows him to speak. It’s just one of the cruel aftereffects of stroke. And when this happened to my late Mom years ago, my family and I found it difficult, no, impossible, to joke about it the way Darin’s doing. Kudos to him, I guess.
Author: TFHackett
Now I.C.U., Now I Don't
It’s plausible, I guess, for the next of kin to return to the hospital and not know that their loved one’s been moved to another unit. I can even accept that a hospital’s information system might temporarily be down (evil, evil technology!). What I can’t imagine is a hospital visitor, being directed to the fifth floor, asking “are the elevators working?” It’s kind of a given. Darin’s stupid, unnecessary question gets the slit-eyed, mock-polite, passive-aggressive reply it so richly deserves.
Social Stupidity
Today’s panel 1: Yup, the whole Funky Winkerbean Act III worldview in a nutshell, thank ya very much.
Panel 2: Darin’s concept of how Social Security works is matched in sophistication and maturity by his understanding of marriage.
Beanie Wanker
January 25, 2013 at 7:22 am
…So what are these two idiots, 17 years old?
Impossible to tell here if Jess is being sarcastic or sincere… impossible even to tell what the hell she’s talking about.
's Not.
While he’s only been back in Westview a short while, Darin’s already got the beginnings of Batiuk Butt
I honestly don’t know what’s been hardest to swallow these last couple of weeks: Fred’s stroke prompting Ann to reveal the bitterness that permeated their married life, or Darin and Jessica, married over ten years, conversing like two newlyweds. Today we get a dose of the latter. The “kids” head to the vendos for some coffee, giving Darin a chance to ruminate on what he’s just learned about his “loving” adoptive parents. He shares with his bride of over a decade what he’s “always pictured marriage” to be like: “…being deeply in love forever and ever to the exclusion of everything else.” “Everything else” consisting of things such as putting your MBA to good use, or getting it together to buy a home instead of crashing with friends or living in a dump above a pizza parlor.
Things Changed Somehow
As Ann continues her recollection of her life with Fred, the picture she paints is far less rosy than we’d expect. It was only one year ago that TB brought Fishstick Annie back to Westview High to inspire the slumping girls’ team with the story of how she defeated the status quo on the way to coaching her team to a division title.
More recently, the senior Fairgoods shanghaied Darin and Jessica to take them on a tour of places they lived earlier in their marriage, and reminisced about how much fun they had in their old apartment. Now with Fred laid low, Ann confides that “somehow,” becoming Mrs. Fred Fairgood forced this feisty female to forfeit her ambition? Does the fact that their marriage turns out to be devoid of romance make this storyline even sadder, or less so?
Son of Stuck Funky 
