Christmas Eve of Destruction

Well, readers, here at last is the payoff: Les ignored her pleas, so Lisa’s Ghost escalated matters and violated laws that would land a living person in federal prison. I haven’t flown in years, but I’m wondering, in the event of an “anonymous phony bomb threat,” if:

  • passengers would remain on the plane “for a couple of hours“, and
  • mechanics would be dispatched to look for explosives outside the plane.

(…maybe it was a very explicit threat: “…there’s a bomb on the plane…next to the trunnion mount on the left engine…”)

And file under “quarter inch removed from real life”: the guy with the clipboard can’t grasp how some nut would threaten the safety of airline passengers on Christmas Eve? Unthinkable! I guess we can blame TB’s fatuousness on his year-in-advance production schedule: the world hadn’t yet heard of the Undie Bomber when this strip was drawn.

The Grounded One

Over hot chocolate (turns out Cayla, sadly, was not being suggestive), Les spins a riveting yarn of being stuck on the tarmac in Houston, getting in yet another mention of that damn infernal “dead” phone. Nary a word, though, about the “dead” wife whose dire warning he chose to ignore.

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What’s harder to ignore is the background in panel 1. What the hell is that on the wall? Abstract art? A broken mirror? Snowflake cutouts that Summer made in first grade?

Home, Les

When what to their wondering eyes should appear…it’s Les, home safe and sound. To the astonishment of absolutely no one, TB has gone to great lengths to build intrigue, with no payoff, none whatsoever. Hard to believe the erstwhile hall monitor has the strength to hoist his strapping daughter with a rib-cracking hug, but anyway.