When a Stranger Calls.

Link to today’s strip

Comic Book Harriet back for another turn at the Train Wreck Report. Thanks to Epicus for seeing us through last week! Your hard work on this wonderful little blog deserves praise.

Caucayla sure looks haggard in panel one. Also she seems to be drying the dishes, even though she is standing nowhere near a sink. Also, if Les is rolling in the published author, tenured teacher, kill fee dough, why don’t they have an electric dishwasher? Does Les need a flesh and blood woman to dry his dishes? Is this like…a fetish for him? Is that why Cayla looks so depressed?

Cayla in panel two echoed my thoughts when reading this for the first time. Summer calls? Like the season? I guess it is nearing the middle of May…maybe Les, as a teacher, is especially attuned his students’ bipolar spring emotions of crushing ennui and building excitement. The call of summer.

Then I was all like, oh yeah, Les has a daughter named Summer…right. Wonder when the last time we heard from her is? Doesn’t Cayla have a daughter too? Weird.

The Power And The Snore-y

Link To Today’s Strip

Lacking anything of actual substance to say, strong female role model Cindy opts to brag about her salary instead, much to Dick Facey’s infernally smirking delight. What a waste of time, ink and paper. Maybe next year the “mass com” class can convert to some sort of pizza and comic books workshop, in which case they’ll have a whole host of interesting guest speakers to choose from.

A-Pickin’ And A-Smirkin’

Link To Today’s

Cindy’s jocular brand of cynicism is almost as annoying as Les’ face is. Almost, but not quite. I guess the gag here is supposed to be how little Les’ students respect him, which seems believable enough, I suppose. Speaking of annoying, Mason’s bizarre hair strand is a real rage trigger, especially the way he crammed it in there in panel one, where it actually trespasses into the word balloon, annoyingly enough. And what’s up with Cayla’s heavily-sedated smirk? You can tell she’s originally from out of town.

Massholes

Link To Today’s Strip

I don’t know what Mason is doing to that slice there in panel two but it’s hard to believe it made it past the CK censors. Blech. This one is a visual nightmare, but at least he got Cindy’s hair color right this time.

So it’s “You’ll Hate Your Career Day” at WHS already, eh? Time sure does fly. Last year’s guest speaker, the former night manager at Montoni’s, dissuaded plenty of kids from choosing a career in pizza arts and Cindy is way more wry than he was, so IMO her talk will go over like gangbusters with Les’ class. They are, after all, at that age where pondering your future failure and unhappiness is very important, the decisions they make today are tomorrow’s regrets. Dream small, little Scapegoats, as it’ll soften the landing.

Good advice that you just didn’t take

Montoni’s is busy in today’s strip! What? And Holly is flustered to the max and jealous of unhealthily self-conscious Cindy all the sudden*? Crazy!

Speaking of Crazy, his advice… isn’t ironic? I don’t know, actually, but I do know it’s been relevant to TB for decades. If only TB would take it one day.

Wait, Montoni’s is busy with regular FW cast members. Sheesh, this strip doesn’t even truly earn its “the rare Montoni’s customer” tag. This, THIS level of business has Holly frazzled and exhausted? She is as cut out for food service as Funky is for giving out marriage advice.

* Holly being self-conscious about her body hasn’t happened in a while, but to be fair, it actually isn’t new. It even goes back to when she was the other shoe.

Thanks for putting up with me and my blue tongue for the past two weeks. Thoughts and prayers for our next blogger…