Gah! While we’re waiting to find out who’s calling Les on the White Courtesy Phone, TB “treats” us to another of Tony Montoni’s wacky holiday postcards. On the plus side, at least this time Tony is not posing in old lady drag. The downside? He’s showing us his legs. Are those the reflections of Florida palms on the water, or is it the lingering residue from last spring’s oil rig disaster?
Alternate text for panel three: “Really? What, are you gonna re-grow your arm?”
They both are gonna be sorry when busboy Wally comes charging outta the kitchen swinging a breadknife.
If we hadn’t seen those same little hashmarks under tired Becky’s eyes yesterday, I’d propose that Wally had taken to beating up Rachel. But now we understand that those little lines are sort of a visual shorthand for tired and/or stressed. Why would Black Friday be an especially busy day at Montoni’s? Westview doesn’t appear to be a shopping mecca, unless you’re buying comic books.
With all the time he spends with his ass parked on one of Montoni’s stools, you’d think Klinghorn would know every detail of the place, “right down to the nails in the floor“. But the absence of a giant rotating beer sign only registers a vague “crazy sense” that “something’s different”. Together the old friends undertake to remedy the situation by expending the absolute minimum thought, effort and expense. It serves as sort of a metaphor: today’s strip is the equivalent of an empty bottle of cheap beer, hastily put up in lieu of something truly pleasing to the senses.
I’m pretty sure the “Blotto Beer display” is based on the Budweiser Champion Clydesdale Rotating Carousel lamp, a handsome lighted globe that contained a miniature horse-drawn beer wagon that circled ’round and ’round. It made me think of my bartending days, where I had to eject a patron who stood on his stool and counter-rotated the lamp in an effort to get the horses to stand still…
Lastly: Google-image-searching “blotto beer” yields some borderline-NSFW results.
Rachel is still cleaning up the remnants of Les-a-palooza when in walks the other member of the Wally’s Women Support Group. She has some information for Rachel…who shows her appreciation by stuffing that information into the pocket of her greasy apron, without even “checking it out”. Unfazed by Rachel’s indifference, Becky departs, but not before tossing out a lame comic-book reference.
Son of Stuck Funky 
