Ridiculous Contrivances – Page 2

Friend or Photo?

I suppose today’s strip indicates that Adeela was the mother and not the child in last Sunday’s strip, which makes her fairly close to Wally in age.

No, that wasn’t obvious. Wally has been back in Westview for 9 years now. He was taken hostage in late 2007, BEFORE the time jump*, so he hasn’t patrolled an Afghan street in about two decades (heck, it is still a decade plus if you ignore the time jump). Adeela easily could have been that child and, oy… piecing together this strip’s timeline makes my head hurt. Still, I gotta say that Adeela has aged better than anyone in this strip except for maybe Cindy.

* Back in early Act III when Wally had apparently disappeared from the strip after the 10 year time jump, TB stated in a blog post (the infamous “it’s called writing…” post, in fact) that a “clue” in regards to Wally’s whereabouts appeared in the October 11, 2007 strip, in the immediate aftermath of Lisa’s death and just before the Act II to III time jump. That clue being the newspaper in the newspaper box that Les slumps past before he is pickpocketed by a couple of hipsters. It reads, muddily, “Soldiers Taken Hostage”.

Wally remained a hostage until July 2009…

La-bored Set Up

It’s an attack of the SMIRKS in today’s strip! Let’s count em’.

FW-SmirkCount

1. Professor Forehead channels his inner and outer Les Moore.
2. STATE sweatshirt-wearing bunhead has changed into a purple top.
3. Young Kevin James or that guy from Smashmouth?
4. Cindy? Mindy? Sadie? Jessica? Anon-o-blonde? I’m going with Mallory Brooks, the world’s perfect genome…
5. When did Ed Grimley start wearing glasses?
6. Thatsnought Hewmore would be smirking if someone hadn’t given him the dreaded hatchet face.
7. Emily/Amelia cements her new class project partnership with a handshake and a side smirk.
8. Wally’s cheekbones decide that if his mouth won’t smirk, they will.

With a capital “T” and that rhymes with “P”

Today’s strip will long be remembered as the one where Holly’s mother gives her daughter a wet willy. Also, pools are nice to have or something.

Look, there’s not much to this. I guess I could point out that a trip from Florida to Northern Ohio with three elderly folks would reasonably involve an overnight stay in a motel or some other type of lodging and yet, all three of these characters are wearing the same clothes they have been wearing since the trip began. I could point that out, but I won’t. I don’t want to be a beady-eyed nitpicker.

O-haik-o

“Grandpa’s Waffle Barn”
Said three times in today’s strip
Good haiku first line

Grandpa’s Waffle Barn
A stand in for Waffle House?
At least it’s no pun

Grandpa’s Waffle Barn
Two things grandpas are thought with
Just not together

Waffle Barns closing
Across Ohio, I blame
The politicians

Kucinich, Kasich
Working together to destroy
Our tasty waffles

Did Holly’s mom leave
Ohio in ’92?
Fall apart it did

Bathroom joke again?
Or is Mrs. Budd hungry
10 minutes later?

Route Canal

Dinkle appears in today’s strip.
No “spoiler alert” tag… this is not a spoiler, it is a warning. You have been warned. Read at your own risk. Or don’t, your life will be better off.

You know what, I’m going to focus on just one small little part of this strip and let our great commenters take the rest of it apart. I’m going to deal only with the first four words that appear in the strip, “Speaking of band candy”.

“SPEAKING OF BAND CANDY”?!
NO ONE was speaking of band candy! No one other than Dinkle is ever speaking of band candy! No one in their right mind wants to speak of band candy! I suppose Dinkle is correct in “saying “speaking of band candy” because that is a 100% accurate description of what he proceeds to do… thus, he most assuredly wanders around uttering “speaking of band candy” whenever he wants to speak of band candy. There is no other possible explanation. I’m typing “speaking of band candy” over and over again in desperate hope that this will be last time those words are ever written. Please. Please.