Uh-O-Hio

Thankfully, today’s strip see’s the end of Funky and Holly’s ridiculous and pointless road trip. Unfortunately, panel 3 seems to be foreshadowing a fate worse than Montoni’s pizza for dinner… alumni band practice, no doubt involving Lefty and Dinkle. This relatively innocuous strip is, unfortunately, a likely calm before the storm.

Sometimes with this strip, you think there can be nowhere to go but up. That is NEVER the case, though. Never allow yourself to think that this strip cannot get worse. It has too deep bench of characters and recurring settings that you fear seeing to ever expect improvement, the immortal Dinkle and his non-retirement being chief among them.

Dozebudd

It continues in today’s strip… “it” being history’s longest drive from Florida to Ohio. Or maybe it is a chronicle of the most unbelievably boring competitors to have ever taken part in The Cannonball Run.

I don’t know if this is the best of this week’s miserable set of strips or the worst. One one hand, everyone gets a rare moment of positivity: Holly’s mom is certainly enjoying her reminiscence of Holly’s childhood, Holly seems to be enjoying it as well, and even Funky is spared TB’s wrath for one panel. On the other hand, this strip also rips each and every one of those positive bits away because TB long ago decided that Funky and anyone in his orbit are not allowed to have nice things. Yep, this is the worst… nothing worse than a tease.

Crash Test Mummy

This is the arc that never ends
No, it goes on and on, my friend
Today’s strip… promises an end in only one more day
But they’ve been in Ohio since mid-week so I must say…

This is the arc that never ends
No, it goes on and on, my friend
TB has… concerning issues writing about old parents
They seem to have a death wish, which in Westview makes some sense…

‘Cause this is the arc that never ends
No, it goes on and on my friend
I have… avoided song parody but now am forced to cave
I apologize to Shari Lewis as she rolls in her grave…

This is the arc that never ends
No, it goes on and on, my friend…

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?