There’s a joke from an episode of the Simpsons, from the period that I consider “later” Simpsons, but which is actually probably less than a third into the run of the show by this point. The joke is that there is a store with a sign that says “Sneed’s Feed and Seed” with the information that the store used to be called “Chuck’s”. I mean, I’ve got the image right there, you can see it. The “joke” is that back when the store was called Chuck’s, it would have been “Chuck’s Fuck and Suck”, get it? It makes you think of a dirty word! How subversive and cool! It is to laugh. And yet I’ve seen people online cite this as a good joke.

I don’t find it that funny. I’ve mentioned before that I don’t seem to get the same value from using “curse words” as most people. I don’t get it. They’re just words to me. I find them neither offensive nor thrilling. But at least I understand that other people do enjoy them on some level I don’t get, so I can understand what the Sneed’s joke is trying to do. It may only be a minor step above having a character just say “Fuck” and then bleeping it as far as jokes that put a swear into the listener’s mind without actually saying it out loud, but that is still a step above that. That little bit of cleverness should count for something.

But here is what ruins the joke: business signs don’t work like that. If the store used to be Chuck’s, it was Chuck’s Feed and Seed. If it was an entirely different business, they wouldn’t put what it used to be on the sign. If an accountant’s office moves into a place that used to be a Pizza Hut, they don’t put “Formerly Pizza Hut” on the damn sign. If that accountant’s office changes its name, but remains an accountant’s office, then they might put their former name on the sign so that customers would know they’re the same business. Even if accountant’s names rhyme with Pizza Hut! It’s irrelevant that Sneed’s used to be Chuck’s unless Chuck’s was the same business. The leap in logic is too great for it to work.

It frustrates me to see people laud this joke. But hey, if people love it, I must be missing something.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but often people are surprised the first time they hear me say a swear. Somehow I cultivate a reputation for being someone who doesn’t swear. The thing is, I’m not Someone Who Doesn’t Swear, I just happen to not swear that often. So I got to thinking about why that might be.

I do, of course, often swear casually just for what I consider comedic effect. Dropping a horrendous curse for little reason is always amusing to me. But that’s not the same thing as actually swearing. So then I got to thinking about the situation in which I am most likely to swear non-ironically: driving my car and hitting an unexpected pothole. When that happens I have noticed that I am equally likely to exclaim “fuck!” as I am to exclaim “eff!” and there is an equal amount of vitriol involved whichever I say. Both of those words are equal to me.

I think the problem is that I never got an adequate explanation for why swearing is supposed to be bad. I am not shocked when I hear a swear on television (in fact I have often not noticed). As such, I don’t get a giddy thrill from it the way, apparently, the masses do. It doesn’t feel rebellious for me to swear. They really are just words to me.

Some might think I’m missing out, but I don’t really feel like I am. You all are just too easily amused. What a bunch of cockbrains.

I thought going back to school might give me more to write about on this here site o’ mine, and that is probably correct, but I kinda feel like I have less time to spend saying it. Oh well, let us see if I can’t bang out a post before I have to go to work…

I’ve got homework and tests and stuff now. This is the stuff I hate about school. I love being there and learning stuff. I could happily be sitting in lectures and such all day, but the second I have to start proving to them that I am learning, I start to take umbrage. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before on the site, but I really find that the amount of time I have to spend proving to them that I am learning cuts into the actual amount of learning I do. It’s annoying. I will try, but I won’t enjoy it.

Anyway, something I noticed: Kids these days are sick. Seriously, I don’t know if it is flu season or what, but it seems like the professors can’t get through two sentences in a row without coughing, sniffling, sneezing, or some other sound of illness. Maybe it was like this when I was a student too. Maybe it is always like this in a group of people and I am only noticing now because of how diligent I have managed to avoid groups of people for my adult life. But I can’t sit in these lectures without a constant awareness of how sickly the populace surrounding me apparently is. If I get sick this year I am blaming all these children.

Haiku!

His mother told him
“You should wear your tuxedo.”
So he wore that shit!

Oh hey, I also got my Learner’s Permit thing for learning to drive cars and stuff. It’s been almost half my life since the last time I drove a car, so I don’t know what to expect of me really, but hopefully I’ll learn to drive. Not because I have any actual desire to learn to drive, but because I think it is a thing I will need to know soon. Stupid society always pushing its stuff in my face. Luckily I will basically never be able to afford a car, so I don’t have to worry about that just yet.

Check this out, ladies and gentlemen.

Also, there’s some guys talking on some phones.

And finally, it isn’t a comic, but apparently today is Jenny Everywhere Day, which is a day celebrating, as one might expect, Jenny Everywhere. Jenny is a character created someplace on the Internet and who anyone is allowed to use. Basically she is a superhero who exists in all the multiple worlds and can shift between them (making it convenient for anyone who ever wants her to show up in some story). I’ve always liked the concept (a few years ago I did a short strip about her just to say that I had), but this year I decided to make an image for the Jenny Everywhere Day event.

It’s kind of like a cover-style image for a story I have in my head that I’d like to tell someday, but until that time, this is all we’ve got.

Okay, I think we can all accept that I’m probably never going to get married. I lead a practically monastic lifestyle and I’m anti-social to levels just short of where I’d have to start doing murders. But still, thoughts enter my head from time to time when I see other marriages that make me wonder what it would be like for me. Plus, I gotta find something to put up on this damned website, right? So this here is a message to my Future Wife. You probably don’t exist, but this guide still does: What to expect if you marry PDR.

Okay, Future Wife, somehow you’ve found yourself in a position where you think marrying PDR is a good idea. Probably a disease wiped out most of the dudes on Earth or whatever. Whatever the cause, you have somehow seen past all the annoying neuroses, childish thoughts, and general stupidity that surround PDR and you mistakenly think he’s an okay guy beneath it all. Well, I’ll not argue that right now (there’ll be time after the honeymoon), but I will offer some other advice that you can use.

PDR don’t wedding. I don’t want a big wedding. I really don’t. I have mentioned this previously on the site and I still stand buy it. If you want a marriage with PDR, he’s okay with that. If you want a wedding with PDR, he is less okay with that! There’s probably some leeway in here, I admit. I’m willing to compromise to an extent since, it is my understanding, some people are close with their families and would want them involved, but that’s about as far as I can go. The ideal situation for me would be, us, the marryer person, and I think we need a witness or something? Well, okay that’s not the totally ideal one, it’s just realistically ideal. The totally ideal one would involve wizards that give us powers so that we can become a crimefighting superhero couple. But the odds of that are so ridiculous that they’re slightly more unlikely than me getting married to begin with.

Also, another tradition I’m going to go against: Don’t take my last name. I assume you’ve got a last name, Future Wife. Unless there is something tangibly wrong with yours, why would you want to go and change it after decades of living with it? And if there is something wrong with it, you had decades where you could have changed it without getting me involved. And think about me, too. I don’t want that. I don’t want to have to learn a new name for some person I apparently like enough to marry. Keep it simple. The bottom line is this: I’m not conquering some undiscovered land here, Future Wife, I’m making allies with an already peopled land. Do you get it Future Wife? Do you understand metaphor Future Wife? I do hope I won’t have to always resort to simile for you. That would be frightfully boorish.

While we’re on the topic of nomenclature, Future Wife, please don’t refer to me as “hubby” either in conversation with me or when talking to other people. For some reason it is a term that doesn’t sit well with me. I can tolerate being called most things. If no variation on my name suits the situation, there’s a million other things that I’d accept first. The usual pet names like “Dear”, “Sweetie”, “Your Holiness”, “Asshole”, “Fuckhead”, “Dickless”, “Hey Idiot”, “You Grandmafuckingcockstrangler”, “I HATE YOU AND IF YOU DIED IN A FIRE WITH A MILLION BABIES AND GOD OFFERED ME THE CHANCE TO TURN BACK TIME AND PREVENT THE FIRE I STILL WOULDN’T” or “Honey” are all good. “Hubby” is just in this weird zone of vagueness and formality. I like to think of the husband role as being secondary to us being friends, Future Wife. So address me as a friend instead of as a husband. Or something. Anyway, I don’t like it.

Switching gears entirely: I’m nocturnal. Granted, at the moment I’ve got an excuse that I’m that way for work, but I really can’t see myself ever wanting to fully make the transition back to being a full-time diurnal person. I no longer get the headaches I got for years during the times when I was in school or worked days. I think this is because I’m really supposed to be a night person. Don’t worry, though, Future Wife, I’ll still have time for you. I assume you’ll work during the days during the week, so I can sleep while you’re at work and have dinner ready when you get home. And on weekends you’ll have nice morning hours free from my odious presence until I wake up in the afternoon and we can sup on sunlit verandas then dance the night away to our heart’s content*. In many ways my being nocturnal is way better for us, Future Wife. So don’t try to change this. It’s what is right.

(* I will not actually dance the night away)

Eventually we’ll probably have kids, Future Wife. That seems to be what married couples feel like they have to do, even though if they really thought about it they’d realize “hey, maybe let’s don’t do that” but whatever, we probably will. Such is the nature of hypothetical scenarios. Here’s the thing: If I were a single parent my kids would not be raised to celebrate Christmas. This, of course, makes me the villain in most movies. I know, but this is who I am. But that’s irrelevant anyway! You, Future Wife, assuming you’re not stupid enough to die and leave me alone with Future Child, are going to be there too, and I think it is very likely that (unless you’re both non-Christian and non-secular in which case how did we get this far without me somehow insulting your religion?) you probably do the whole Christmas thing, so I will acquiesce to you. I will try to instill this one day with a level of joy I don’t think it can really contain at the detriment of joy that could be found on other days if you want me to. Just don’t expect me to be enthusiastic about it. I reserve the right to complain about every dumb holiday decoration, every stupid holiday obligation, and especially any Christmas song, and you don’t get to be surprised or hurt. Because I laid this down early and plainly. Got it? And if you die, I’m stealing Christmas from that kid, you better believe it! Hahahahahaha!

Ahem. Finally, and perhaps most important: No racist hate crimes. All hate crimes that we commit as a married couple shall be motivated by class. This is non-negotiable.