How to Engage in Wordplay

For the record, this strip is not about a trip to Arby’s. It refers to some other purveyor of seasoned curly fries. I happen to like Arby’s every now and then. I like roast beef. I like seasoned curly fries. I like the vaguely coffee-ish flavor of a Jamocha shake. If you know a more convenient place to obtain these items, I’d like to hear it.

Arby’s gets a lot of abuse, and I don’t really understand why. Their food is certainly no worse than any other number of fast food chains. I think it’s just that it’s different. In a sea of burgers with ketchup, tacos with hot sauce, and chicken fingers with ranch, their French dip sandwiches with “horsey sauce” stand out, and as they’ve learned, standing out has its disadvantages.

I will admit, though, that their current slogan, “we have the meats,” has made “the meats” into a euphemism for intestinal problems in our house.

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How to Help Someone Make Sense of a Bad Experience

Again, the story is true, except that it happened to me, not Rick. And when I asked the cook what she was making she said, “Oriental.” That’s all, like that was the name of the dish, or maybe the primary ingredient.

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How to Reassess Something You've Been Doing Your Whole Adult Life

Of course, I’m not really any sort of expert on proper formal communication. When this comic was written I tended to finish my emails with “End Transmission.”

For a while, back when I was a comedian, I ended emails with “Your hatred nourishes me.” It was a catchphrase from my act, which should give you some idea of how my career was going.

Just so you know, at that time Ric ended his emails with “Yours in perfect manhood.”

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How to Deal with Your Shortcomings

I can stare right at one of my typos and not see it, even if I’m specifically looking for typos. If a ninja ever wanted to sneak up on me, their best gambit would be to wear a suit covered with text I typed in a hurry.

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How to See the Positive Aspects of Getting Older

I have only ever been treated by one chiropractor. His name was Glen. Not Dr. Glen something, or even Dr. Glen. Just Glen.

My mother met Glen god-knows-where and he offered a package deal to “adjust” her and her three boys for one low price.

Glen saw patients in his home, and in his street clothes. From my point of view as a 6th grader, this particular therapeutic intervention seemed like our mom took us to a house we’d never been to so some guy in a plaid shirt and jeans could twist us until our spines popped.

I swear to you, he spent most of the time grumbling about how unfair it was that his license to practice had been taken away.

So yeah, I have trust issues with chiropractors.

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How to Learn from Other People's Experiences

This entire story is true, right down to the shows that were on and what the guy said about them. The only deviation from the truth is that it happened in the breakroom at my work, not Rick’s.

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How to Argue with Your Spouse

It will be interesting to see what the cruise industry looks like a year from now. Between stand-up comedy and my time with Disney I know more than one person for whom the cruise line shutdowns are a serious financial hardship.

In theory, cruises are a great idea. A giant luxury resort that moves from place to place while you sleep, allowing you to see interesting, exotic places.

In practice, I find the “resort” amenity people use most is the buffet, and the unique ports of call are slowly being taken over by the kinds of businesses that do well with cruise ship passengers. So, it can feel more like a giant Golden Corral that travels between interesting, exotic jewelry stores and fridge magnet outlets.

I genuinely hope the industry survives. We just need to make sure that the employees are paid a worthwhile wage and that blatant pollution isn’t built into the system.

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How to Celebrate Human Inventiveness

The goose blind was all too real, and appeared as described here. There are no pictures because mom wanted to forget that it existed. That, and developing pictures used to cost money.

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How to Talk to a Depressed Friend

This is my second mention of the Hulk in as many comics. Clearly I had Hulk on the brain. Maybe I had just seen the Edward Norton movie (It’s possible. I didn’t see it in the theaters.)

I also have this theory that Popeye didn’t like spinach. I believe that he was a Hulk, and that eating canned spinach was the fastest way to make himself angry.

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How to Discuss Your Weird Ideas

Of course, sitting here right now, I can think of several other parts of the body named for their shapes. There are tiny bones in our ears called the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup. There’s also the armpit, the arch of the foot, The ball of the foot, and, well, remove the word “foot” from that last one and make it plural.

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