How to Adjust Your Strategy

It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we’re properly motivated. I hate running, but I suspect I could have been a competitive sprinter if they somehow got a cat to act like it was going to throw up on one of my belongings just beyond the finish line. I know it would be very difficult to train a cat that way, but they could have used a crude robot, like the mechanical rabbit at a dog track.

Note from Missy: The funniest part of this strip for me is my character saying, “I hate hearing you shout obscenities,” because if I gave my mouth free rein, it’d be mother&^@#ing vulgarities all day long.

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How to Reconnect with Someone You Haven't Seen in a Long Time

I’ve written a lot here about my time as a receptionist/office manager. I fear I’ve given the impression that I spent a lot of time dealing with unhappy customers in that job, but that’s not the case. People who came in saw me answering phones, greeting visitors, and offering them coffee. If the visitor was unhappy with our very important work, I was the one person in the entire place that they knew had nothing to do with their problem. Even unimportance has its upside.

The only time I really had to deal with someone irate was when one of the senior staff members was unexpectedly and unceremoniously fired. He was shown to the lobby, my domain, and told to wait there with me while his former supervisor gathered his things from his desk. That was a long fifteen minutes. Once I determined that he did not want a cup of coffee, we had very little pleasant to discuss.

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How to Maximize Your Marketing Strategy

In England they could call it Good Riddance Day.

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How to Keep Humanity's Past Accomplishments in Perspective

I like the idea that the pharaohs did get a certain kind of immortality, but it’s as villains in horror movies. There are worse ways to be remembered. Think of Ramses. If there is an afterlife, he must look at the fact that there’s a brand of condoms named after him and ask, “How did that happen?”

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How to Have a Worthwhile Discussion About Politics

Lately I’ve been working my way through a UK sitcom from the early ’80s called Yes, Minister, and its later incarnation, Yes, Prime Minister. I am enjoying it quite a bit. It is a product of its time. Characters occasionally express opinions that are no longer considered acceptable, but unfortunately that’s true in real life as well.

The sitcom is, in broad terms, about a politician and a bureaucrat fighting it out. The politician wants to create change and help people just a little bit less than he wants to pander for votes and make himself look good. The bureaucrat believes that what is best for the country and its citizens is to maintain the status quo (of which he is a part), dysfunctional as it is, because if it ever became more effective there might be chaos and change, which would destroy the status quo (and his own power).

Most episodes are one of these two getting the better of the other, but occasionally someone threatens their department, and they work together to fight off the attack so that they can remain there, fighting each other.

It's a very funny show if you enjoy dry humor, irony, and wordplay (which a lot of people don’t). Also, I find it tremendously reassuring to see evidence that politics have always been a terrible mess, no matter what country you’re in.

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How to Take Stock of Your Life

I was going to write something here about how my beard marks me as the evil Mirror Universe version of Scott Meyer, and that somewhere there’s another clean-shaven me who created a comic strip solely to tell the universe what a swell guy his friend, evil Rick is.

That got me to thinking about the Mirror Universe in Star Trek. (Yes, I was raised in the country, and I do occasionally still say things like, “got me to thinking. I’ve grown to accept that.) I don’t remember them ever showing us what the Klingon Empire is like in the Mirror Universe.

I’m picturing lots of doilies.

Note from Missy: The idea of mirror-universe Scott saying nice things about Rick feels so familiar.  Is there a strip with that premise?  Or was it in another commentary?  There are over a thousand comics, and honestly, after about 50 I start forgetting what they all are. 😆

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How to Use Insults as Compliments

I generally have a pro-women stance, and will always advocate that they are equal to men. That said, whenever a woman says she wants to be treated like “One of the guys,” I do tend to think that they don’t know what they’re asking for.

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How to Admit Your Mistakes

Toward the end of the time period when my mother, both of my brothers, and I all lived in the same house, my older brother lost his toothbrush somehow. Instead of getting a new one, he found it more amusing to just use mine. Anyone who has an older brother (including my younger brother) will understand that me not wanting him to use my toothbrush did not stop him.

So, what did I do, you ask?

I bought a second, secret toothbrush (never a sign that your life is going well) and in front of multiple witnesses I used my old toothbrush to scrub between my toes, then put it back in the toothbrush cup for my older brother to use.

And he did.

Many times.

I saw him do it, and pretended to not want him to.

You may be wondering when I finally told him about this. Assuming he reads these comics and comments: just now.

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How to Help Others Appreciate Something the way That You Do

The woman in question did come back, as a villain, who also turned out to be the mother of one of the main characters, and redeemed herself with the help of her ex-husband. He was a normal man, played by Kyle MacLaughlin, who would transform into a vile, evil, super strong creature called Mr. Hyde (thank you, public domain laws), but because Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. didn’t have the kind of budget WandaVision or Loki later got, his transformation consisted of minor facial appliances, a wig, and a funny walk.

That was before the season where they were in space, the season where they were in the past, or the season where Coulson was no longer Coulson, but was still Coulson.

Someday there will be a documentary about that show. It will be like Jodorowski’s Dune, only this time the crazy improbable project actually got made.

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How to Communicate Poorly

I did eventually buy two oversized novelty coins, just for this purpose. Here is photographic proof.

Or do I just have the world’s smallest cat? You can’t really know for sure!

My favorite thing about the coins is that they are both the same size, so if I take a picture of them together, the viewer would assume I either have a very small quarter or a slightly large penny, never suspecting that both coins are huge. It’s diabolical!

Useless, but diabolical!

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