How to Write Your Own Vows

To the wedding guests, self-written vows are often an excruciating exercise in enduring excessive earnestness. (Sorry, got a little carried away with the alliteration there.) From a performance point of view though, self-written vows are a marvelous opportunity to deliberately inflict discomfort on a large group of people. It’s the one time in the average person’s life that they can hand-select the members of a large audience, have that audience’s undivided attention, and say whatever they want with zero fear of being interrupted.

I’m kind of amazed that most personalized wedding vows don’s sound something like, “I promise to love, honor, and obey, and to treat you with respect and honestly, a marked contrast to how I’ve been treated by my cousin Eric, who is sitting in the third row, and still owes me money from when we were 16!”

If you tell everyone you know that you want to call a meeting of all of your family and friends so that you can say a few things, they tense up, and a lot of them will deliberately avoid the whole thing. If you tell them you’re getting married or renewing your vows, they’ll not only show up, they’ll bring a gift.

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How to Lead by Example

Sadly, it’s all true. That’s how I proposed, that’s how we got married, and that’s how we announced it to my family.

For the record, when my father and his wife at the time got their card, their first comment was, “Geez, Scott. You’ve gotten so fat, I didn’t recognize you in that picture.”

What I’m saying is that we Meyers aren’t an emotionally demonstrative bunch.

Note from Missy: It’s been over 20 years, but this is how I remember the proposal: We were walking by the shop window, looked at the rings, and I said, “Hey, that ring we were thinking about is on sale.” Then we both shrugged and were kind of like, “You wanna?”  So really, either way, TOTES ROMANTIC.

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How to Defend Your Sanity

This comic documents one of the only times that Missy’s reaction to the idea for one comic was extreme enough to inspire a second comic.

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How to Fight a Fake Looking Monster

Captain Kirk was a terrible fist fighter. I can’t think of a single time Kirk ever singlehandedly beat someone into submission with his fists. He always had other crewmen, or Spock was there to hit them with the Vulcan nerve pinch. Maybe ending an episode with the captain just punching an alien in the face until they cried uncle wasn’t deemed heroic enough.

It has always struck me that in Star Trek (and now on The Orville, A TOTALLY DIFFERENT AND DISTINCT SHOW!!!) humans are the most feeble, least ferocious sentient creatures in the galaxy. Except maybe for the Ferengi. I dunno. They do have those sharp little teeth.

On Star Trek: Discovery, there’s a creature who they state many times is from a prey species. He talks at length about how his people can sense death, and live in constant fear. Well, it turns out he can also crush a communicator with his bare hands.

If Star Trek were realistic, humans would not be in command of all the Federation ships. Their primary jobs would be as an emergency source of protein.

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How to Gain Wisdom from the People Around You

So, about the song “Love the One You’re With.” I have to assume that Stephen Stills was single at the time that he wrote it, or went through a breakup shortly afterward, because I don’t know how you play that song for the person you’re in a relationship with and not have it forever change that person’s attitude towards you.

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How to ask an Unanswerable Question (A Little NSFW)

You may think the commercial I suggest is stupid, and you’d be right, but that doesn’t mean nobody’d do it, or that it wouldn’t work. Ever since the debut of Juicy Juice and its slogan, “Juicy Juice is the Juiciest Juice,” all bets have been off.

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How to Find and explore Your Personal Limits

As a Jonathan Coulton fan, I cannot endorse Glee.

When it first started, I was of two minds about the show. I liked its message of empowerment for the disenfranchised and nerdy, but I disliked the fact that the show suggested that the key to finding acceptance was through singing and dancing. I’d have preferred it if they had highlighted the method I used to find my niche: sarcasm and ironic detachment. They could have called the show Snark.

Note from Missy: I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the same Note from Missy I left when this comic first ran, but: you can tell that Scott makes up some of this dialog, because I totally know Sy Snootles’ name.

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How to Be Kind to the Least Among You

I saw Justice League. I seem to recall enjoying it, but the next day I could barely remember it. If I concentrate, I can come up with some solid recollections of who said or did what, but no part of it jumps out as having been my “favorite part.”

I am irritated that Jason Momoa looks like he does and is funny. Being funny is supposed to be what the fates give guys like me to make up for the fact that we don’t look like him, or Chris Hemsworth, or Terry Crews. If big, pumped-up beefcakes are going to start being funny, I might have to start going to a gym, and I really don’t want to do that.

Oh, yeah, I’m supposed to be talking about the comic. I think the joke in panel three is some of my best work.

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How to Look Busy

One job I had at Disney involved waiting for long stretches for a specific thing to happen. When that thing happened, we were busy. In the meantime it got quite boring. One of my coworkers was a very even-keeled, diplomatic sort. One day I got bored enough that, in an effort to entertain myself, I started walking laps of him, just to see how many times I could circumnavigate the poor guy before he said something.

He never said anything. After 12 laps, he just walked away, and never mentioned it.

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How to Discuss Something You Really Don't Want to Discuss

There are certain jobs I’d rather women didn’t do, not because I feel they can’t, or shouldn’t be allowed to if they want, but because I’d rather spare them the experience.

Scrotal Ultrasound Technician is one such job.

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