How to Change Your Life

I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to come up with a commentary for this comic. It’s a comic about insulting Rick. What can I say about insulting Rick that I haven’t already said in the commentaries for the hundreds of earlier comics about insulting Rick?

Part of the reason I stopped the comic was I ran out of new, interesting ways to insult Rick. Now I’m running out of new, interesting things to say about insulting Rick. That, my friends, is not good.

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How to Complain to Your "Superiors"

I used to share a breakroom with two older men who would play dominoes every day during my lunch. They’d slam the dominoes down as hard as they could and shout at each other when they thought their moves were particularly good, or their opponent’s moves were particularly bad. I used to marvel at how the game would inflame their emotions. The only time in my life dominoes ever got me worked up enough to shout was in that same break room, watching them play, wanting to shout at them to shut up.

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How to Accept Responsibility

If any male somehow defeats or embarrasses another male, any females attracted to the defeated male will then reject him and become interested in the victorious male. Boys believe this from the time they are born right up until the first time they try it.

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How to Distract Your Enemy

I’ve mentioned here many times that I used to be the office manager of a medium sized corporate office in Seattle. Really, I was a glorified receptionist, if you consider the title of office manager to be particularly glorious.

The receptionist is, for the most part, the least powerful person in the office. But, whenever an unhappy client visits the office, the receptionist has to deal with them first, even though what they are angry about usually had nothing to do with the receptionist. If the person they are mad at stalls, it’s the receptionist who gets to kill time hanging out with the angry client. If the offending employee is not in the office or tries to pretend they aren’t in the office, the receptionist gets to pass that message along.

Knowing that, I trust that my main character’s position as the buffer between Angry Client and Mullet Boss makes more sense.

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How to Take a Serious Look at What You're Doing

It’s eight years later, and men’s deodorant scents continue to be nonsense. I currently favor “Cool Wave,” myself, because who doesn’t want to smell like a cool wave.

Note: they don’t specify what it’s a cool wave of.

Note from Missy: At least guys get scents other than flowers, even if they’re mysterious waves. If you’re a woman who thinks floral scents are disgusting, there are very few options.  If someone made a deodorant that gently smelled of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies, or Froot Loops, or pepperoni pizza, I’d stock up on that shizz immediately.

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How to Help Your Child Pick a Role Model

I know a few magicians. Once I asked one of them if it’s possible to buy a small smoke bomb that can be thrown at the ground to produce a large enough puff of smoke to give the thrower cover to hide or flee. He said, “Yeah, it’s called a flash pot.”

A flash pot is a device you have to set up in advance, run wires to, and trigger remotely. I explained that what I wanted was a smoke bomb I could carry in my pocket and throw at a random time or place when needed. He said, “no, what you want is a flash pot.”

I thought he was being dense at the time, but in retrospect, I am suspicious that he might have been maintaining a trade secret.

I’d love to tell you that I was asking as research for a book, or because I had some specific purpose in mind, but if the smoke bomb I wanted had existed, I would have just used it to disappear at random moments to freak people out. You know, leaving family gatherings, ending job interviews, that kind of thing.

And yes, I probably would have shouted, “NINJA VANISH!”

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How to Ape the Motions of a Sensitive Human Being

Sometimes I did things in the comic just to amuse myself. For instance, the title of this comic is a reference to the song In Love.

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How to Do Something Original

I gotta admit, I’m pretty proud of my drawing of a Muppet Jim Henson. I think it’s a pretty good likeness of what such a thing would look like.

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How to Accept Forgiveness

I’ve found that most of the time when someone tells me that they thought I was their friend, it’s because I don’t want to do something no good friend would ever ask for.

In high school I knew someone who worked at a restaurant with their best friend. One night, the best friend stole all of the checks in the register instead of dropping them at the bank. This was the second dumbest crime I’ve ever heard of. It’s not like he could deposit them to his bank account or anything.

Anyway, the check thief went to the guy I know, asking for help covering this up. The person I know suggested that he turn himself in, which caused the thief to play the “I thought we were friends” card. In the end, the thief got arrested and convicted, and the person I know, whose crime was not immediately turning their friend in, lost their job.

On the positive side, this was the event that taught me it’s possible to learn from other people’s mistakes, and this gave me an opportunity to learn from several mistakes in one go.

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How to Accept the Fact That You Are Getting Old

Woodstock took place in 1969.

Kurt Cobain died in 1994.

As of this writing, it is 2019.

Fifty years have elapsed between Woodstock and today, and Cobain’s death is the mid-point, 25 years from each. When I was a kid, Woodstock was ancient history. It might as well have been the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Cobain’s death, on the other hand, feels like it happened a few years ago.

If that freaks you out, think about this. Fight Club, The Matrix, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, and The Mummy (The Brendan Fraser / Rachel Weisz version) all came out in 1999. Those are twenty-year-old movies! Do you ever flip through the channels on a Saturday afternoon and marvel at how much more current the movies they show to fill time on basic cable now are than the ones they showed when you were young? Yeah, THEY AREN’T! To a current teenager, the Matrix might as well be The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.

My point is that I’m getting old, and people my age are also getting old. We have to keep that in mind before we try to foist out cultural tastes on younger people.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to explain to anyone who’ll listen why Picard is a better captain than  . . . whoever’s captain on Discovery this week.

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