How to Give Someone Bad News That They Need to Hear

Back when I worked in an office, I had a fairly memorable purple striped shirt. One day, as I sat behind my desk, wearing my shirt (as was my habit) one of my coworkers came up and said, “You know, Scott, that’s a cool shirt, but you shouldn’t wear it two days in a row.”

I said, “I won’t wear it tomorrow.”

He said, “What I mean is, you wore it yesterday.”

I knew for a fact that I hadn’t, but he was absolutely certain that I had, and insisting that he was wrong only made him think that I was a slob, forgetful, and incapable of accepting criticism. The only way to satisfy him would have been to lie to him and tell him he was right, which was not going to happen. In the end I dropped it for fear of being labeled as argumentative as well.

I still know for a fact I hadn’t worn the shirt the day before. (I had worn it two days before, though. It was a really cool shirt.)

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How to Deal With the Loss of Your Super Powers

The Knifeketeer doesn’t just stab things, because knives are good for more than just stabbing. Any time the fight against the criminal element calls for prying, carving, or jimmy-ing, it’s handy to have him around. And if you ever need a criminal spread evenly on toast, he’s the only hero to call!

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How to Manage Your Time

People say time is the one thing you can’t buy more of, but you can. You can buy other people’s time and have them spend it doing time-consuming things you don’t want to, thus giving yourself more time.

I’ve often complained that people think the most plentiful resource on the planet is your time. Not their time, your time. People are more than happy to spend your time on the strangest things. Take it from a guy who was once paid to scrape the breading off of the leftover fish filets at night, then re-bread the fish the next morning.

Note from Missy: This reminds me of a boss I used to have. He loved to dictate letters, and he was a mumbler. So a letter that took him 3 minutes to dictate (and would have taken him no more than 5 minutes to type) took me a good hour to fully transcribe, what with the repeated rewinding, and going to him with questions like, “This word sounds like ‘radish,’ but I’m sure you didn’t say ‘radish.’ What do you think you said?”

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How to Disagree

I still firmly believe that this era in human history is the best so far in which to be alive. That said, I am writing this commentary on April 12, 2020, and I’m having trouble coming up with anything funny to say about it.

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How to Accept Your Limitations

The person who I witnessed dancing was Storm, of the music-comedy duo Paul and Storm. He is a good guy, has a fine sense of rhythm, and is physically coordinated. I’d like to believe I share two of those qualities, but I have always been poorly coordinated to the point of being clumsy.

Anyway, I was at an event where Paul and Storm were part of the entertainment. There was a lag in the festivities and Storm livened things up by starting a conga line, just like that, as naturally as walking. To you that probably sounds like nothing, but if I tried that everyone would be horrified by my attempt to dance, nobody would join me out of fear of looking just as bad, and if a few people did follow me out of pity I would probably steer us into a table or a wall.

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How to Deal with Someone You Have Offended

This was based on an actual argument I had in high school. I said “furthermore,” and got accused of using “fifty-cent-words.” I pointed out that their belief that knowing and using words was somehow something I should be scolded for was telling. I also pointed out that furthermore was a very common word, and only three syllables long.

The person I was arguing with called me a nerd, told me to shut up, and acted like she had won the argument. The maddening thing is, as far as she was concerned, she did.

Note from Missy: If memory serves, the last time this comic ran, we had a surprising number of commenters complain that “ratio” is only two syllables.  So for those of you who pronounce that word “ray-show” instead of “ray-shee-o”, I’d like to say: you’re absolutely welcome to be wrong. Just don’t write to us about it. :D

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How to Defend Your Choices

This rerun suffers from ironic timing, as it is running during the COVID-19 pandemic. It’ll be interesting to see if cruise ships are still a thing a year from now.

I’ve been on four cruises, three at steep discounts and one to take my elderly mother to Alaska, which she’s always wanted to see. I can heartily endorse the experience of going on a cruise. It’s basically like having a luxury hotel that moves from place to place while you sleep. The better cruise companies have the guest experience part dialed in. Now if they can just do something about the environmental impact, tax evasion, and working conditions, they’ll really be on to something.

I’m willing to bet that the cruise ship employees are not paid nearly enough, but I don’t feel that working on such a ship would inherently be a bad job. The isolation from family is a problem, but that’s true for many jobs. It’s just a matter of compensating the employees fairly for it.

On one of the cruises I took I heard another passenger say that they felt bad for the crew because their jobs were “demeaning.” At the time I was a man in his late thirties working as a ride operator at Walt Disney World, another job they probably would have found demeaning. I considered it an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, helping create a product I believed in. (I’m not always a fan of the Disney corporation or its actions, but I am a firm believer in their parks.)  My experience was that the job was only demeaning when the guests deliberately demeaned me.

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How to Give a Friend Romantic Advice

People don’t call the bill in a restaurant “the tab” so much anymore. Saying it here in panel 2 sounds like he wants to share a diet soda with his date, but then again people don’t drink Tab much anymore either.

Man, I’m old.

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How to Make a Story Where It Appears the Hero Turns Bad, but Has Not

I don’t know if I ever discussed this, but the idea for Mr. Everywhere came from the superhero Plastic Man. Not actually Plastic Man himself, but the Elongated Man and Mr. Fantastic, both of whom have pretty much the same powers as Plastic Man, I.E. stretchy-ness.  

There are differences, of course. Mr. Fantastic is also a scientific genius. In addition to stretching, Plastic Man can form himself into complex objects, like mailboxes and cars, and Elongated Man . . . is a widower? I’ll be honest, I was always more of a Marvel guy than a DC guy.

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How to Differentiate Between an Explanation and an Excuse

There’s a distinct difference between an explanation and an excuse. Sadly, someone making an excuse will often describe their excuse as an explanation, and if the person you’re explaining to is angry, any explanation will sound like an excuse.

There’s a saying I used to repeat to myself as a reminder that keeping quiet, at least in the short term, is usually the best policy when things go wrong.

“Don’t explain, don’t complain.”

It’s something I once heard that someone I respected and admired had said. I still remember the phrase occasionally, but now its meaning is completely overshadowed by irony, because it was said by Bill Cosby, whom I no longer respect or admire, and who has done a great deal of both explaining and complaining in recent years.

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