How to Describe a Memorable Performance

A 100% true story. The magician was running late, had to leave home in a hurry, and left most of his props behind. Then when he arrived at the venue, he basically walked directly from the parking lot to the stage, and only discovered as he went for pieces of his equipment that he didn’t have them.

I had to cut out the part where he had to admit he couldn’t do a rope trick, despite the fact that he clearly had ropes, because the ropes he had weren’t “prepared.”

It was a terrible magic show, but to be fair, my comedy act following him didn’t go great either, because nothing I said was half as funny as the failed magic act the audience had just seen.

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How to Reconsider a Relationship

Missy likes Ric . . . from a distance. She thinks he’s a good guy, a good friend, and very funny. The only issue is that Ric isn’t really himself around women. Ric and I have joked that women either immediately dislike him or they marry him and eventually come to dislike him. This has caused him to keep a certain defensive posture when dealing with women he wants to get along with but does not want to marry. While I find that unfortunate, I can’t really complain about the fact that my wife falls into that category.

Note from Missy:  When Ric is talking with Scott, he sometimes refers to me as “Skippy.” I have no idea why, but I’ve always assumed that since he made up a nickname for me that isn’t “The Shrew” or “Your Old Ball and Chain,” he likes me in his own weird way. 😊

How to Behave When "the Big Boss" Comes

A couple of months back a comic mentioned Storm, of the musical duo Paul and Storm. This one features Paul as the CEO.

In my corporate office job, we’d occasionally have bigwigs from HQ come to town to get a feel for how the office worked. Most of the staff would try extra hard to make it look as if they were very busy and productive.

Meanwhile, the people in charge of the office would invariably hold a mandatory reception with snacks and beverages so that the bigwig could get to know everyone in a “relaxed setting.”

Because of these clashing strategies, what the bigwig would actually see was the management and staff working at crossed purposes, which it could be argued was an accurate view of how the office worked.

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How to Adjust to a Change in Your Lifestyle

The previous comic was about health insurance. This one is about working from home. These feel weirdly appropriate to current events, considering they were written seven years ago.

The first job I ever had where someone else paid me to do work from my home, at my own pace, was writing for a computer game nobody played for a company that no longer exists. I remember one morning I got up, put on my bathrobe, kissed Missy goodbye as she left for work, sat down at my computer to write, and aside from bathroom and snack breaks, stayed there until Missy got home. I was surprised how little it seemed to impress her. It’s hard to convince someone how hard you’re working when you never bothered to put on pants.

I should also point out that The Venture Brothers has recently been canceled. It remains my favorite TV show. If you like my work, particularly the Rocket Hat and Knifeketeer stuff, I strongly suggest you give it a shot.

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How to Convince Someone to Do the Right Thing

Just this week I had a dental hygienist explain to me that modern dental insurance is, for the most part, a discount plan. I pay a company a monthly fee, and in return I get the discount they negotiated with the dentist when I pay for my dental care.

I forget who told me this, but someone once said, “There’s very little you can learn that isn’t bad news.” The older I get, the more I see the wisdom in that.

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How to Send a Clear Message

It’s been years since I lived in Seattle, long enough that when I’ve gone back to visit the city is substantially changed. One of my chief memories of the time I spent there is that driving in the downtown area instilled a powerful hatred of pedestrians. It’s like they believed that rain gave them the legal right to jaywalk, and the fact that rain also decreased visibility and made it harder to stop on a dime was the driver’s problem. The rain would start and people would dart out into the road, running hunched over, the way characters in movies do when they’re trying to keep from getting spotted.

I can’t tell you how many times some jaywalker gave me a dirty look and the finger right after I had saved their life.

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How to Be a Considerate Spouse

It’s true, she still trounces me at Scrabble on a regular basis.

It is also true that we have only ever played Monopoly against each other once, back when we were engaged, and I beat her in less than thirty minutes. I don’t suggest playing Monopoly with your fiancée or spouse. The game requires a certain disregard for your opponent’s feelings and self-esteem that makes it uniquely suited for playing with your siblings.

When I was a kid, we had a variation on the game where one or both of my brothers would agree to play Monopoly, but only if I set up the board and counted out the money. I’d spend five minutes setting the whole thing up (when you’re a kid that’s an eternity) and then when I’d tell them we were ready to start they’d say, “Nah.” Watching me unhappily pack the game up while they laughed constituted “winning” in “Meyer Rules Monopoly.”

Note from Missy: To be fair, though, I disliked Monopoly long before I ever met Scott. So it’s not like that one trouncing made me hate it; it just confirmed that my pre-existing hatred was accurate.

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How to Spot the Various Types of Human Stupidity

I know that we watched season 2 of The Next Food Network Star. I know that I cared enough about it at the time to write this comic. But, I swear, sitting here, I have no memory whatsoever of that season or anything that happened in it.

I remember that the show lost me when the Food Network brought in three of their most successful cooking show hosts to act as team captains and had them constantly antagonize each other. Not only did that make me like the show less, it made me like those three hosts less. It was a show so bad it damaged four or five other shows. The show had an actual measurable blast radius.

Note from Missy: I had to look back through the Wiki for The Next Food Network Star to confirm that it’s where the world was given Guy Fieri for the first time.  Turns out he was on season 2 (if memory serves, we voted for Reggie), and this comic must have been written about season 9, which aired in 2013 and had a contestant named Nikki and a guy who made pie.

Also, holy crap, it was season eight when they changed to the Alton/Giada/Bobby smack-talking team system.  So we watched nine or ten seasons of a show, and all I can really remember of that 100+ hours of television is 3 celebrity chefs being total dicks to each other, and a vague memory of greatly disliking Guy Fieri before disliking Guy Fieri became cool.

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How to Explain Why You Like Something

Wolverine is haunted by things in his past he can’t remember. I never thought about that before. How does that work?

“I’m haunted by horrible things I can’t remember.”

“How do you know they happened, or that they were horrible?”

“That’s just the thing. I don’t!”

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How to Live on the Edge

I was all set to write a paragraph about how I should try to start a TV career setting myself up as someone who explores the extreme edge of quiet, mellow, grown-up activities, sort of like the Bear Grylls of safety and complacency. Then I realized James May has beat me to it.

I offer the following videos as evidence.

James May reassembling a toy train.

James May making a sandwich.

James May replacing his car’s tire valve stem caps.

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