I know someone who IS "non compos mentis"
In a shocking turn of events, I actually I agree with the basic concept of today's strip. It kind of reminds me of my father, who can come up with random baseball statistics (e.g., we were at a game a few weeks ago and he mentioned the name of the umpire from the 1976 World Series) but can't remember how to spell my middle name. I'm going to chalk this up to a bit of exaggeration and assume that there was a good reason Lugbutt (I swear, it's the names that will drive me insane) took such close notice of this man running out of the bank. Possibly because there was a man running out of a bank--I'd find that a bit shady, myself.
In other notes, I somehow doubt that this man's wife is his "bridey," which to me implies that they're newlyweds. Not that "wifey" is better, and Scaduto certainly likes using that term.
Facial reactions: Is that "bridey" in the top panel, looking so surprised at Lugbutt's detailed description? If not, why does she seem so caught off guard? And why is the customer/shop assistant so amused-looking in the bottom panel?
And I never really thought of TDIET's target audience as being particularly, um, educated (Hi! I'm a snob!). Why the Latin? (Assuming that actually is Latin.) "Non compos mentis"? And according to Wikipedia, that means "not having a sound mind" or "not sane." Informally, it's more like, "I'm a bit out of it." I'm not sure that's what Scaduto was going for. Just because a guy is an idiot who can't describe his wife doesn't make him insane.
posted by Barb @ 5:48 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Hey, whaddya know, I can read TDIET to learn Latin now!
I agree with this strip too, though - I see hundreds of people every day (I work at a gas station) and I'd be hard pressed to describe any random one from the bunch - but if one of them drives off without paying for their gas, you'd better be damn sure I'm going to be able to describe them well.
If you're like every other woman I know then your middle name is either Marie or Anne. Neither one is particularly hard to spell, so I'm not sure what your father's problem is.
Actually, my middle name is Lynne (the vast majority of women my age have some version of that). My dad tends to leave off the "e". My sister's middle name is Marie, though.
The brilliance of this strip is that Mr Scaduto takes the first reader submission that actually makes sense and ruins it.
If only he'd done the obvious thing and had Lugbutt able to recite the team ERA of every NL West team from 1980 but unable to describe his wife!
I imagine he felt pangs of doubt that his audience would be able to follow the joke unless he made the direct parallel of describing someone's physical characteristics perfectly in one case and being unable to describe his wife's physical characteristics in the other. And thus, the bank robbery witness idea was born.
And in that moment of doubt, everything went horribly wrong.
1980 Team ERAs for NL West
Houston Astros 3.10
LA Dodgers 3.25
SF Giants 3.46
SD Padres 3.65
Atlanta Braves 3.77
Cincinnati Reds 3.85
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