I actually yelled at the paper this morning when I read today's strip. My husband, in the other room, asked if I was OK. What could I say? "No, I'm trapped in the web of a mind-numbing comic strip -- and I can't turn away."
I need a 12-step program to escape this self-induced torture. My fellow Worth-aholics, you all understand, don't you?
Speaking of needing a 12-step program (or maybe more than one), both my 10th grader and I were up early this morning doing our respective school work. When I got up to refill my coffee cup, I said, "I'll be right back, Bobby Black." He had no idea what I was talking about, and I was too embarrassed to explain.
"Self-induced torture" is exactly the right phrase, Peggy. Have these two really been sitting in the same booth at Diner drinking coffee since AUGUST 23????
Hard to believe Mary is actually extolling the virtues of this modern technology for once - talk about a reversal. (Because it's so easy to go online and find someone named "Bobby Black," who could now live anywhere in the USA. Not to mention that unlike Gina clinging tenaciously to her childhood ponytail, he's likely to have dropped the "Bobby.")
I wonder how Gina made it through high school and some college without being exposed to "modern technology." Sheesh, when even a technophobe like Mary Worth is (marginally) more up to date than you, Ms. Whiny Ponytail, it really IS time to wake up and smell the coffee! (As opposed to drinking so much of it.)
So, I broke down and did a quick search in whitepages.com on Bobby Black - it came up with 100+ possibilities. Get your butt out of that diner booth, Gina, and get started! I can't bear the thought of waking up to another day of you in that booth, mooching off of Diner manager's good will.
Considering the wit of contributors to this blog, today's Mary Worth strip is a slam dunk!
Let's see: what are some possible outcomes Gina might encounter? How about: Bobby has lived a normal life despite Gina's absence. He has a wife and two kids and plays pickup basketball games.
On the one hand, I'm very happy to see that Gina's ponytail has once more attached itself firmly and handle-like to Gina's short hairstyle (not quite a bob, but close enough. Let's just call it a bobby).
On the other hand, I'm quaking in my boots at Mary's words "be prepared for any outcome..." What? Mary's been goading Gina along for days and now she pulls back? It's almost a disclaimer. I can practically hear Mary a week from now, "Hey, you wanted to look for him and now that you found him fat, bald and smelly and it shattered your dreams, you're blaming me? I don't think so! I'm just here to advise, as we all know. You made your own decisions, missy!"
Shmoopie - not to mention, how many of us still iive in the same city/town we lived in at age 14? On the one hand, this strip moves along with the pace of frozen molasses. On the other hand, once Gina is finally persuaded to try that newfangled Internet thing to look up Bobby (I'm guessing by November?), it will astound us how quickly she will be able to locate him.
"Gina, we live in a modern age, except here in Santa Royale...I suggest you head over to the public library and spend a few hours with the Manhattan White Pages"
Gina has to find him, whatever the outcome. She made a pact with him when she was 14 that she would never remove her ponytail until they saw each other again. She just keeps moving up the band and chopping it off at the end.
I feel sorry for all the guys in NYC who really are named Bobby Black. :P What are the chances any of them reads this strip?
I can't wait to see what kind of loser that Bobby Black has become!
Will he be Lonnie like? Or sandwich-fisted like Wibur? Or live in an apartment with fashionable faux-rundown lath walls, like Kurt? Or will he be like Delilah's Charlie, with lewd paintings on the wall!
Oh the fun we will have! Maybe.... Probably not. Not.
Why doesn't Gina just use her smartphone to go to Facebook & look up Bobby? Oh, that's right- this is the Worthyverse, where 24 year old girls know nothing about such things... except for Dawn Westin, who was hooked on the internet a while back. If Gina's grinding poverty is an excuse, come on! Anybody can buy a throw away cell phone with some airtime minutes & cards for around 15 bucks, sometimes cheaper.
@kathyo, I love your scenario! However, if anything like that would happen in the Worthiverse, all of us would be struck dumb (a cruel blow of fate indeed!).
Whoa, WHOA there Mary Worth! You were on the cusp of recommending internet use, perhaps on a Nook Color browser.
How unfortunate for Gina, that while Liza sat endlessly at her table in the diner awaiting a server to bring her coffee 8 months ago (last week in the Worthiverse), her only patient, the handsome Bobby Black fell into a coma while recovering from surgery to correct his bad case of "skateboard knee."
I think I know how this will end and it will end this week. Mary remembers Jill and that she has the same surname as Bobby. She asks Jill, and we find out that Bobby was her brother/cousin and he became a firefighter. He was killed on 9/11. Remember, all the strips are doing a 9/11 memorial on Sunday.
@Peggy Olson -- Oh, I do understand! It's like a daily trainwreck. Ya' just HAVE to look!!
In the past we have had some VERY clever poems on this blog and I was thinking this would be an excellent time for another one. I mean, seeing as we're stuck here forever in this stupid diner!! Anyone?
Key brainstorming words, of course: Diner, coffee, whiny-ponytail, Bobby Black "cruel hand of fate", coffee, skateboards, WPP, coffee...
Jenny - at the beginning I thought Moy was heading toward 9/11 too. But today is 9/8, and for Mary to call Jill to find out that Bobby was Jill's cousin and was killed on 9/11 would be more than has happened here in two entire months, and it would give us all whiplash for sure. Not even as talented a writer as Karen Moy could pull that off.
Chester the dog- you suggested a few hours spent with the Manhattan phone book. When I was searching for my childhood friend many years ago, I used to go to Grand Central Station and go thru the big city phone books they had there. After several weeks of conscientious searching, I found her! We had been separated for about 20 years and each had different last names and had each moved many times. But there she was! Of course, she was fat, bald, smelly, member of a different political party, didn't remember me, and thought Mary Worth was some sort of Quaker holiday greeting.
If anyone in this strip was killed in 9/11, it was probably Gina's father, as she's never said whatever happened to him.
She's spent a whole month whining about HER obsession and HER cross to bear, and by Sunday it'll be "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. My father was killed in 9/11. OH CRUEL FATE, WHAT A TRAGIC HAND YOU DEAL ME!"
@Jenny, @Punky--I liked Jenny's theory, and Punky had a good counter, but consider that at the rate this plot is moving, it coul db setting up the story for 9/11/12.
A note in the paper today about the Academy Awards made me wonder if there's something similar for the comics. If so, I think Moy and Giella have pretty much sewn up the awards for: Most Drawn Out Storyline, Most Boring Characters, Worst Color Schemes, Funiest Looking Appendages, Most Pony Tails, Most Irritating Platitudes... I'm sure there are more categories but my pony tail is starting to hurt....
Anonymous -- Wanders has an annual awards where we vote on different things: i.e. best guest character (I have a feeling LiZa is going to win, hands down).
WV: "bango," as in, "I'm going to bango my head against my desk if the strip carries on with Gina and Mary Worth enjoying coffee (on the job!) and Gina waxing poetic about her cruel blow of fate."
"There are many ways," Mary said vaguely. Although her meddlesome nature compelled her to help Gina, her Luddite self did not permit her to endorse the evils of Facebook, or even the internet in general.
Oh oh oh---here's another one. Mary asks Jill about Bobby only to find out that "Jill" is really Bobby after a sex change operation! I know, it will never happen, but it should
I had to post one more time today because when I went to read the newly added comments, I saw that the verification word on my page was "hellhol" and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to type such an apt word! Hey, did an entire summer go by without a pool party? Fellow Worthians, I think we been robbed.
Except happiness. I don't think Gina needs to prepare herself for that outcome.
35 comments:
Gina! Get on with it already! Argghh!
I actually yelled at the paper this morning when I read today's strip. My husband, in the other room, asked if I was OK. What could I say? "No, I'm trapped in the web of a mind-numbing comic strip -- and I can't turn away."
I need a 12-step program to escape this self-induced torture. My fellow Worth-aholics, you all understand, don't you?
Speaking of needing a 12-step program (or maybe more than one), both my 10th grader and I were up early this morning doing our respective school work. When I got up to refill my coffee cup, I said, "I'll be right back, Bobby Black." He had no idea what I was talking about, and I was too embarrassed to explain.
"Self-induced torture" is exactly the right phrase, Peggy. Have these two really been sitting in the same booth at Diner drinking coffee since AUGUST 23????
Hard to believe Mary is actually extolling the virtues of this modern technology for once - talk about a reversal. (Because it's so easy to go online and find someone named "Bobby Black," who could now live anywhere in the USA. Not to mention that unlike Gina clinging tenaciously to her childhood ponytail, he's likely to have dropped the "Bobby.")
I wonder how Gina made it through high school and some college without being exposed to "modern technology." Sheesh, when even a technophobe like Mary Worth is (marginally) more up to date than you, Ms. Whiny Ponytail, it really IS time to wake up and smell the coffee! (As opposed to drinking so much of it.)
Wait. Wait. Slow down. Don't go so fast. This is so hard to keep up with.
So, I broke down and did a quick search in whitepages.com on Bobby Black - it came up with 100+ possibilities. Get your butt out of that diner booth, Gina, and get started! I can't bear the thought of waking up to another day of you in that booth, mooching off of Diner manager's good will.
Considering the wit of contributors to this blog, today's Mary Worth strip is a slam dunk!
Let's see: what are some possible outcomes Gina might encounter? How about: Bobby has lived a normal life despite Gina's absence. He has a wife and two kids and plays pickup basketball games.
On the one hand, I'm very happy to see that Gina's ponytail has once more attached itself firmly and handle-like to Gina's short hairstyle (not quite a bob, but close enough. Let's just call it a bobby).
On the other hand, I'm quaking in my boots at Mary's words "be prepared for any outcome..." What? Mary's been goading Gina along for days and now she pulls back? It's almost a disclaimer. I can practically hear Mary a week from now, "Hey, you wanted to look for him and now that you found him fat, bald and smelly and it shattered your dreams, you're blaming me? I don't think so! I'm just here to advise, as we all know. You made your own decisions, missy!"
Elaine, I hope you included "Bob," "Robert" and perhaps even "Roberto" in your search for potential Bobby Blacks living in the greater NYC area!
Shmoopie - not to mention, how many of us still iive in the same city/town we lived in at age 14? On the one hand, this strip moves along with the pace of frozen molasses. On the other hand, once Gina is finally persuaded to try that newfangled Internet thing to look up Bobby (I'm guessing by November?), it will astound us how quickly she will be able to locate him.
"Gina, we live in a modern age, except here in Santa Royale...I suggest you head over to the public library and spend a few hours with the Manhattan White Pages"
"Manhattan" phone book? I thought Bobby and his all-white crew lived in one of the outer boroughs?
Gina has to find him, whatever the outcome. She made a pact with him when she was 14 that she would never remove her ponytail until they saw each other again. She just keeps moving up the band and chopping it off at the end.
I feel sorry for all the guys in NYC who really are named Bobby Black. :P What are the chances any of them reads this strip?
I can't wait to see what kind of loser that Bobby Black has become!
Will he be Lonnie like? Or sandwich-fisted like Wibur? Or live in an apartment with fashionable faux-rundown lath walls, like Kurt? Or will he be like Delilah's Charlie, with lewd paintings on the wall!
Oh the fun we will have! Maybe....
Probably not.
Not.
DOH!
Why doesn't Gina just use her smartphone to go to Facebook & look up Bobby? Oh, that's right- this is the Worthyverse, where 24 year old girls know nothing about such things... except for Dawn Westin, who was hooked on the internet a while back. If Gina's grinding poverty is an excuse, come on! Anybody can buy a throw away cell phone with some airtime minutes & cards for around 15 bucks, sometimes cheaper.
Gina will find that Bobby Black is happy and successful; a perfectly fit and gorgeous hunk with black hair and blue eyes--and a gay partner.
This is more painful than watching the protracted putting off of Dr. What's His Face. And that hurt!
@kathyo, I love your scenario! However, if anything like that would happen in the Worthiverse, all of us would be struck dumb (a cruel blow of fate indeed!).
Whoa, WHOA there Mary Worth! You were on the cusp of recommending internet use, perhaps on a Nook Color browser.
How unfortunate for Gina, that while Liza sat endlessly at her table in the diner awaiting a server to bring her coffee 8 months ago (last week in the Worthiverse), her only patient, the handsome Bobby Black fell into a coma while recovering from surgery to correct his bad case of "skateboard knee."
I think I know how this will end and it will end this week. Mary remembers Jill and that she has the same surname as Bobby. She asks Jill, and we find out that Bobby was her brother/cousin and he became a firefighter. He was killed on 9/11. Remember, all the strips are doing a 9/11 memorial on Sunday.
Can't wait to see Bobby's apartment with the cracked walls and chipped paint. The poor kid never got his life together after Gina left.
@Peggy Olson -- Oh, I do understand! It's like a daily trainwreck. Ya' just HAVE to look!!
In the past we have had some VERY clever poems on this blog and I was thinking this would be an excellent time for another one. I mean, seeing as we're stuck here forever in this stupid diner!! Anyone?
Key brainstorming words, of course: Diner, coffee, whiny-ponytail, Bobby Black
"cruel hand of fate", coffee, skateboards, WPP, coffee...
Jenny - at the beginning I thought Moy was heading toward 9/11 too. But today is 9/8, and for Mary to call Jill to find out that Bobby was Jill's cousin and was killed on 9/11 would be more than has happened here in two entire months, and it would give us all whiplash for sure. Not even as talented a writer as Karen Moy could pull that off.
Chester the dog- you suggested a few hours spent with the Manhattan phone book. When I was searching for my childhood friend many years ago, I used to go to Grand Central Station and go thru the big city phone books they had there. After several weeks of conscientious searching, I found her!
We had been separated for about 20 years and each had different last names and had each moved many times. But there she was!
Of course, she was fat, bald, smelly, member of a different political party, didn't remember me, and thought Mary Worth was some sort of Quaker holiday greeting.
If anyone in this strip was killed in 9/11, it was probably Gina's father, as she's never said whatever happened to him.
She's spent a whole month whining about HER obsession and HER cross to bear, and by Sunday it'll be "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. My father was killed in 9/11. OH CRUEL FATE, WHAT A TRAGIC HAND YOU DEAL ME!"
@Jenny, @Punky--I liked Jenny's theory, and Punky had a good counter, but consider that at the rate this plot is moving, it coul db setting up the story for 9/11/12.
And I don't know why this just hit me: Mary commented: "We live in a Modern Age".
No you don't; you live in Santa Royale.
A note in the paper today about the Academy Awards made me wonder if there's something similar for the comics. If so, I think Moy and Giella have pretty much sewn up the awards for: Most Drawn Out Storyline, Most Boring Characters, Worst Color Schemes, Funiest Looking Appendages, Most Pony Tails, Most Irritating Platitudes... I'm sure there are more categories but my pony tail is starting to hurt....
Anonymous -- Wanders has an annual awards where we vote on different things: i.e. best guest character (I have a feeling LiZa is going to win, hands down).
WV: "bango," as in, "I'm going to bango my head against my desk if the strip carries on with Gina and Mary Worth enjoying coffee (on the job!) and Gina waxing poetic about her cruel blow of fate."
"There are many ways," Mary said vaguely. Although her meddlesome nature compelled her to help Gina, her Luddite self did not permit her to endorse the evils of Facebook, or even the internet in general.
James... thanks for the "heads up." I've got my ballot ready.....
Oh oh oh---here's another one. Mary asks Jill about Bobby only to find out that "Jill" is really Bobby after a sex change operation! I know, it will never happen, but it should
I had to post one more time today because when I went to read the newly added comments, I saw that the verification word on my page was "hellhol" and I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to type such an apt word! Hey, did an entire summer go by without a pool party? Fellow Worthians, I think we been robbed.
I do have to wonder why Moy chose to name this character "Black", a name she had recently used.
So far, these are the theories I have come up with:
1. Moy forgot she just used that name recently.
2. She couldn't think up another last name.
3. Bobby will turn out to be related to Jill.
4. Somebody told Moy that she should include more blacks in her comic strip.
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