Made in the shade 5/31/19

Last weekend was Memorial Day, a long weekend. That’s cool but at least one of us (Andy) was totally unaware of it, until it was upon us. Now, there’s nothing wrong with a long weekend - in fact they are great - but the prospect of a long weekend loses a little of its excitement when you’re not working 5 days a week in the first place. Does that sound like whining? Okay, it is whining. Forget we mentioned it. We’d still rather play golf, tennis, go for a bike ride or go to Costco on a random Wednesday rather than on a long weekend. All of which has absolutely nothing to do with our two new comics this week.

The first one grew from John’s fevered imagination. As is true of most creative people, we spent far too much time watching tv in our misspent youths. In addition to such stalwarts as Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best (how would that title go down in the #metoo era?), Bonanza and The Brady Bunch, John partook in Petticoat Junction. Think about pitching this show to the networks: “Okay, I’ve got a great idea. Here’s how it opens. These three hot girls go skinny dipping in the water tower and even though we can’t show them naked, we’ll have them toss their petticoats over the side of the water tower so everyone will know they’re naked. It’s high concept, trust me.” We wondered what our kids would think if they watched that now. We think it would go firmly into the “what the hell were they thinking” category. And that it would make a pretty good comic.

The second comic comes from real life. Many of our friends have kids who are either getting married or having kids of their own. A couple weeks ago some friends threw a co-ed baby shower for their daughter, who was months away from delivering a grandchild. It was remarkable that so many men attended, and it turned out to be fun. No opening of presents and saying oooh and ahhhh, as the gifts were opened, this was just good food, good drink and fun with friends. It was held at our friends’ house with it’s big, beautifully landscaped, sun-dappled backyard. The other remarkable thing about the party was how everyone struggled to avoid the sun. Over the length of the afternoon party, the sun took over from the shade and everyone kept moving their chairs or tables or blankets into an increasingly smaller and smaller patch of shade until…comic #2.

By the way, if you wonder why our doctors keep recommending we take a vitamin D supplement, it’s because we don’t get enough damn sun. Just saying.

Have a great weekend and we’ll see you next Friday.

The New 60