How to Purchase a Flashlight

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I worked at the Tower of Terror at Walt Disney World, which was a surprisingly flashlight-intensive job. We were supplied flashlights, but many of us bought our own because the communal flashlights got broken or stolen often. It struck me funny that I’d drive to work in the blinding Florida sun, walk from the parking lot through a spotlessly clean, sun-drenched theme park, then spend eight hours in a simulation of a dark, dilapidated hotel on a rainy evening.

Still, it’s better than working at Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster, the ride next door, which is a simulation of a parking garage and the alley behind said parking garage.

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How to Discuss a Television Show with Someone Who Hasn't Seen It Recently

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I LOVED Lost. I saw the pilot and immediately wanted answers to the questions it brought up. As I say in this comic, for every question the show answered it brought up at least two more, and the mysteries and solutions grew stranger and stranger over time until you had people coming back from the dead and big wooden wheels that, when turned, made the whole island teleport. Eventually I was watching to get the answer to the essential meta-mystery of the show, “How will they explain all of this?”

Spoiler alert, the answer was, “Unsatisfyingly.”

Note from Missy: That first panel about Voyager just made me LOL. So lame, so true.

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How to Complain About Work

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I once had a friend declare, loudly, “What do I want with dignity! What good does dignity do me? Dignity doesn’t pay my rent.” I wasn’t sure at the time whether he was trying to convince me that dignity wasn’t worth the effort to maintain, or himself.

Later I decided that it was a bad thing either way.

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How to Say "No" When Asked for an Unreasonable Favor

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I’d much rather stay in a hotel than sleep on someone’s spare couch or floor. Maybe I’m weird.

Actually, maybe I kinda suspect that I am weird, and that’s why I prefer the anonymity of a hotel over staying with people I know. One doesn’t like to discover, as a full grown adult, that their bathroom etiquette is not up to scratch.

Really, it’s mostly that I don’t like to impose on people, and if I do impose, I like the idea that I’ll live it down and put it behind me the instant I check out, as opposed to having a friend or relative bring it up at some random point in the future.

Note from Missy: If it’s weird, then call me a weirdo. I’ve stayed in people’s houses only a couple of times in my adult life, and it’s so anxiety-producing. That feeling that you need to be doing something or entertaining each other 24/7. I’d rather have a hotel room where I can just go and be away from people. (Though Scott would be there, but when you’ve been married for 20 years, you kind of don’t count as “people” anymore to each other, if you know what I mean.) I probably also feel like a weirdo on this point because we watch a lot of House Hunters, where everyone wants a spare room for out-of-town guests.

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How to Introduce People

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Rick, the real person on whom the character is based, has only ever had two complaints about the comic. One is that he doesn’t like it when the character Rick wins, like he does here. He feels that it is not in keeping with the totally fictional character I created (by pretty much watching him live his life and taking notes).

His other complaint was when I once referred to him as having a defeatist attitude. He called me, more than a little irritated, and said, “I’m not a defeatist. I’m just profoundly negative.”

 

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How to Be Eccentric

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I’ve made my position on milk abundantly clear, so I will not go into it again.

For many years, my go-to snack was dry breakfast cereal eaten out of a glass, as if it were a beverage. I still don’t see why anyone finds that odd. Cereal is meant to be eaten. A cup is just a bowl you can hold in one hand, and this way I don’t needlessly dirty a spoon!

One lesson I’ve learned in life is that when someone thinks that something you’re doing is crazy, having a logical, multi-point defense of said action will not make you look less crazy to them.

 

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How to Make Someone Grateful for the Sci-fi Movies Hollywood Is Making Today

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For those who haven’t seen Soylent Green, (SPOILER ALERT) it’s a mystery story that takes place in a distant future where overcrowding and environmental problems have led to people mainly subsisting on a green protein cracker called Soylent Green. In the end, the hero discovers that the crackers are made out of people. It’s about as cheery and uplifting as most early-seventies science fiction got. There’s a reason Steven Spielberg and George Lucas took the world by storm.

I’m kinda surprised nobody has remade Soylent Green. I could see it a s a Bruce Willis vehicle. They’d probably give it a happy ending, with Bruce eating a cracker made out of the bad guy.

 

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How to Accept Help That Isn't Actually Helpful

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We’ve all worked with that person who presents everything you do as a mistake and everything they do as a tremendous success. I’ve found that over time the rest of the staff tends to avoid that person, a fact the person usually considers to be a mistake on everyone else’s part, or an unfortunate side-effect of their tremendous success.

Note from Missy: This comic fills me with rage, because I’ve worked with that person in many a job. Side note: I feel like if this strip had been written a couple of years later, it’d definitely be Jenkins being the total work jerk, instead of Earth Mother here. I don’t think he’d fully grown into his true Jenkinsness at this point.

 

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How to Insult Someone Without Offending Them

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The phrase “with all due respect” has always cracked me up. We use it to soften the blow when we’re about to criticize someone, but when you really think about it, it makes an insult that much more cutting. You’re basically prefacing your insult with “You’re not going to like what I’m going to say, but please understand, you totally deserve it.”

 

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How to Talk Behind Someone's Back

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Once, a long, long time ago, I got into a fight with one of my older brother’s friends. I won’t get into the reasons. I was 14, he was 17, none of us handled the situation particularly well. My brother ended up taking his friend’s side and there was quite a bit of yelling.

Later that evening, when things had cooled down a bit, my brother (who I remind you, was 17 at the time, an age at which most of us say a lot of stupid things) told me, “I don’t like your friends either, but at least I have the guts to insult them when they’re not around.”

The guy I’d been arguing with and I looked at each other, then started laughing so hard that any ill will left from our argument completely dissipated.

 

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