A pithy comic strip about life, love, lust and puthy cats.

Est. 1985

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Letter of the Law

By Jimmy Johnson


Buy the new book, "Beaucoup Arlo & Janis!"Today's "Arlo & Janis!"
Remember the memorable 1997 sequence at the beach, when Gene’s friend Mary Lou is expecting a baby? Of course you remember it; it’s memorable! Well, the above is the lesser-known final cartoon in that storyline; the family is back home, and Mary Lou is forgotten. Or so it seemed at the time. I guess you would equate this one to the little skit they would tack on the end of television sit-coms, little jokes that stood apart from the basic plot. You know, the last minute or so that was always dropped when a show went into syndication, to make room for another commercial.

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236 responses to “Letter of the Law”

  1. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    Good morning Villagers…

    Demise….that’s it, that was the jelly they used on the rods. Yesterday morning they used moist rags and wiped all 120 feet of rod. Finally, after the first skid, the eggs came in cleaner (except for the poop!). The head maintenance man from The Corp is coming by this morning. He said they had ordered plastic sheet/covers for the rods…..now, this should be interesting….and yes, we have thought about using vegetable oil.

    Oh, Indy Mindy, I am so excited for you. fingers are crossed and prayers for you.

    Gal, it sounds like a done deal to me….good for you.

    Emb…. never heard the expression ‘greengrocer’s apostrophe!!! Clue me in…

    TR…that pic will surely raise GR’s blood pressure for sure πŸ™‚ I can picture him now, like Fred Sanford….’it’s the big one Elizabeth’ when he put his hand over his heart πŸ™‚

    Ya’ll have a blessed day…

  2. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    there’s just somethings humans should have left alone…can’t imagine this cat on my lap

    http://cheezburger.com/8477899264

  3. Debbe Avatar
    Debbe

    Jerry, I thought of you and your cat Elvis. On Georgia Dunn’s website, ‘Breaking Cat News”, you can click on a link called ‘Letters to the Editor’….

    here’s the link, they are written from the perspective of cats…some are too funny πŸ™‚

    http://www.breakingcatnews.com/letters-to-the-editor/

  4. Denise in Michigan Avatar
    Denise in Michigan

    Mindy and Gal, how exciting! Prayers for you both that things work out well!

    Jackie, how is your 10-pound travelling companion doing?

    Debbe, when I read “the man from the Corp”, I thought of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” I think your boss should kiss your toes for all the good things you do at work—you truly go above and beyond.

    My thanks for the Mahler, emb, seems to have disappeared from the comments. Thank you!

  5. David in Austin Avatar
    David in Austin
  6. emb Avatar
    emb

    Denise, you’re welcome.

    A famous [and favorite] painting seen in a new light [TIP comic and BlogSpot are identical today]: http://thatispriceless.blogspot.com/

    c x-p: Agreed; the rabbit is boring.

    Debbe: The “greengrocer’s apostrophe” is right there in my quote, an apostrophe misused in writing a plural. The phrase is British, though the sin is as common here. In London we often saw it used by street vendors, e.g. “plum’s 2/6 a pound.”

    As I understand it, apostrophes have 4 legit uses: 1. to show possession: George’s book, Janis’s anxiety]; 2. in contractions: don’t]; 3. to show an oral stop in pronunciation: Hawai’i [not everybody honors that example], M’Koko, [a male gorilla at the Bronx Zoo, ’40s-’50s]. 4. to indicate a quote within a quote: Shirley said, “Get that ‘Atilla the Hun’ out of here!”

    As c x-p noted above, ” once a teacher, always a teacher.”

    Peace, emb

  7. Galliglo from Ohio Avatar
    Galliglo from Ohio

    Denise: I cannot escape the image of Debbe’s boss kissing her toes!

  8. emb Avatar
    emb

    Especially if she works in the henhouse barefoot.

  9. curmudgeonly ex-professor Avatar
    curmudgeonly ex-professor

    Thank you for the link about the apostrophes; I had never seen the information presented so clearly before.
    Associated query (without looking it up): In a usage such as “let’s do it”, the apostrophe seems to replace the letter “u”. Are there other examples of same? For that matter, do some of us write “lets do it” instead?

  10. Galliglo from Ohio Avatar
    Galliglo from Ohio

    cep: My instinctive thought – with verification – would be that the apostrophe indicates the omission of a letter. For example: didn’t is used for did not. Make sense?

  11. Galliglo from Ohio Avatar
    Galliglo from Ohio

    *without verification*
    Posted before I saw emb’s comment. He did the verification!

  12. Jackie monies Avatar
    Jackie monies

    Cool and fire danger dry in Pacific Northwest. Invasion of the blackberry bushes, they get about 20 feet tall, form endless hedges, loaded with giant berries. The briars that ate Pittsburgh. My pony farm, book writing hostess was mixing sourdough for blueberry muffins last night.

    Worth getting up for. I love Melissa, she hates cleaning house and quotes great writers. Told her about Ghost and his encyclopedic memory and $100 words. She wanted to know why some Southern woman hadn’t snatched you uo? Asked how you’d escaped.

    Wish she would join the Village.

  13. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    I’ve often wondered the same. At least, my acclaim has now spread from coast to coast. Does that make me The Coast-to-Coast Ghost?

  14. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Debbe πŸ˜‰ Here’s your (late) tune from last night, hon. I hit the sack very shortly after my 1:00 ayem arrival back at Home Base this morning.

    Not just a different time…a different world.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myVzaR8cmDA

    A lava lamp? Really?

  15. Trapper Jean Avatar
    Trapper Jean

    Debbe, the cat in question is a Sphynx, and they do have hair, sort of. Their skin feels more like suede than normal cat fur. I have a friend who is owned by a Sphynx named Piglet, and the cat has her own FaceBook page-Piglet the Sphynx.

    To Gal and Mindy-good luck on the jobs front!

    Ghost, it’s not so much the lava lamp (which are still neat, by the way) but how do they manage to play their instruments while upside down?

  16. emb Avatar
    emb

    c x-p: “Let’s” = “Let us”, which you rarely hear or read. It’s in the KJV, Luke 2L19, and probably a few other works, and maybe some legal documents. Peace, emb

  17. Sideburns Avatar

    Pratchett has a few minor characters who are greengrocers and always misuse the apostrophe as a matter of pride. It’s bad enough in written communication and even worse when their speaking.

  18. emb Avatar
    emb

    Whoops: “It’s in the KJV, Luke 2:19.” Also, they’re. Peace, emb

  19. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Good question, Jean dear. Seems that all the music would fall out of them before they could play it.

    I don’t know if it was the quality of the old kinescope or what ever you call it, or if Grace was being distracted by her White Rabbit that day and couldn’t quite pull off the lip-sync thing too well.

  20. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Thanks, TR; that was the perfect video for a lecherous pilot…assuming there is such a thing, of course. πŸ™‚

    I will have to say that Ms. Upton was quite the trouper, going above and beyond the call of duty in the video. Much more so than in the TV ads for that medieval on-line war game, in which she merely shows up in a clingy dress and brings her breasts along to appear in a major supporting role.

    Speaking of which, how does one get a job as a BAT (Boob Adjustment Technician), such as the one who appears at about the 30 second mark of the video? The pay might not be much, but the perks are obviously outstanding, seeing as how he took the opportunity cop a feel at that point. Perhaps he is one of the “Cleavage Stylists” that I have long suspected Giada employs on her cooking show.

    [No double entendres were harmed in the making of this post]

  21. Ghost Rider 6 Avatar
    Ghost Rider 6

    Speaking of white rabbits, I did my monthly check-in at 9CL to see if anything actually interesting had occurred. I was shocked (shocked, I tell you!) to find that nothing had. And yes, the white rabbit (if white rabbit it indeed is) has greatly contributed to the current story arc (if arc it indeed is) morphing from insipid to pitiful.

  22. Jackie monies Avatar
    Jackie monies

    My hostess Melissa admired you comprehension of Faulkner, said he was Greek to her. And she is a rocket scientist who writes novels and short stories.

    For Yall, my column is up with my tribute to my late husband and the poem read, written by my late friend Jim Metcalf. I think that poem might suit some of you here. It is called If You Remember Me. Jim was a great journalist in New Orleans and a writer and poet I aspired to be.

    Love Jackie

  23. curmudgeonly ex-professor Avatar
    curmudgeonly ex-professor

    eMb, I must disagree a bit: just listen to two or more youngsters deciding how to amuse themselves. You’d be bound to hear “Let’s play tag.” and similar. In my experience, “let’s” is rather common.

    What intrigues me more is the usage of 2 apostrophes in the same word: “I’d’ve” = “I would have” and parallels for other persons and plurals. Is two apostrophes the maximum in a single word of English?

  24. curmudgeonly ex-professor Avatar
    curmudgeonly ex-professor

    Galliglo, I referred to the apostrophe specifically replacing a “u”. Certainly, replacements of letter(s) is quite usual employment for an apostrophe.

  25. Mark in TTown Avatar
    Mark in TTown

    Ghost, watched your video and can answer one point. That is not kinescope, but black-and-white videotape. Videotape is clearer than kinescope. The kinescope was an arrangement that let a movie camera film what was appearing on a video monitor. And the light flares that happen in this video when they point the camera too much toward the studio lights is because the video tube was very light-sensitive.