Mad Science
You might have already guessed that I’m a big fan of the Girl Genius webcomic. And here we have Madison demonstrating his innate sparkiness. This also ends Chapter One — but we’ll be starting Chapter Two immediately! Drop in over the holidays to catch up!
Speaking of which, I am totes feelin’ the Humbug lately.
This being the first week that my wife and I could really start the Christmas decorations, naturally the first thing you have to do with the tree is put on the lights.
And of course you discover that the lights from last year have mostly burned out, or are damaged because Bob tends to get impatient with them and just chopped them off the previous tree with tin snips.
So. You need new lights. Well, this is not a problem. Lights are cheap. So you head to the bank to get some cash but cannot get to the bank ATM because the Christmas Parade is today and they have cordoned off the street. And you are not about to pay five bucks in fees to use another ATM. Oh well, put the lights on the card.
So you go off to the hardware store to get new lights and all the Christmas stuff is GONE. Yep, all the tattered remains of the Christmas decoration supplies have been shoved off to a Clearance rack to make room for the Spring Patio Furniture displays being set up. Christmas? It’s December 9th, dude! Christmas is over!
All the Clearance Rack has is boxes of green lights with white wire (hundreds of them! One can understand blue, but who needs strands and strands of GREEN Christmas lights?) so you have to leave and go across the street to Rite-Aid.
Okay, Rite-Aid has some Christmas lights. They are not cheap, but they do have a few boxes left of clear bulbs with green wire, as is required. These are taken to the counter along with a Christmas Tree skirt, since you have a live tree this year and need something to cover the plastic pot it is growing in.
At the counter, the salesclerk repeatedly pitches the benefits of signing up for the Rite-Aid Wellness card. You do not want a Rite-Aid Wellness Card. You have not been inside a Rite-Aid in years; and once you have your Christmas lights you do not intend to return. Besides, your wallet is already lumpy with useless cards.
Well, okay, if you are SURE you don’t want the Rite-Aid Wellness card, those prices you thought were expensive were the Member Prices. The price YOU will pay is higher. But at this point you are stubborn, pay for the lights with bad grace, and flee for home.
Home, where lights can finally be put on the tree, and decoration resumed, and you can once again enjoy Christmas shopping as it should be done.
On your computer, in the warm and soothing embrace of Amazon Prime.
Happy Holidays!
Ebenezer Bob out.
Artist’s Notes: Funny how many times I’ve had to draw this kind of “Dr. Frankenstein” scene throughout my career. Just last year I was drawing something like it for a Subway commercial (Yes, I work on those ubiquitous Subway 5 dollar footlong commercials). But some themes just have that real staying power. So when I saw the script for this page, I thought “no sweat.” I had even sketched out a much more dramatic composition initially but it started to lose focus on the rat subject. So I toned it back a bit and made the scale far less epic. BTW, no animals were harmed during the making of this comic. -Max
