Ummm….yes, it does. But by that logic any combination of food could be combined on the outside. And I am not pouring my mustard on pickles into my milk shake, thank you very much.
They taste better separately, just like pickles, mustard, and milkshakes taste better separately.
Some foods improve others they’re paired with; some don’t. As for the “bluh bluh who cares if they’re touching,” if you’re sensitive to those things (particularly if you don’t like the mixed tasted), even a little bit of contact can transfer taste, or ruin a texture, and make it taste worse.
But I don’t put my food together and then take it apart after just so other people don’t think I’m weird. I ask for/get for myself the things I actually want, the way I want them.
That reminds me of those old slim-fast infomercials where some dude would put everything you ate in the day in one big glass bowl to prove how unhealthy your diet is. Coffee, cornflakes, sandwich, fries and ketchup, dollop of ice cream, mix it all up in one nasty mess. The audience would scream and gag.
I had a niece who was a picky eater. I made that exact point. She was traumatized for a week, and her parents were not happy with me for quite a while.
As a picky eater myself, I can tell you that gumbo is nothing before my might. Merely pick out the parts you like first, then feed on the broth, then pick out the leftovers. For last, finish the rice (if you are eating gumbo on rice.)
I’m fine eating pizzas and tacos the way they are, but for trail mix and looser items I usually like eating a bunch of one kind, then a bunch of another kind. It just tastes better to have concentrated flavours sometimes then everything mixed together.
I do that, then I start running through the combinations…
It’s a good thing there are a lot of skittles in a bag, that sort of process can get difficult with shocktarts.
I must separate out Wine Gums, then go through the colours in order of worst to best, usually eating the yellow ones first, saving the green ’til last. Otherwise what’s the point in having them?
I used to work in a cafeteria-style restaurant whose claim to fame was offering 15 different kinds of pie every day. (Guess how I spent my meal allowance.) Anyway, I never could figure out what was odder, the folks who left the edge of the crust (um, it’s made of the same stuff as the rest of the crust, and the you-need-filling-with-crust argument doesn’t work if you eat your pie from side to side rather than from tip to edge) OR the people who only ate the filling and didn’t touch the crust and spent $5 (adjusted for inflation) on three tablespoons of pie filling.
You’ll find no sock-puppets of the big bread companies here! Just concerned fellow-citizens who want you to do the right thing by yourself, your country and The Children. Buy Bread!
The crust touching filling is softer and has absorbed some of the filling’s flavor. The stuff sticking out on top of the edge is just a dry, crunchy breadstick that used to be attached to delicious pie.
That’s easy for the pie crust dilemman, you just eat the slice from the back, or just take big enough bites that you still get crust with your final bites.
I had no idea that people would ever do that to tacos, and now that I know it’s freaking me out. Like, without constructing it you’ve got spiced mince, an awkward nacho and a rubbish salad. Why would you bother?
Also there’s a very strong element that if you never eat things with each other then you’ll never truely appreciate food.
I have seen red paper, green paper and blue paper. All images consist of red, green and blue in my eyes, therefore I have now seen everything worth seeing. I don’t need no stinking paintings. Or videos. Or comics.
Yes, that is clearly exactly the same thing, and not at all like comparing separate types of art to each other. I mean, if you can’t appreciate video games, you can NEVER truly appreciate any art, ever!
This went hyperbolic quite fast but the colours example is actually quite fitting.
You might prefer individual tastes, and that’s fine! You like what you like. But you really are missing out, and the entire history of gastronomy would back me up on that.
When I get two dishes on the same plate for lunch, I try to haul them apart just so I can taste them separately, but I don’t dissect the things that are meant to be one food.
There is nothing to understand, it is just what someone likes. One cannot explain or use logic to decide what flavors they like or do not like, and those who separate/ mix foods or love/ disdain crusts should not be denigrated for something that is not a choice.
Yeah, I totally blanked on what he was talking about for a few seconds before I remembered yesterday’s strip. I’ve been reading too much Shortpacked! and getting confused
Have you tried talking to yourself? You’d be tongue tied too. The only reason the other girls are immune is cuz they’re protected by a shield of boyfriends.
Hard to tell. The line patterns look like a soccer ball, but the coloration looks more like a volley ball, which I think are softer. They play catch with it later.
I think she’s having trouble maintaining her “I don’t want to be with anyone, I don’t need a guy I’ve got toys” attitude. She can’t be her normal antisocial self here, and with that part of her shutdown there isn’t much left of her personality.
And we all know how well that mentality worked out for Dorothy…
Willis is probably thinking something along the lines of “Those guys will never graduate, so why care about their studies ?”.
She likes Jacob and is totally DTF, but at the same time is kinda shy/unsure of both her intentions and of how to make the attraction mutual. Her uncertainty is manifesting itself in a cute tongue-tied ”I can’t say anything except ‘yeah'” manner ’cause she’s in front of her crush.
Christening the USS Sarah/Jacob and shipping it hard.
Darn you King Mabel, now I’m picturing the commenters going “Shipper no shipping! Shipper no shipping! SHIPPER NO SHIPPING!” and the shipper then going “Aw, man!”
Joyce does kind of have a point. I’m pretty sure everyone at that table already thought she was weird. ‘Cept maaaaaybe Jacob, and seeing as how she’s dating his roommate, she wasn’t going to keep it secret from him long, if she hasn’t blown her cover already.
Given that his reaction was, “You little white kids all run off the same script, don’t you,” no, I don’t think “weird” is the right word. “Disappointingly typical,” maybe.
Sal told her to embrace what she is and be comfortable in her Joyceness.
Which she ignored on the swearing issue, but you got to start somewhere. Tacos are as good a place as any.
Fried rice. A lot of small stuff mixed together.
Chex mix, to see if she does this handful by handful or if she grabs a bunch then meticulously separates it.
Ice cream bar. A Swirly mixed ice cream cone (at least 3 components). Chocolate chip cookie – one of those dried supermarket ones – crumbly mess, she’s look nuts (nuttier).
Marble cake with frosting and jimmies. Find out if the chocolate cake and vanilla are considered separate.
Anything multi-layered.
A whole turducken.
Stuffed French toast. Would she scrape all traces of the filling from the bread? Would she pour syrup on the side?
Soup in a bread bowl.
Nesting fowl is a time-honored tradition dating back to the Middle Ages. I recall reading about one where they had a goose on the outside and a single quail egg on the inside, and various birds of assorted sizes in between. Made a turducken look downright unambitious.
In his 1807 Almanach des Gourmands, gastronomist Grimod de La Reynière presents his rôti sans pareil (“incomparable roast”)—a bustard stuffed with a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, an ortolan bunting, a garden warbler, and a single olive.
My school has tacos weekly, I see some people try to put the perfect amount on each. I mean the PERFECT amount. I watch these people. Watch them as they oh, so carefully put the tiniest piece of meat, back, and on, and back, and on. Then go to their table. And then. Proceed to give NO fucks about the meat that falls off. I, of course, find it weird. Although I’m incredibly aware I watch these people too.
Now I want a taco… Before this summer (when I lived in a situation that involved daily group dinners, cooking rotations and many people who loved Mexican food) I’d only had tacos twice in my life.
So Sarah has seen Jacob before. Basically every day this year. Is she so dumbstruck by his close presence. Has she been to shy to even say hi to him before now? Is she that focused on her studies? Or us there a backstory here and extra drama?
Sal and many of the guys. It might be implicit that, being in the same dorm floor people see each other, but she has yet to talk to most of the guys.
Walky and Mike for sure.
Joe must not have seen her at all. While the guys may be dating/trying to date the Dorothy/Amber type, it’s pretty well implied that Sal is the hottest. At least by Billie. If Joe had seen her, she’d be interested.
Surprisingly I don’t think Roz has met most of the guys either. Joe yes and she is in a class with Walky. Mike barged in one day to Batman Gambit Walky, but they never interacted.
If you only count spoken than I don’t think so.
Then again, if you only count spoken then Dina only spoke to Mike from behind a door, talked to Joyce, Sarah, and Billie. She went to the beach with some of the above plus Dorothy and Sal, but didn’t speak to each of them. Has seen Amber, but not spoken.
And of course Amazi-Girl has only spoken to Danny, Amber, and some miscreants.
Dan hasn’t spoken with Sal, Dina, Roz, or Ruth IIRC.
Then again, given the general disdain the readership has for Dan, I don’t think anybody is looking to ship him unless they like writing stuff with a Gimp or a cuckhold situation.
I separate out Skittles, M&M’s, Reese’s, etc. by color, eat the excesses from each color to “load balance” it, and then eat the remainders in groups of one each.
Oh, and I arrange the piles in hexagonally packed planes. Out OOC that!
I eat M&Ms semi-randomly, but if possible I save one of each color until last. And then I eat them in the order that their respective sailor senshi died at the end of sailor moon season 1. (Green, blue, orange, red, brown, yellow.) How’s that?
Yes, I’m not the only one! 😀 With multi-coloured candy I do as Valdrax – only that I eat the groups in order of the colours in the rainbow (or the reverse) and arrange them in lines or circles. It isn’t that I can’t eat them otherwise, it’s more of a game/habit.
Apart from that I prefer not to mix certain kinds of food that others happily mix and eat together but nothing extreme like dear Joyce.
I used to eat M&Ms by gladiatorial combat: separating them into colors, mashing ones of the two most numerous colors together, and eating whichever one cracked first. Repeat until there was only one color left. The winners would get eaten last.
I also do most tasty to least tasty sometimes, if I’ve got the patience for some delayed gratification. If I have steak, there’s no way I’m waiting, because I need as much space as possible in my stomach for that deliciousness.
I also tend to eat things in patterns (usually by certain bite amounts, chewed in certain parts of my mouth in certain ways). I am aware that this is completely pointless but it is very difficult to stop.
With M&Ms I always save the blue ones for last, except maybe if I have one handful with one of every color (sometimes with an extra blue), one each of red, blue, and yellow, or two blues and one red.
I will eat pretty much anything with rice or wrapped in a tortilla, regardless of the type of food.
If it is shaped like anything with limbs and a head (like an animal cracker) I will bite off the limbs first, then the head, and finally eat the body. Every time, without fail.
All of the portions on my plate have to be equal to each other and I will eat them so that they remain equal until they are all gone.
[Leaving aside how problematic notions of race are, in general] If it had been another comic writer I might have been mildly concerned that a character seemed to be displaying attraction only towards someone of their own race and would have adopted a ‘wait and see’ approach. But I think DoA readers overwhelmingly trust Willis in this regard.
That doesn’t apply in a comic where there’ve already been several mixed-race relationships – Walky & Dorothy, Jason & Sal, Ruth & Billie (kinda). I’ve seen someone express on Tumblr that it’d be nice, for a change, to see a PoC-couple – something we don’t yet have on Dumbing of Age.
By ‘trust’ I more meant that Willis’ track record is good, not ‘I like him so I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt.’ I also meant to imply that given the spectrum of what we’ve seen, it didn’t really seem like an issue for someone’s first (overt) attraction to be toward someone of the same race. Whereas for another writer who had touched upon these issues less, I might have been more wary. Although I myself am a little bemused at why I brought that ‘another comic writer’ element into what I said. I hope that makes sense.
I was actually referring to what I though would be the most discussed topic in the comment section for this one (based on previous comics), but I was wrong this time around since the separation of food on on one’s plate won out. Heh.
I dislike it when people get their panties in a twist about two people of the same race dating. Yes it’s nice to see people in a mixed race relationship. Hell, I’ve been in mixed race relationships before, as well as same race. But the thing is, attraction shouldn’t matter. Sarah’s attraction shouldn’t be limited. People of the same race often have cultural similarities, and that can be a nice thing to have in common. If Sarah likes a black guy, let her like a black guy.
I think you’ve gotten slightly the wrong idea Em. Sensedog has explained his post was about anticipating the flow of discourse, whilst mine boiled down to saying that it’s a bit of a non-issue here and DoA readers were unlikely to be bothered.
In hindsight it probably would have been better not to have said anything, so as to avoid any confusion or kerfuffles ^_^
Uh-oh. I have seen what Joyce is doing IRL and it ain’t pretty. Every time I saw this the person suffered from an abusive and over-controlled childhood. We already know she was home-schooled to keep her from being “contaminated” by secular forces, what else went on?
Some people are just picky, too. It happens. I would always eat my food one at a time as a kid. I wouldn’t separate them, but I’d finish one part before moving on to the next.
I think it’s a little much to imply that separating out different parts of your food generally equals an abusive and over-controlled childhood.
I used to do that and while my childhood shares bears some parallels with Joyce’s (raised in an evangelical household) my parents were neither abusive nor over-controlling.
Last time we saw Joyce do this, she said that “it’s not God’s doctrine, it’s just mine.” I think the separating is definitely just a personal picky thing.
Not abusive, but I think it’s pretty clear that Joyce’s parents are massively over-controlling. I mean, even now she’s not living at home, they still come and attempt to dictate what friends she can have, what hats she can wear, and what shows she can watch.
Unless of course, it’s been proven that the two are linked.
If: to your knowledge/in your experience the two correlate, then witnessing one gives you grounds to look out for signs of the other.
But even if it’s a 100% success rate so far, what you shouldn’t do is jump the gun and assume that because the two correlate, and you’ve witnessed one, that the other is definitely present.
Man, no. My parents bongoed at me for doing exactly what she’s doing, and I could see her parents trying to get her to stop, too. It’s just a personal preference thing.
Hey just as a heads-up .. it would be more polite to link to the page that one is listed on instead of the image itself. This goes for anything you ever share via social media as well. I know we all know who made this and are on the site already, but it’s an important habit to make sure the creator is directly linked to.
That could be it. I’m definitely reading her body language as discomfort or embassesment, instead of shyness. Your guess might be a bit more in keeping with her personality than my outlandish speculation.
I like to take my food in order of least tasty to most tasty, myself. But then, some things you have got to alternate to get the flavor contrast. I do take sandwhichs apart in restaurants, if for example, they put onions on it, and I don’t want them: I remover them. Onions are good on some things not on others. The flavor is not a problem and easily removed.
On the other hand, melted cheese and the sandwich has to go back (im lactose intolerant) and getting melted cheese off a sandwich is a big pain.
So maybe people that remove an item off food aren’t all nuts. We sometimes have reasons and not constricted childhoods or other deep reasons. Just too lazy to walk up to counter and ask for a new sandwhich. (unless it has melted cheese 🙂
Huh, I didn’t know someone else did that a swell. I eat what I like the least first, leaving the tasty delicious things I enjoy for the later part of the meal, allowing me to savor them without spoiling the taste with things I dislike 🙂
No, you are not the only one, but reading the comments helped me put it in context. And that was after going back to the last page to see if I had missed something.
I bet Joyce will both love and hate Chinese food. She will love the part about a lot of them are separated. But then she well encounter foods like I bet she lost her mind!
Anyone watch the movie Toys? I loved the part where LL Cool J’s character talks about his food touching.
“I want my string beans to be quarantined! I like a little fortress around my mashed potatoes so the meatloaf doesn’t invade my mashed potatoes and cause mixing in my plate! I HATE IT when food touches!”
I had a mental picture of the taco ingredients standing in a circle with their guns pointed at one another. After I stopped laughing I realized it would have been a Mexican standoff and I started laughing again.
As a kid, I think I had the opposite food problem. Eating a roast dinner, I’d obsessively make sure that every single forkful contained meat, potato, peas and gravy. If there was sausagemeat, stuffing, carrots and parsnips too, the fork-loads were massive.
Shy Sarah! Holy poop I don’t think we’ve seen this yet! While I love seeing brusque Sarah, I love getting to see the sides of her that she tries so hard to bury. It’s nice to get to see her range of emotions.
I think I need to put “I purposefully don’t use the punchline in the strip title because that’s kind of being a dick to folks who click through the twitter links” in the FAQ.
For some reason, this strip keeps bugging me. I think it’s the phrase “acceptable loss” since it sort of parallels Ruth’s use of it towards Billie from earlier. It seems like an odd phrase for Joyce to use, but I guess it’s just a personal problem since I now equate that phrase with Ruth being really mean. Anyhow, now that everyone else thinks I’m crazy as well, I’ll just go on with my life.
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What fun.
Butt taco fun.
Tacos, but…
FUN.
Tacos, butt fun?
I will continue to never understand people who do this.
Agreed.
It’ll all touch in your tummy anyway. . .
but it doesn’t touch in your mouth, and that is what’s important, though I never did that with tacos.
Ummm….yes, it does. But by that logic any combination of food could be combined on the outside. And I am not pouring my mustard on pickles into my milk shake, thank you very much.
Well, if you’re going to eat mustard or pickles you have to face the consequences.
Some flavors don’t go together, but what does that have to do with obsessively separating all ingredients of your food because they touch each other?
They taste better separately, just like pickles, mustard, and milkshakes taste better separately.
Some foods improve others they’re paired with; some don’t. As for the “bluh bluh who cares if they’re touching,” if you’re sensitive to those things (particularly if you don’t like the mixed tasted), even a little bit of contact can transfer taste, or ruin a texture, and make it taste worse.
But I don’t put my food together and then take it apart after just so other people don’t think I’m weird. I ask for/get for myself the things I actually want, the way I want them.
When you say milkshakes taste better separately, do you mean you drink the milk and eat the ice cream and fruit individually?
Ew, fruit in milkshakes? Blech.
That reminds me of those old slim-fast infomercials where some dude would put everything you ate in the day in one big glass bowl to prove how unhealthy your diet is. Coffee, cornflakes, sandwich, fries and ketchup, dollop of ice cream, mix it all up in one nasty mess. The audience would scream and gag.
Hey. Don’t knock it til you try it.
I had a niece who was a picky eater. I made that exact point. She was traumatized for a week, and her parents were not happy with me for quite a while.
“Had” a niece? I guess she was so traumatized she shuffled off?
I wonder what’s the proper age for a person to find out that things happen to your food after you put it in your mouth.
I can’t wait to see what she does with combination fried rice.
Just give her a Chicken pot Pie. She’ll go insane.
Give her a bowl of gumbo… see the fear on her face….
As a picky eater myself, I can tell you that gumbo is nothing before my might. Merely pick out the parts you like first, then feed on the broth, then pick out the leftovers. For last, finish the rice (if you are eating gumbo on rice.)
you are awesome.
Give Joyce a cake and she’ll somehow be able seperate the milk, eggs, flour and other ingredients. 😀
Plasma, I think your new avatar pic is from…. well, Avatar. But who’s the artist? It looks pretty good (and sexy).
dA surprisingly.
Haha that’s totally me though xD
I’m fine eating pizzas and tacos the way they are, but for trail mix and looser items I usually like eating a bunch of one kind, then a bunch of another kind. It just tastes better to have concentrated flavours sometimes then everything mixed together.
I separate pizza when I eat it. That way I can decide which of the deliscious flavors is strongest at the end.
I eat skittles one at a time. Because I must see the color I’m going to eat.
Weird, I see the colors after I eat them, though it may take a few hours…
It doesn’t matter if you put different coloured Smarties in your mouth, if you suck on them enough, they will all turn white.
And in the end, colors don’t matter, because they all come from the same factory. Just like humans.
There is no black or white, only Soylent Green.
I’m not sure if you keep one-upping me, or if I just give really good set ups…
I go with the latter, when I post comments in CRACKED, I am pleased whenever I get lots of thumb-ups and/or clever/funny replies.
Sometimes it is more fun to play the straight man.
That’s what Ethan claims, anyway.
hahaha
but the purple smarties still taste ucky before you suck off the color…
Blasphemer! The purple ones are the best.
I use to do that but now i eat them all at once it’s like a rainbow in my mouth
In Craig Ferguson voice
“That sounded dirty”
I do that, then I start running through the combinations…
It’s a good thing there are a lot of skittles in a bag, that sort of process can get difficult with shocktarts.
I must separate out Wine Gums, then go through the colours in order of worst to best, usually eating the yellow ones first, saving the green ’til last. Otherwise what’s the point in having them?
I used to work in a cafeteria-style restaurant whose claim to fame was offering 15 different kinds of pie every day. (Guess how I spent my meal allowance.) Anyway, I never could figure out what was odder, the folks who left the edge of the crust (um, it’s made of the same stuff as the rest of the crust, and the you-need-filling-with-crust argument doesn’t work if you eat your pie from side to side rather than from tip to edge) OR the people who only ate the filling and didn’t touch the crust and spent $5 (adjusted for inflation) on three tablespoons of pie filling.
Pie filling often tastes gross, but the filling tastes so good.
Sigh. I meant the crust often tastes gross but the filling tastes good.
The crust is the best part of pie AND pizza…
What are you, some kind of bread propagandist ?
You’ll find no sock-puppets of the big bread companies here! Just concerned fellow-citizens who want you to do the right thing by yourself, your country and The Children. Buy Bread!
Beware wheat and wheat by-products!
Mmmm, wheat.
Like beer? Nooooooooooooooooooo!
The crust touching filling is softer and has absorbed some of the filling’s flavor. The stuff sticking out on top of the edge is just a dry, crunchy breadstick that used to be attached to delicious pie.
Some people don’t like the dry, browned crust around the rim. Others like it for the latter reason.
That’s easy for the pie crust dilemman, you just eat the slice from the back, or just take big enough bites that you still get crust with your final bites.
I had no idea that people would ever do that to tacos, and now that I know it’s freaking me out. Like, without constructing it you’ve got spiced mince, an awkward nacho and a rubbish salad. Why would you bother?
Also there’s a very strong element that if you never eat things with each other then you’ll never truely appreciate food.
A very stupid argument.
*element, not argument
There’s no “true” appreciation of food except appreciating food. Some of us appreciate it better when the tastes are separate.
I have seen red paper, green paper and blue paper. All images consist of red, green and blue in my eyes, therefore I have now seen everything worth seeing. I don’t need no stinking paintings. Or videos. Or comics.
>_>
Yes, that is clearly exactly the same thing, and not at all like comparing separate types of art to each other. I mean, if you can’t appreciate video games, you can NEVER truly appreciate any art, ever!
This went hyperbolic quite fast but the colours example is actually quite fitting.
You might prefer individual tastes, and that’s fine! You like what you like. But you really are missing out, and the entire history of gastronomy would back me up on that.
There’s always the possibility of defective receptors.
Like cats. Cats can’t register ‘sweet’ with their tongues.
When I get two dishes on the same plate for lunch, I try to haul them apart just so I can taste them separately, but I don’t dissect the things that are meant to be one food.
ditto, unless I don’t like some of the parts, those parts get dissected out.
I agree. Once the foods have touched each other, all hope is lost to separate them. You must never allow them to touch in the first place.
There is nothing to understand, it is just what someone likes. One cannot explain or use logic to decide what flavors they like or do not like, and those who separate/ mix foods or love/ disdain crusts should not be denigrated for something that is not a choice.
The back row, eh?
Zero Eye Contact. I am sensing a LOT of attraction there.
in the back row
STARING AT DAT ASS
Who needs to learn about law when you got…
DAT ASS?!?
Learning about reBUTTals are an important part of law you know.
Not to mention HabeARSE corpus.
Yeah.
Collateral damage
Home wrecker? I smell this weeks drama bomb.
Nevermind, I totally missed the fact it was a joke.
Yeah, I totally blanked on what he was talking about for a few seconds before I remembered yesterday’s strip. I’ve been reading too much Shortpacked! and getting confused
Dina’s at the next table over thinking “What a freak” while pouring herself an eighth bowl of cereal.
Riley is next to Dina, learning from the master.
And I Joyce still continues to amuse me.
My sister does the same thing, but with Hot Pockets
I have trouble eating tacos. I understand why Joyce would do such a thing.
But what about the butt tacos?!?!?!?!
Eww, no.
Separate but enjoyable.
I see what you did there, Wonder Wig.
No Joyce, take it from a Mexican, if the meat is not INSIDE the tortilla then it is NOT a taco.
What if the cheese and the sauce is there, but the meat gets taken out? Is it still a taco?
No. Now it’s just Cheesey Sausey Tortillas.
Those can be enchaladas!
Is it still a taco? Nacho-ally!
I am going to have to hurt you for that.
Tie him by his feet and drag him through the You Tube comments section.
What if you put nacho chips in a taco of only meat and cheese?
Can I have a burrito with only steak and still call it a steak burrito?
Last question: If I make a really small burrito, do I have to call it a taquito?
Yes
If I make a really big burrito, do I call it a burro?
du-dum..Tziz!(drums onomatopeia)
I want a burrito literally the volume of my head.
Joyce’s plate has its own sitcom.
Poor Sarah – she seems to have lost the ability to say anything other than “yeah.” Real smooth.
Have you tried talking to yourself? You’d be tongue tied too. The only reason the other girls are immune is cuz they’re protected by a shield of boyfriends.
She needs to throw a toy at his face, Walky swears by it.
If Sarah threw one of her “toys”, it would definitely get his attention, methinks.
I noticed the other day that Joyce tried throwing a toy at Dorothy’s head, too.
Apparently that’s the tried and true method of getting Dorothy to like you.
Also is that a soccer ball? Because that would kind of hurt landing on your head with no warning.
Hard to tell. The line patterns look like a soccer ball, but the coloration looks more like a volley ball, which I think are softer. They play catch with it later.
I’ve said it before, but I’d be all for a Joyce/Dorothy/Walky threesome.
And why shouldn’t he? It has a 100% success rate.
I don’t know how he’s eating that apple without smudging his tangerine lipstick.
Magic. Or some of that super smudge proof lipstick. The kind you have to take off with steel wool and prayers.
What’s up, Sarah?
Yeah! Is this just what shy looks like on her? Or is there something more . . . ?
I can’t read her at all right now.
I think she’s having trouble maintaining her “I don’t want to be with anyone, I don’t need a guy I’ve got toys” attitude. She can’t be her normal antisocial self here, and with that part of her shutdown there isn’t much left of her personality.
No, more like we just haven’t been shown it yet. But we’re seeing it now.
Her attitude isn’t so much as “I don’t want to be with anyone” as “I want to focus on school without distractions.”
And we all know how well that mentality worked out for Dorothy…
Willis is probably thinking something along the lines of “Those guys will never graduate, so why care about their studies ?”.
She likes Jacob and is totally DTF, but at the same time is kinda shy/unsure of both her intentions and of how to make the attraction mutual. Her uncertainty is manifesting itself in a cute tongue-tied ”I can’t say anything except ‘yeah'” manner ’cause she’s in front of her crush.
Christening the USS Sarah/Jacob and shipping it hard.
I never knew that Joyce practiced ingredient apartheid, does this mean that Joyce hates sandwiches?
Sandwiches are what’s wrong with this country!
GENTLEMEN, WE ARE SANDWICHES!
UND VE WILL HAVE WAR!
Tacos should not be able to marry other tacos! Marriage is defined as the union between one taco and one fajita.
Perfect gravatar for that!
I feel that’s discriminatory against burritos, enchiladas, and quesadillas. 😛
She’s generally not in favor of any kind of meat-in-the-middle action.
If ya know what I mean.
“God created ingredients SEPARATE. …That’s not the church’s doctrine, it’s just mine.” — Joyce
Then don’t eat tacos.
Jacob is a burrito.
It may be premature, but I’m now shipping Sarah and Jacob.
I think Sarah is shipping Sarah and Jacob, but doesn’t want to admit it.
All characters are shipped until we say “no shipping here”.
Even that taco meat is being shipped as we speak.
Amber/Blaine? Ruth/Howard? Riley/Roz?
ALL POSSIBLE (considering no one objects)
Well, hopefully some people do, unless you want a bunch of traumatized characters.
Amber/Blaine is a nono, we must never go there.
Oh god. You put it out there and now it exists. Why on Earth would you do that? Have you no regard for your fellow man?
Also, I would totally hate/ship AmberxBlaine if they weren’t, ya know, father and daughter. I just can’t approve of incest like that.
Nobody seems as Mad about Riley/Roz. Even though they’re sisters and one is 6 years older than the other, who still hasn’t reached high school.
I’d ship the taco meat with the taco shell, but it has a restraining order.
Plus isn’t it a rule than anything that needs to be together to work can’t be shipped together?
Or is that just a military thing?
Darn you King Mabel, now I’m picturing the commenters going “Shipper no shipping! Shipper no shipping! SHIPPER NO SHIPPING!” and the shipper then going “Aw, man!”
We know no such thing.
I’m shipping Joceline and Jacob.
You’re also shipping Dina/Faz, so your judgment is suspect, to say the least.
Nah, premature was when Joyce started it.
Well, now we know they have at least two things in common:
1) Pre-law class
2) Knowing Joyce is weird
That last is pretty much a universal constant. The cafeteria girl knows too; she was just too polite to say anything.
Well, he may be the first person that we’ve seen that she wasn’t necessarily hostile to when first meeting, so that may well be 🙂
It would be ironic after he told Joyce “all… white kids run work off the same script.”
Joyce does kind of have a point. I’m pretty sure everyone at that table already thought she was weird. ‘Cept maaaaaybe Jacob, and seeing as how she’s dating his roommate, she wasn’t going to keep it secret from him long, if she hasn’t blown her cover already.
But she could still potentially keep it secret from the cafeteria girl!
Pretty sure Jacob thought Joyce was weird back when she was yelling about how he and Sarah needed to hook up before they even met.
(Although weird might not be the right word)
Given that his reaction was, “You little white kids all run off the same script, don’t you,” no, I don’t think “weird” is the right word. “Disappointingly typical,” maybe.
Sal told her to embrace what she is and be comfortable in her Joyceness.
Which she ignored on the swearing issue, but you got to start somewhere. Tacos are as good a place as any.
Eh? Her Joyceness includes not swearing, and she just defended that.
Her Joyceness is not amused.
I want to see Joyce try this with like vegetable soup or something.
Fried rice. A lot of small stuff mixed together.
Chex mix, to see if she does this handful by handful or if she grabs a bunch then meticulously separates it.
Ice cream bar. A Swirly mixed ice cream cone (at least 3 components). Chocolate chip cookie – one of those dried supermarket ones – crumbly mess, she’s look nuts (nuttier).
Marble cake with frosting and jimmies. Find out if the chocolate cake and vanilla are considered separate.
Anything multi-layered.
A whole turducken.
Stuffed French toast. Would she scrape all traces of the filling from the bread? Would she pour syrup on the side?
Soup in a bread bowl.
Sorry, Ourorboros, you lost me at “turducken”. Whoever came up with that had to have been ill.
Nesting fowl is a time-honored tradition dating back to the Middle Ages. I recall reading about one where they had a goose on the outside and a single quail egg on the inside, and various birds of assorted sizes in between. Made a turducken look downright unambitious.
In his 1807 Almanach des Gourmands, gastronomist Grimod de La Reynière presents his rôti sans pareil (“incomparable roast”)—a bustard stuffed with a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, an ortolan bunting, a garden warbler, and a single olive.
That sounds like something done to wretched excess, not like something I’d wish to have for dinner.
They probably got the idea from the old bedouin tale of having a stuffed camel at a wedding feast.
My school has tacos weekly, I see some people try to put the perfect amount on each. I mean the PERFECT amount. I watch these people. Watch them as they oh, so carefully put the tiniest piece of meat, back, and on, and back, and on. Then go to their table. And then. Proceed to give NO fucks about the meat that falls off. I, of course, find it weird. Although I’m incredibly aware I watch these people too.
…and then I’m assuming are victim to first bite destruction (FBD) on their fist bit of said tacos?
FBD is both a great term, and why burritos are so much better than tacos.
I plan for it, by always having an I empty tortilla beneath the ones I fill. The droppings form a pretty well mixed taco.
Now I want a taco… Before this summer (when I lived in a situation that involved daily group dinners, cooking rotations and many people who loved Mexican food) I’d only had tacos twice in my life.
Jacob knows what’s up with that Macintosh apple. That is a Macintosh, right Willis?
Looks like a red delicious to me.
Pfft, that’s clearly a honeycrisp.
IT JUST HAPPENS TO BE ALL RED ON THE SIDE THAT’S FACING US.
I’ve been thinking… Which of the main characters (let’s limit them to the ones on the cast page) have yet to meet?
We know for a fact that Amber has only seen Sal once, but they’ve never spoken, so I’m not counting it as “meeting”.
Ethan hasn’t met Sarah.
Yes, he has.
Have Billie & Ethan met?
Yes, Billie has checked Ethan out soon after he had his haircut, but I don’t feel like archive searching again.
I believe you, Plasma. Sorry for throwing the Q out there when I could just peruse the archive myself! 😀
It’s ok.
Yep. Panel one there’s in the running for “cutest Billie”.
I remember Billie-naga now.
My picks:
I guess both panels are pretty cute…
Last panel, d’awww.
I beg to differ:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/04-time-keeps-on-slippin/impressed-2/
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/04-time-keeps-on-slippin/manual/
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/04-time-keeps-on-slippin/revulsion/
Dina and Joe have been in the same hallway/foyer but have not spoken nor acknowledged the other’s existence.
Ruth hasn’t met some of the boys. I know she’s met Ethan, Walky and Joe brieflt, but I don’t think she’s met Danny or Mike.
*briefly
Ruth encountered Danny way back on move-in day.
She’s also met Mike.
I don’t know if that counts as meeting Mike. I think she’s just passing in the hallway, overhears Joe’s question, and responds to it.
Actually, Amber recognizes Sal when they pass in the hall, so it’s implied that they’ve seen each other before.
So Sarah has seen Jacob before. Basically every day this year. Is she so dumbstruck by his close presence. Has she been to shy to even say hi to him before now? Is she that focused on her studies? Or us there a backstory here and extra drama?
Sal and many of the guys. It might be implicit that, being in the same dorm floor people see each other, but she has yet to talk to most of the guys.
Walky and Mike for sure.
Joe must not have seen her at all. While the guys may be dating/trying to date the Dorothy/Amber type, it’s pretty well implied that Sal is the hottest. At least by Billie. If Joe had seen her, she’d be interested.
Surprisingly I don’t think Roz has met most of the guys either. Joe yes and she is in a class with Walky. Mike barged in one day to Batman Gambit Walky, but they never interacted.
If you only count spoken than I don’t think so.
Then again, if you only count spoken then Dina only spoke to Mike from behind a door, talked to Joyce, Sarah, and Billie. She went to the beach with some of the above plus Dorothy and Sal, but didn’t speak to each of them. Has seen Amber, but not spoken.
And of course Amazi-Girl has only spoken to Danny, Amber, and some miscreants.
Dina has certainly spoken to Amber, probably more than she has anyone else. They’re roommates.
Amazi-Girl has spoken with Danny, Dorothy, Billie, Sarah, and kind of Joyce, though Joyce was drugged at the time, as well as various miscreants.
Dan hasn’t spoken with Sal, Dina, Roz, or Ruth IIRC.
Then again, given the general disdain the readership has for Dan, I don’t think anybody is looking to ship him unless they like writing stuff with a Gimp or a cuckhold situation.
Starting a Wierd food habbits chain:
I like to eat all my food in order of least tasty to most tasty.
Also I eat my pizzas crust first.
I only eat the pizza crust if it isn’t too dry.
I eat hotdogs with ketchup.
I like them with hot sauce.
I’ve eaten grapes and broccoli with ketchup.
I’ve eaten plain bread with ketchup..just ketchup.
I had black licorice flavoured ice-cream.
That’s completely and totally normal where I’m from.
Weird is eating mayo on a hot dog, which I did a lot as a kid.
There are less things that I don’t put Sriracha on than those that I do.
Btw good call on your habit
I separate out Skittles, M&M’s, Reese’s, etc. by color, eat the excesses from each color to “load balance” it, and then eat the remainders in groups of one each.
Oh, and I arrange the piles in hexagonally packed planes. Out OOC that!
I do that with M&Ms.
I eat the legs off Koala March cookies first.
I eat the cream (or trash the cream) of Oreos first because the cream sucks and the cookie is the good part.
I eat M&Ms semi-randomly, but if possible I save one of each color until last. And then I eat them in the order that their respective sailor senshi died at the end of sailor moon season 1. (Green, blue, orange, red, brown, yellow.) How’s that?
That’s kind of crazy, but luckily it’s the awesome kind.
I always eat Skittles in groups of exactly three, two of one color and one of a third.
This can get logistically awkward towards the end of the pack.
Yes, I’m not the only one! 😀 With multi-coloured candy I do as Valdrax – only that I eat the groups in order of the colours in the rainbow (or the reverse) and arrange them in lines or circles. It isn’t that I can’t eat them otherwise, it’s more of a game/habit.
Apart from that I prefer not to mix certain kinds of food that others happily mix and eat together but nothing extreme like dear Joyce.
I used to eat M&Ms by gladiatorial combat: separating them into colors, mashing ones of the two most numerous colors together, and eating whichever one cracked first. Repeat until there was only one color left. The winners would get eaten last.
…this is freaky. I do the EXACT SAME THING.
…are we secretly twins?
I put basalmic vinager, gravy and ketchup on my fries.
I also do most tasty to least tasty sometimes, if I’ve got the patience for some delayed gratification. If I have steak, there’s no way I’m waiting, because I need as much space as possible in my stomach for that deliciousness.
I also tend to eat things in patterns (usually by certain bite amounts, chewed in certain parts of my mouth in certain ways). I am aware that this is completely pointless but it is very difficult to stop.
With M&Ms I always save the blue ones for last, except maybe if I have one handful with one of every color (sometimes with an extra blue), one each of red, blue, and yellow, or two blues and one red.
My mom was into peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches.
I’m into French fries with tartar sauce.
I usually eat my fries with just salt, but tartar sauce on fries is pretty good; better than ketchup.
I’m a little dubious about the peanut butter and mayonnaise sammiches, though.
I will eat pretty much anything with rice or wrapped in a tortilla, regardless of the type of food.
If it is shaped like anything with limbs and a head (like an animal cracker) I will bite off the limbs first, then the head, and finally eat the body. Every time, without fail.
All of the portions on my plate have to be equal to each other and I will eat them so that they remain equal until they are all gone.
Oh, no. Joyce is one of those people. o_O
Yes, it would seem that Sarah is attracted to Jacob. Que to the inevitable discussions regarding race, attraction, dating, etc.
[Leaving aside how problematic notions of race are, in general] If it had been another comic writer I might have been mildly concerned that a character seemed to be displaying attraction only towards someone of their own race and would have adopted a ‘wait and see’ approach. But I think DoA readers overwhelmingly trust Willis in this regard.
That doesn’t apply in a comic where there’ve already been several mixed-race relationships – Walky & Dorothy, Jason & Sal, Ruth & Billie (kinda). I’ve seen someone express on Tumblr that it’d be nice, for a change, to see a PoC-couple – something we don’t yet have on Dumbing of Age.
Absolutely agreed =-)
By ‘trust’ I more meant that Willis’ track record is good, not ‘I like him so I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt.’ I also meant to imply that given the spectrum of what we’ve seen, it didn’t really seem like an issue for someone’s first (overt) attraction to be toward someone of the same race. Whereas for another writer who had touched upon these issues less, I might have been more wary. Although I myself am a little bemused at why I brought that ‘another comic writer’ element into what I said. I hope that makes sense.
Not my finest paragraph in all truth.
I was actually referring to what I though would be the most discussed topic in the comment section for this one (based on previous comics), but I was wrong this time around since the separation of food on on one’s plate won out. Heh.
I dislike it when people get their panties in a twist about two people of the same race dating. Yes it’s nice to see people in a mixed race relationship. Hell, I’ve been in mixed race relationships before, as well as same race. But the thing is, attraction shouldn’t matter. Sarah’s attraction shouldn’t be limited. People of the same race often have cultural similarities, and that can be a nice thing to have in common. If Sarah likes a black guy, let her like a black guy.
I agree, Em.
I think you’ve gotten slightly the wrong idea Em. Sensedog has explained his post was about anticipating the flow of discourse, whilst mine boiled down to saying that it’s a bit of a non-issue here and DoA readers were unlikely to be bothered.
In hindsight it probably would have been better not to have said anything, so as to avoid any confusion or kerfuffles ^_^
Uh-oh. I have seen what Joyce is doing IRL and it ain’t pretty. Every time I saw this the person suffered from an abusive and over-controlled childhood. We already know she was home-schooled to keep her from being “contaminated” by secular forces, what else went on?
They told her that not all taco pieces were created equal.
Maybe she was forced to always eat her tacos a certain way?
Some people are just picky, too. It happens. I would always eat my food one at a time as a kid. I wouldn’t separate them, but I’d finish one part before moving on to the next.
She’s just one of those people that have to watch that scene in Rattatoullie when he eats fruit and cheese at the same time
I think it’s a little much to imply that separating out different parts of your food generally equals an abusive and over-controlled childhood.
I used to do that and while my childhood shares bears some parallels with Joyce’s (raised in an evangelical household) my parents were neither abusive nor over-controlling.
Last time we saw Joyce do this, she said that “it’s not God’s doctrine, it’s just mine.” I think the separating is definitely just a personal picky thing.
Not abusive, but I think it’s pretty clear that Joyce’s parents are massively over-controlling. I mean, even now she’s not living at home, they still come and attempt to dictate what friends she can have, what hats she can wear, and what shows she can watch.
I didn’t say they aren’t over-controlling. I just don’t think it’s good practice to draw conclusions about someone’s parents from their eating habits.
Unless of course, it’s been proven that the two are linked.
If: to your knowledge/in your experience the two correlate, then witnessing one gives you grounds to look out for signs of the other.
But even if it’s a 100% success rate so far, what you shouldn’t do is jump the gun and assume that because the two correlate, and you’ve witnessed one, that the other is definitely present.
Man, no. My parents bongoed at me for doing exactly what she’s doing, and I could see her parents trying to get her to stop, too. It’s just a personal preference thing.
I think Sarah might have agreed with Joyce’s initial assessment after all.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/comics/2013-06-30-perfectforeachother.png
Hey just as a heads-up .. it would be more polite to link to the page that one is listed on instead of the image itself. This goes for anything you ever share via social media as well. I know we all know who made this and are on the site already, but it’s an important habit to make sure the creator is directly linked to.
Sure, but Joyce couldn’t give a reason or refute the idea that the only reason was that both are black.
Sarah wants the D of J.
Joyce? So is Joyce a futa?
I know Willis is fond of creating gay and lesbian characters but he has yet to create any genderqueer ones.
It’s trans awareness week — a perfect time for him to start!
Are you by any chance refering to Transgender Day of Remembrance today?
What about Joyce’s sister Jocelyn?
Commie.
There hasn’t been any indication she’s genderqueer, though given how little we know it’s still a possibility.
Is no one else thinking maybe she already slept with jacob, and he just doesn’t remember her specifically? I mean, Jacob can have tendencies.
It just seems so unSarahlike.
Naah I think its more cute that she fancies him and is all tongue tied
Tongue tied!
Whenever you are near me (near me)
I’m wondering if he didn’t have some personal attachment to her ex-roommate/her ex-roomie’s group of friends, myself.
That could be it. I’m definitely reading her body language as discomfort or embassesment, instead of shyness. Your guess might be a bit more in keeping with her personality than my outlandish speculation.
I like to take my food in order of least tasty to most tasty, myself. But then, some things you have got to alternate to get the flavor contrast. I do take sandwhichs apart in restaurants, if for example, they put onions on it, and I don’t want them: I remover them. Onions are good on some things not on others. The flavor is not a problem and easily removed.
On the other hand, melted cheese and the sandwich has to go back (im lactose intolerant) and getting melted cheese off a sandwich is a big pain.
So maybe people that remove an item off food aren’t all nuts. We sometimes have reasons and not constricted childhoods or other deep reasons. Just too lazy to walk up to counter and ask for a new sandwhich. (unless it has melted cheese 🙂
Huh, I didn’t know someone else did that a swell. I eat what I like the least first, leaving the tasty delicious things I enjoy for the later part of the meal, allowing me to savor them without spoiling the taste with things I dislike 🙂
No, no Joyce, you put the ingrediets separetly when serving and put them together at the table. It’s faster.
At least that’s what I do, and I’m mexican, I eat tacos at least once a week.
It is only logical
Nothing wrong with a little food OCD.
Even if she seperates her BLT?
I separate my BLTs. And then I eat the bacon and bread, and give the other stuff to herbivores.
When good tomatoes are available I make bacon and tomato sandwiches with cheese instead of lettuce.
Man those two are like the odd couple of roommate’s
Apparently I’m the only one lost by Jacob’s Home-wrecker comment.
Dorothy is giving him a hard time about replacing Danny as Joe’s “main man”.
Also Jacob called Joe & Danny “married” when he first met Danny.
I was initially a little thrown too, but what George said.
No, you are not the only one, but reading the comments helped me put it in context. And that was after going back to the last page to see if I had missed something.
D’aaaaw. Sarah is suddenly so adorable. What happened?
she’s with people she’s somewhat comfortable with, and that shes already opened up to
that or Willis is preparing a major chain yank using her…
She looked at Jacob and her vagina sprang a leak?
Joyce is a Romulan spy. I always kind of suspected.
^this^
I bet Joyce will both love and hate Chinese food. She will love the part about a lot of them are separated. But then she well encounter foods like I bet she lost her mind!
Weird, it’s supposed to say Cap Cai on the link html tag…..
I motion to make “that used to be tacos” an expression meaning “that was enjoyable and makes me feel nostalgic.”
To me, it sounds more like something you’d say looking at the contents of a toilet bowl.
Man, Joyce, how did they screw you up so badly?
Well, she has the rest of her life to get screwed up properly.
Not with that taco eating technique. Yikes.
Aww, shy Sarah is cute. :3
She got the wants and she got ’em bad.
Anyone watch the movie Toys? I loved the part where LL Cool J’s character talks about his food touching.
“I want my string beans to be quarantined! I like a little fortress around my mashed potatoes so the meatloaf doesn’t invade my mashed potatoes and cause mixing in my plate! I HATE IT when food touches!”
…Is it sad that I remember those lines so well?
But, taco…
Oh man, Joyce sounds like my wife. “I hate it when stuff is touching or mixed!”
I had a mental picture of the taco ingredients standing in a circle with their guns pointed at one another. After I stopped laughing I realized it would have been a Mexican standoff and I started laughing again.
As a kid, I think I had the opposite food problem. Eating a roast dinner, I’d obsessively make sure that every single forkful contained meat, potato, peas and gravy. If there was sausagemeat, stuffing, carrots and parsnips too, the fork-loads were massive.
Because this strip got this stuck in my head, now you can all share in the experience:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_orsY7C7yk
Also, Joyce and her “Acceptable Losses” spiel. Excellent.
Oh my! I love Joyce, I do that, I also eat in alphabetical order. Other than the religion thing Joyce speaks to me on every level.
Ah, Sarah.
I bet you can’t separate boysenberries, Joyce! Beat that!
oh great, she eats like a five year old too…
Too late, it’s already touched. Now there’s meat juice soaked into the taco shell, and tomato seeds in the meat, and cheese crumbs on the tomato.
Blech.
Shy Sarah! Holy poop I don’t think we’ve seen this yet! While I love seeing brusque Sarah, I love getting to see the sides of her that she tries so hard to bury. It’s nice to get to see her range of emotions.
Loving the title of this strip. The title and Sarah’s face in the last panel; but mostly Sarah’s face.
Everyone’s going to have a crush on Jacob, aren’t they?
Dear Advice Column,
Is it OK for me to be attracted to my colored classmate even if it is my rommate’s bad stereotype?
God, I don’t think any PoC use the adjective “coloured” to refer to people.
Yeah, what is this? The 60s?
I would’ve responded with, “More observant than I was hoping.”
Didn’t “acceptable losses” used to be Sal’s favourite phrase in IW?
Implied thought bubbles over Sarah.
How much can I stare at the man candy before he sees me staring?
Could I stop if I tried?
Has he already caught me doing it in pre-law?
great page
D’awwwww Sarah’s in LOVE
for Sarah love is a strong word: not hating would better describe her emotions as of resent
I think ‘Acceptable Losses’ would have been a better strip title, but maybe I’m joyce-centric.
I think I need to put “I purposefully don’t use the punchline in the strip title because that’s kind of being a dick to folks who click through the twitter links” in the FAQ.
Point.
I sense romance!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58T0NlhNweA
I also don’t like stuff touching, but I consider a taco to be one thing. So, yea, this is still weird to me.
D’awww, Michonne found another black character.
Oh yeah, they’re gonna bang.
So hard.
For some reason, this strip keeps bugging me. I think it’s the phrase “acceptable loss” since it sort of parallels Ruth’s use of it towards Billie from earlier. It seems like an odd phrase for Joyce to use, but I guess it’s just a personal problem since I now equate that phrase with Ruth being really mean. Anyhow, now that everyone else thinks I’m crazy as well, I’ll just go on with my life.
I guess we’re all acceptable losses?