I think she’s texting Dorothy. Or Danny, he’s pretty good with the empathy too (plus from this distance, less likely to Dan everything up like normal :P)
I think it’s probably Dorothy too. She and Danny aren’t really friends, they’ve spoken like once or twice briefly. One time she covered his eyes to keep him from seeing Sal in the buff.
Congrats on job, both Daniel the Human & I can agree they can be hard to find (especially when everything goes boom… :$)…
I’m probably gonna have to go with Winter’s suggestion & say Dorothy, but I recon we’ll know it’s Sal if Joyce ends it with “…please let me brush your hair…”
Thanks all. It’s not quite…real yet, y’know, I’ve been unemployed for so long. It’ll be real when I go in for the first day though. 😛
Yeah true, Joyce doesn’t really know Danny much – she doesn’t really know many very well whose advice she’d trust, apart from Dorothy. And Walky, but I refer to the “whose advice she’d trust” part of that statement. 😉
Ah, she thinks she is going to send it to Dorothy but since she has Joe on speed dial (just in case she needs someone to go to church with and he’ll have turned to God in the mean time)…
I know better than to tell Willis that he is wrong when my only hint can be other that the general evidence, so I’ll just note what my recent experience has made me learn: the splint I had, which comes from the USA, forbade me such moves as anything where my wrist and hand weren’t aligned with my forearm. I certainly couln’t have typed/swiped this way. For months I couldn’t a smartphone, and not for the pain. Of course, if this splint hasn’t anything to do with mine, or if the fact her wrist is damaged has no effect on the rest of the story, that’s a moot point that I should regret to have led light upon.
That’s not a splint, she didn’t break anything. It’s a brace/wrap/support. It’s designed to keep pressure on the sprained wrist and keep her from moving it too carelessly, and help provide support when she uses it. It doesn’t completely immobilize her wrist. Though even if it did, her fingers are still free to move, which is really all you need. I almost tore my pinky clean off a few months ago, But I could still send texts with my forefinger.
Remember “The Personal Journal of Doogie Howser, M.D.” on his ancient Apple II or whatever it was? Are we sure she’s texting and not just making an entry in a journal or electronic diary?
I can’t agree between Dorothy or Joe either, but either way…
…I love the colour yellow, but something about having a yellow phone, or yellow phone protector/shell-thing just doesn’t seem pleasing to me. I can’t get over the Joyce’s phone. It seems so wrong.
That last panel gave me shivers. The house I grew up in has a large backyard and two HUGE poplar trees that towered over the neighborhood and covered everyone’s yards with a never-ending shower of leaves and sticks. Oh, how I hated those trees! (still do. Probably part of the reason why I hate ALL trees now)
The one time I snuck out of the house as a teenager, I spent the next day picking up sticks in our yard that had literally 18 oaks in it. Not just the sticks, but he itchy pollen. Ugh.
What kind of flimsy oak trees do you have in America? We had three oaks, 2 apple trees, and some kind of giant pine where I grew up, and they hardly lost any twigs.
Its because people here like to mow their lawns a lot, and if there’s sticks all over they could break the machine. Also it’s just nice, annoying busywork for when you need to punish someone.
So what are the sleeping arrangements going to be in the Brown household tonight? Becky always slept in Joyce’s room before, I’m sure. Is that going to be another flashpoint?
its not a game but an evil evil chore
where you have to pick up all the sticks in the yard but surprise, THERES ALWAYS ANOTHER SMALLER STICK TO BE FOUND
I live in Cascadia, where it is hills, mountains, windstorms, and trees. Eliminating “all the sticks” doesn’t even make sense. That’s why you have mulching mowers. ^_^
Its worse when you’ve got bamboo growing in the yard. I swear, they just pop out of the ground when your back is turned. And since they’re rooted to the spot, simply picking them up won’t do. You have to take a pair of pruners at them, big ones if you let them grow to much between cuttings.
Bamboo can grow very quickly. So much so that it was once used as a torture/execution device with little work. (Basically they laid people down on top of new shoots. As they grew, they would pierce the body)
I am firmly convinced that Australia is the one country in the world where just about each and every one of the native animals are capable of killing you — and they are perfectly willing to do so should the slightest opportunity arise.
Nah, sending a child out into the forest to find an appropriate willow switch for the parent to beat them with is an entirely different punishment. This is just a punishment chore – frustration is its main goal.
I feel like that is only relevant for people who grew up with yards. Or at least yards with trees in them. I grew up in the city and our yard was mainly concrete and some struggling grass xD
Can confirm, actual chore. Luckily mowers can handle twigs, but I had to pick up anything over a few inches long in the yard pretty often as a kid before my dad could mow.
Was your lawn mower a push model or a riding model? Because I can assure you, running over a big enough stick in a push mower is no fun and actually kind of dangerous. Riding models also have their share of danger, but A) that stick couldn’t possibly be aimed at you, unless there was some freak ricochet and B) a rider is big enough to be a proper mulcher.
Also depends on the trees and how you want your lawn to look.
Generally picking up the branches that are big enough to actually be a threat to the lawn mower is a pretty quick task. You can mow over the rest, but most of them won’t be more than broken up by the mower and then you’ve got small sticks scattered throughout the yard. If you want a nice looking lawn or if you just want to be able to run around in barefoot, that’s where the picking up the sticks comes in.
And it’s those little sticks that never end.
I say this having just spent an hour cleaning up the yard from all the stuff that came down in the snow but couldn’t easily be reached until now. It’s now kindling 🙂
If I was really serious, I’d be trying to get rid of all the acorns, but that’s a far more daunting task.
Of cour
Motorized push mower, but I guess our trees just aren’t in the habit of dropping branches big enough to be obstructive? What kind of trees do you guys have that do that?
Some really old pines; most of the fallen branches are about forearm length and one or two fingers thick. The perfect size to knocked about by the rotors and flung out form under it, at least for my mower. The trees also drop pine-cones all over the place, and those really fly when hit. Light, roundish object + rapidly rotating blade = ballistic trajectory.
Oh yeah. Especially if you live, like I did, in a semi-rural area right outside a forest. God but that was horrible. Thankfully, my Canadian father was of the mind that a lawn should only be mown in summer, and thus picking up sticks was a mercifully infrequent afair.
We have over a dozen trees in our yard and picking sticks was only ever a thing after particularly nasty storms. We just run the smaller ones over by the lawnmower and call it a day. Vole mounds on the other hand…
Out house backed into a forest. There could literally be no end to the sticks, depending on how angry my dad was and how far back he decided our property went on that particular day.
I had to deal with sticks AND leaves AND we had black walnut trees in the backyard. The nuts (these foul smelling green things you could break a windshield with) were everywhere.
Later on my dad had to offer us a nickel a piece to pick those fuckers up. Me and my brother could easily make $20 each.
My mom used to give me and my sister a nickel per snail. I think the most I ever made was $4 though.
Apparently you can make a horrible tea out of crushed black walnuts, and if you pour it on the ground all the worms will come up and you have free fishing bait. Youtube is surprisingly educational
The trick is to mow them before the flowers bloom. No pollenation means no viable seeds.
Dandelions are easy mode compared to poison ivy. The only thing you can do is keep cutting it until it gives up. Not easy when birds eat the berries off the neighbors’ poison ivy tree and spread the seeds far and wide.
I’ve also discovered that after four blooming cycles, the dandelions’ roots will become weak enough you can pull it out whole sale. Which is good, because by that point, the whole plant has so many tiny blooms that just ripping the plant out of the ground is a good idea. They get really tall too, almost two feet high. Of course, first you have to go out and behead all the Dandelions three times. Oy.
Talking about picking up many bundles of sticks with your lesbian friend… Either Willis didn’t think about this very well, or he thought it through VERY well
I will not say that word, but I can give you hints. It can mean a bundle of sticks or a slur against gay people. A shorter version is used in the UK to refer to cigarettes.
I also just found out that, here in the US, we spell the words differently–with only one G instead of two for the sticks version.
We spent half the year on a wooded farm in Indiana, and half the year at a house with a tiny yard in a city several states over. But it doesn’t matter how tiny the yard it, when you have to “mow” the lawn by cutting five or six blades of grass at a time with a dull scraping tool, it takes fecking DAYS. DAYS, I TELL YOU!
Yeah. And both from abusive families, so their concept of “discipline” is a bit… skewed. Yeah, skewed. Just a bit. My mom’s nice, just more interested in “keeping the peace” than keeping my personal Toedad in check.
A toothbrush makes sense!! Like, it’s tiny and ineffective but the concept is solid. How do you mow a lawn with a paint scraper it is not a cutting tool do you have to hold fingerfuls of grass I what
Despite having grown up with the actual real-life thing that Hymmel parodies, I still read an entire DOA story arc about it without realizing it was about Psalty or even remembering that I’d been subjected to the same weird shit as a kid. I didn’t make the connection till Willis posted a Psalty video in his blog to prove that Hymmel wasn’t hyperbole. One way or another, DOA gets out even the most stubborn of repressed memories.
Googled it: Oh yeah! I didn’t watch much of it, but I’ve seen Psalty a few times.
The shows I remember was a show that Carman had (“Do you wanna drive my car, Man!”), one in a clubhouse with a robot, Quigley’s village, some robot with a time machine that took you back to Bible days, and, later in life, VeggieTales.
This rhyme also popped into my head, but Joyce’s mom was saying it in a low, evil voice, wearing a sinister smirk, while watching Joyce pick up the sticks.
Wow. The Carman poster on the door takes me back… 20 years or so I think? Are kids still listening to him or are we just seeing Christian music references from Willis’s youth?
Heh, we used to upset the supervisor at out local Youth Centre, he used to insist that AC/DC stood for AntiChrist/Devil Child and KISS was short for Knights in Satan’s Service. We countered by declaring PETRA to be an Acronym for Preparing Everyone To Recieve Antichrist
I’ve receently come across some of the older high-energy “Christian Rock” groups — like ‘Planetshakers’ or ‘Hillsong’. Not saying that I would necessarily buy copies of all their music, but I could easily see myself going to a concert or performance and actually enjoying myself.
Is this an American thing? I’ve never heard of that and I used to have trees in my front and back gardens and was never asked to pick up sticks even before mowing.
We did use to have to rake the grass after mowing because our mower didn’t collect the grass, but we didn’t have to ever specifically pick up sticks.
We also didn’t really get many sticks from the trees, we got far more leaves which were always everywhere to the point the neighbour complained even though in reality, those were his goddamn trees the entire time. XD
It probably has more to do with “didn’t really get many sticks from the trees” than anything else. If you get enough, you’ve got to do something with them.
Wrong – we’ve got dogs, so a rake might not, uuuuh. Let’s just say it was more sanitary for us to pick up the sticks and then worry about cleaning out other stuff.
On one hand I kinda see the thing. I mean My mom certainly felt weird about me sleeping in the same room as other girls well through high school even though I’m a pure maiden.
On the other hand I doubt she’d tell me I couldn’t sleep in the same room as my buddy who came out as Bi. I guess because if I suddenly become insane with intense sexual lust he’d be strong enough to fight me off?
If we’re swapping stories, I was embarrassingly late in my life before I realized people asking “Are her parents okay with you staying over?” meant anything other than “They’re not going to be annoyed having a guest, are they?”. And by realized, I mean had it outright pointed out to me.
How can people not like picking up sticks? You get to collect all those perfect, unshaped pieces of wood and totally make weapons out of them. I remember me and my friends would make literally hundreds of spear over the summer and pretend we were fighting monsters in the woods.
We even stuck some bottle rockets to the real skinny ones and went all Siege on the forest.
All right. I was in Burlington in mumbledy-mumble-81. Vermont is very fine. A few years later I dwelt in the lower pits of hell with other BoD members. West, myself. Mists. Nobody’s perfect. Since then, however…
Wait, Twilight: so her mom let her have a story where magic isn’t evil.
“but it promotes waiting till after marriage”
Well OK then.
And Joyce still have the singing hymnal poster (which reminds me of the real life singing book kids TV show that was nightmare fuel),
and I am going to assume that other pic is Bibleman.
That’s part of it. And they didn’t explicitly call it magic or have spells or anything. And it appealed a lot to the fundie housewife demographic, giving them a non-dirty romance novel.
Still probably not allowed in Mary’s house, though. Can’t have something written by a Mormon, after all.
(And sorry if I make someone sad by mentioning her.)
Which brother? It doesn’t seem to me like she has a relationship with her brothers that’s the kind where you text about your feelings and problems? I mean, I could be wrong, but she almost never brings up her brothers.
I think Jocelynne is Joyce’s favorite sibling (unless I’m remembering that wrong) and even she and Joyce don’t talk about the really important shit in life much. At least not ‘on screen’, as it were.
I’ve talked about my abusive father before on Patreon with you, cerberus, but, yeah – doors were NEVER to be closed in his presence. If they were locked, he’d try to kick them down. My punishment for closing my doors too often was to have my doors literally removed, so it was impossible for me to have privacy, so he could come and inspect whenever he wanted to. It was *really* important that he be able to do inspection at any time. :/
I’m not alone? I’m not alone! I never got door privileges. Mom still makes a point of asserting her place as head of the family and walking in on me if the door to the room I’m in is closed.
Ugh, that’s completely horrible… My mother never let us close our doors, but that was (according to her) because she was claustrophobic. So her punishment never involved anything too harsh for it. it still was uncomfortable for everyone, though…
I was not even allowed to have a door until 12. Soooyeah. That’s a thing that happens. Was never allowed a lock. Once, I bought a doorknob with a lock and installed it while they were out (I was like 16, so old enough that privacy and having boundaries respected is a genuine need, and I was sick and fucking tired of getting walked in on in the middle of changing and then getting yelled at for changing in my bedroom because my sister had been in the bathroom for 3 hours as if it was my fault they couldn’t be bothered to knock) and they kicked the door down on me and then made me pay for the damages. Allegedly because “safety” because “what if there’s a fire?” but in reality because my folks wanted to be able to barge in whenever they damn well pleased without so much as a knock, as evidenced by how irritated they got when I started putting heavy stuff in front of the door so I’d have warning when someone was coming in. “I don’t care if you want privacy, it’s my house, I will go wherever I want, whenever I want!” and “As long as you live under my roof you play by my rules!” and “It’s my way or the highway. I’m sure you can get loads of privacy under a bridge somewhere.” etc.
It’s a control thing: some abusive families express their control of their kids by never allowing them to ever relax or let their guard down and refusing them any privacy. It wasn’t about the door or whether or not I needed privacy, it was about their ability to control whether or not I could relax even in my own space.
Also “keep the door open” is a thing that happens a lot in more conservative households if the parents think that “inappropriate” behavior is going to happen (so, basically, if you’re with a different-gendered friend if they think you’re straight or if you’re with anyone if you were outed as bi to them involuntarily like what happened to me. Fun times. */sarcasm*)
So basically it was all “We are worried about your safety but perfectly willing to throw you up to the gutter over our petty controlling fix”. But seriously so sorry to hear about that *hugs*
Oh yeah. I was even being molested by my creepy af stepdad and had my door privileges as well as my door removed a few times. Totally a thing and all about the control/breaking you psychologically.
I got told that there weren’t doors in prison, and if I didn’t straighten up, that was where I was headed, so I should just get used to it.
My mom wouldn’t let me shut the door when I was younger, even if I was just trying to keep my brothers out. The only exception was when I was changing clothes or wrapping presents.
I was never allowed to lock my door. They made me throw away the keys when the lock was changed (the old door handle got stuck). Add to this that my room is quite big, so we have several wardrobes here, storing a wide selection of things aside of my cloths: table cloths, towels, less used cloths of my parents, etc. And there was the fact that my father was in my room from morning till late at night until I was like 19 or so, since we only had room for his computer in my room. After that I finally managed to get him to set up his place in the dinner and leave me alone in my room. They generally don’t come in unless they have business in here (my father checking the wifi router when his net is down, or my mother packing away clothes), but then they come in without knocking or anything.
Closing the door was never an issue, I could always do that. I was never punished with anything like this. It wasn’t a psychological warfare thing. It’s just that my mother is very prudish and at least borderline asexual and she just never realised that I might need privacy. As for my father, he once said jokingly, that I shouldn’t fap to porn when everybody is up and about in the house anyway and he’ll knock after sundown, which he really always did.
You stomp down the hall or up the stairs, and then have your parents yell after you, “Don’t stomp in the house! And I don’t know what you’re mad about, anyway.” XP
My door is basically never open unless I’m being punished. I assume because my mom is well aware that I am a young adult who has the internet in his room.
I have a PS4, A PC, a tablet,a phone, an Xbox, a DS, A DSI, a DSIXL, a 3DS, Nintendo 64, Gameboy, Gameboy advanced, WII, WiiU, WiiFit. Leave me in my room mom, I can entertain myself. (I’m not spoiled, I worked for that stuff)
As a man who was young before the internet, I’ll just add that there were reasons to keep the door closed long before the internet. And they were probably the same reasons.
Twilight has a very strong message of celibacy, which is definitely in line with a lot of abstinence-only education. Wait until marriage, and all that.
The fact that the marriage happens to produce an unholy hellspawn is kind of besides the point.
Nah, it has a lot of Christian themes, abstinence til marriage among other stuff, the author is super religious. Only I bet Joyce’s parents are unaware of the author being a Mormon lol.
My mom wouldn’t have let me watch anything like that…vampires are evil after all. So was Santa, Disney movies and a whole raft of other things. I could go with the vampire thing but the rest was pure crap of course.
After reading the comments thread tonight, I’ve discovered there are two types of people: those who spent more time than they cared to picking up sticks as a kid, and those who did not. ^^;
Also, some people??? don’t mow lawns??? don’t have lawns with lawn grass??? have yards without lawns??? i don’t even know how to properly call it
it just seems really weird to me that people assume non-urban house = lawn why is this such a universal thing
I always told my Dad we should just pave it and paint it green. My other suggestion was to replace it with Astroturf, but he didn’t want to spend the money.
Oi, these two doofuses and their desperate desire to “not impose” on each other the one thing they probably most need. I mean, Joyce clearly needs to be able to rant about family, but feels constrained by Becky’s experiences, but Becky also needs to rant about Carol and her own family and feels she needs to keep quiet to respect Joyce’s own collapsing faith and awkward situation with her own folks.
Both desperate to “not make things worse” but also leaving both feeling somewhat abandoned.
Which also makes that Panel 4 all the more meaningful. Joyce taking Becky’s joke and using it as a symbol of acceptance that it’s okay for her to not freak out at the thought of “making things worse” with her mom and letting herself get bullied out of her normal Becky way of being.
He posted it 1 day in advance over on Patreon, as usual. But he decided he didn’t like panel 4 (panel 3 here) and said he would redo it. I don’t see the difference, but then I am a philistine artwise. He did move his patented obligatory borderless panel from 3 to 5, ad rewrote the text a bit.
Seriously. I grew up on a farm with lots of trees in our yard, and after EVERY damned storm there’d be hundreds of the things, everywhere, of all sizes, and my grandpa insisted we even get the small ones. You’ll never pick them all up. They just keep coming.
At this moment I am glad that in my family we don’t have any obsesion of having big grass surfaces, there is only a small patch under the tree at the front and perfection is not required from it…
Yeah but if you were at work that might raise some eyebrows. I can’t just look at victoria’s secret at work and be like “She’s in underwear boss, it’s fine”.
i’m right there with joyce on the “how do i complain about my parents to my bff with a much worse parental situation?” topic. my best friend and i are pretty even on the “things to complain about re: our moms” front, but while i’ve got hella daddy issues, she was super close to her dad….who died of cancer a couple years ago. she’s had time to recover a bit from her loss and she does understand that different people have different relationships with their respective parents, but i still feel guilty for complaining about my dad situation when hey, at least he’s still alive, right? (not that he’s putting much effort into that, BUT ANYWAY.)
It’s a call back to when Becky did the same joke earlier. That time Joyce was shocked by it. That she now make the same joke herself is a powerful signal to Becky that she is allowed to be Becky.
Seems like Joyce got the short end of the stick there *canned laughter*
Awwwww, Joyce and Dotty is messing.
Awwwwwwwww, Joyce doesn’t want to make Becky uncomfortable by complaining about her parents (a bit misguided, but still awwww-worhty)
Awwwwwww, Becky doesn’t want to impose
Awwwwww, Joyce is having none of that bullshit and lets Becky in and closes the door and refuses to be part in Carol’s attempt to make Becky feel miserable
Awwwww, Joyce and Becky can joke about the shooting together
Awwwwwwwww, Joyce and Becky joke about chores, just like they undoubtedly did as kids.
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW….ouch
Spouse: “What happened to your jaw?”
“They closed the door!!! Our daughter is alone with a LESBIAN”
“She’s alone with Becky, dear…”
“YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN”
“…I’m afraid I do.”
*Crashes door open, glares suspiciously at girls.*
“DO YOU WANT SOME TEA?”
*Five minutes later, crashes door open, glares suspiciously at girls.*
“BISCUITS?”
This sticks thing was legitimately confusing until I read the comments. I couldn’t tell if it was an inside joke or some weird abusive thing that had happened to them in the past (though maybe I’ve just been reading too much achewood lately, as if that’s possible).
But apparently it’s just that, since I’m from the city, I had no idea people go around picking up sticks in their yards as a chore.
Having picked up the sticks in my, sizable, yard. IT NEVER ENDS. IT’S SO F***ing BIG! WHY THE F*** IS IT TAKING SO LONG. WHY CAN’T THE TREES JUST HOLD ONTO THEIR FREAKIN’ STICKS?
I wonder who Joyce was texting? Dorothy, Jocelyn or maybe one of her brothers? I can’t think of anyone else with whom she’d feel able to discuss this. Unless she’s writing a public blog post… Wouldn’t that have repercussions!
I just want to note that I grew up in a house on over an acre of land in a tree-ridden region of the US, and never heard of this picking up sticks thing.
So obviously this is another one of those things Willis just made up.
And on a side note: why would Joyce complain about her dad? Her mom I can understand but her dad has so far been the one only person (besides her) who’s willing to apply christian principles to his way of thinking. All other “christians” have been hate-spewing, poisonous, intolerant, vitriolic, self-righteous assholes.
Did you forget yesterday’s strip? Both Sierra and Agatha are devout Christians, at least enough to voluntarily go to church, and both are good characters. Mary, Carol and Ross Babies MacIntyre are the only hate-spewing Christians in the comic, and they are currently out-numbered four-and-half to three on the known Christian front (Becky counts too; Hank is trying, but not yet there).
Mormons are generally considered Christian. At least by those who don’t like to wall off anyone they don’t approve of from Christianity. Like Mary, who probably also considers Catholics non-Christian. (Do we have a Catholic in the cast? I don’t think so.)
That said, the sociologist part of my brain does think they really shouldn’t be classified as Christian. The new revelations and holy books push them into a new category – offshoot of Christianity, much like Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism.
As an atheist, I don’t intend any value judgment with that, unlike many Christians who want to “other” Mormons.
Not in comic, but Willis mentioned it at some point in the comments. Something along the lines of “Like all good guilt ridden superheroes, Amber O’Malley is Catholic.”
I dunno, hating queer people has been a “Christian” value for a good long while now. Christians who don’t suck may dislike that, much as they may dislike how the religion in America has become synonymous with hating sex, sexuality, women’s freedoms, and backwards racial ideas, but it doesn’t mean that the religion’s most public face hasn’t stood for exactly that.
Nor does it mean that the type of Fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity that Willis grew up with hasn’t stood for exactly that.
There’s a lot of good Christians in comic. Hank, Joyce, and Becky for Evangelical Christianity. Danny, Billie, Agatha, Sierra, Sierra’s parents for Christians in general.
And erasing them to convince oneself that Willis is being unfair rather than speaking from painful personal experience is kinda a bit of a douchey thing to do.
I wasn’t erasing anyone. I just have no clue who Sierra and Agatha are, and I forgot several others. Many of this comic’s characters simply don’t stick (LOL) with me. And I’m a german atheist, so this american religious war is totally alien to me anyway.
Sticks might be bad, but there are worse things – like parents deciding that it’s a splendid idea to have a vegetable garden in the yard, or never ending invasion of reeds from outside the fence…
People with yards that are receptacles for leaves in the fall: buy a Stihl BR600. Don’t be like “Ugh but it’s SOOOO expensive! And I don’t need the pro version, i’m not a professional.”, just buy one. It is seriously a game changer.
I think Joyce is posting on a blog or more likely (based on the scrollover text) Twilight fandom sites. She is probably talking to fellow twilight fans.
First time commenting, very long time reader. This strip just hits home SO HARD! When I was a kid my “job” was to pick up the sticks in my backyard (we lived on a 2 acre forest. One summer, THE SUMMER of 1990, I picked up sticks every day for 2 months in order to “win” a Super Mario 3 cartridge. I still have my mario 3 game and box and is one of my most coveted possessions because it taught me the value of work at an early age.
I like how people are either like “OMG YES, picking up sticks was the worst” or “What? Sticks? What is this?” and I’m like “Yeah, I never had to pick up sticks myself, but if you have trees in a yard, sticks are going to fall off sooner or later, that’s pretty obvious.”
Still in Connecticut. I don’t really remember this from my childhood, but I’ve bought a house recently and it has all the sticks. And even more acorns.
Even within a small state, it’s very area dependent.
I feel the pain. My father once cut some 12′ of twine into half inch pieces for me to pick up…when I finished he just took the pieces from me and tossed them back out and I got to start over.
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who is she texting?
… I bet it’s Joe…
OHHH i really like the idea that it’s Joe that would be really good.
Ethan might be a good person to talk to too.
I was just thinking it was probably Joe!
Maybe Ethan. He’s probably pretty sympathetic to Becky’s situation.
It is her one true love (assuming there is not a family connection)
Mike.
Dorothy told Joyce to text if she needed an outlet – here.
But I like DJFlare’s idea that it could be Joe 😉
My brain is telling me it’s Dorothy but my heart is telling me it’s Joe
Exactly. It’s an eternal battle, which to listen to…
(Just kidding. Shipping 5ever!)
It’s so good not to be alone in this
It is dangerous to go alone. Take this.
Sorry, I dropped it – can I have another one?
I think she’s texting Dorothy. Or Danny, he’s pretty good with the empathy too (plus from this distance, less likely to Dan everything up like normal :P)
HEY, I GOT A JOB!
Yay!
I think it’s probably Dorothy too. She and Danny aren’t really friends, they’ve spoken like once or twice briefly. One time she covered his eyes to keep him from seeing Sal in the buff.
also congrats 🙂
8-)}
Congrats on job, both Daniel the Human & I can agree they can be hard to find (especially when everything goes boom… :$)…
I’m probably gonna have to go with Winter’s suggestion & say Dorothy, but I recon we’ll know it’s Sal if Joyce ends it with “…please let me brush your hair…”
Thanks all. It’s not quite…real yet, y’know, I’ve been unemployed for so long. It’ll be real when I go in for the first day though. 😛
Yeah true, Joyce doesn’t really know Danny much – she doesn’t really know many very well whose advice she’d trust, apart from Dorothy. And Walky, but I refer to the “whose advice she’d trust” part of that statement. 😉
Very dangerous. You go first.
Ah, she thinks she is going to send it to Dorothy but since she has Joe on speed dial (just in case she needs someone to go to church with and he’ll have turned to God in the mean time)…
Oh, or it’s chaperone Mike.
You get the drift.
Or she *thinks* she’s texting Dorothy, but she’s actually texting Joe because she forgot that he was the last person she texted…
I know better than to tell Willis that he is wrong when my only hint can be other that the general evidence, so I’ll just note what my recent experience has made me learn: the splint I had, which comes from the USA, forbade me such moves as anything where my wrist and hand weren’t aligned with my forearm. I certainly couln’t have typed/swiped this way. For months I couldn’t a smartphone, and not for the pain. Of course, if this splint hasn’t anything to do with mine, or if the fact her wrist is damaged has no effect on the rest of the story, that’s a moot point that I should regret to have led light upon.
That’s not a splint, she didn’t break anything. It’s a brace/wrap/support. It’s designed to keep pressure on the sprained wrist and keep her from moving it too carelessly, and help provide support when she uses it. It doesn’t completely immobilize her wrist. Though even if it did, her fingers are still free to move, which is really all you need. I almost tore my pinky clean off a few months ago, But I could still send texts with my forefinger.
Bit annoying to type, to be fair.
Remember “The Personal Journal of Doogie Howser, M.D.” on his ancient Apple II or whatever it was? Are we sure she’s texting and not just making an entry in a journal or electronic diary?
I can’t agree between Dorothy or Joe either, but either way…
…I love the colour yellow, but something about having a yellow phone, or yellow phone protector/shell-thing just doesn’t seem pleasing to me. I can’t get over the Joyce’s phone. It seems so wrong.
So many sticks. I know that feel, Joyce.
And also leaves. When you stack them and then the wind blows them all over the place it’s like a nightmare.
Joyce is going to pick up like a billion sticks.
It’s true
IT NEVER ENDS
That last panel gave me shivers. The house I grew up in has a large backyard and two HUGE poplar trees that towered over the neighborhood and covered everyone’s yards with a never-ending shower of leaves and sticks. Oh, how I hated those trees! (still do. Probably part of the reason why I hate ALL trees now)
Sounds like the origin story for a Captain Planet villain.
The important thing is that she’s picking up sticks rather than…
… um, dammit, what’s a good femi-form alternative to phallic sticks?
*imagery fail*
Seed pods. (http://oglaf.com/sensualburlap/ SFW, but the rest of the site decidedly isn’t)
SFW? But it’s filled with vagina-fruit!?
For Oglaf, it’s relatively SFW.
Without going through the archives again that may be one of the most SFW comics on Oglaf. *cuddles Lizard of Shame plushie*
The one time I snuck out of the house as a teenager, I spent the next day picking up sticks in our yard that had literally 18 oaks in it. Not just the sticks, but he itchy pollen. Ugh.
What kind of flimsy oak trees do you have in America? We had three oaks, 2 apple trees, and some kind of giant pine where I grew up, and they hardly lost any twigs.
I don’t… is this actually a THING with American families? Picking up sticks? What? WHY? I don’t understand. Who cares about sticks and leaves?
Its because people here like to mow their lawns a lot, and if there’s sticks all over they could break the machine. Also it’s just nice, annoying busywork for when you need to punish someone.
I think lawnmowing (and the removal of objects that could get stuck in the mower) is a thing pretty much anywhere there’s lawns.
The sticks never end…
door closed. now we just wait for them to start talking about beckys crush on joyce only for mom to be pressed up against the keyhole.
whoops!
They start making a scrapbook together. Carol listens just in time to hear Joyce ask Becky for help with the scissoring, and faints.
Joyce is applying felt to accent a scene in the scrapbook:
“Becky do you think that it’s fuzzy enough to be fun?”
“Sure, if you fluff it a little I bet anybody who saw it would love it.”
“It’s gettin’ kinda late. Mind handing me a blanket so I can crash on the floor?”
“Becky, you are sleeping with me and that’s final!”
So what are the sleeping arrangements going to be in the Brown household tonight? Becky always slept in Joyce’s room before, I’m sure. Is that going to be another flashpoint?
I didn’t forget! #twilight
But I am very confused by the sticks. What is this sticks game?
its not a game but an evil evil chore
where you have to pick up all the sticks in the yard but surprise, THERES ALWAYS ANOTHER SMALLER STICK TO BE FOUND
I live in Cascadia, where it is hills, mountains, windstorms, and trees. Eliminating “all the sticks” doesn’t even make sense. That’s why you have mulching mowers. ^_^
It’s not meant to make sense – it’s a punishment chore.
It’s a chore that will be familiar to anyone who had a lot of trees in their yard. Go pick up the sticks, so the lawn can be mown.
There were always more sticks. They multiply when you turn your back.
Its worse when you’ve got bamboo growing in the yard. I swear, they just pop out of the ground when your back is turned. And since they’re rooted to the spot, simply picking them up won’t do. You have to take a pair of pruners at them, big ones if you let them grow to much between cuttings.
Of course you could just let them grow … a bamboo forest is infinitely prettier than a lawn…
I considered telling my dad that, but since we literally had a bamboo forest once and he single-handedly cleared it, I didn’t think it would work.
Bamboo can grow very quickly. So much so that it was once used as a torture/execution device with little work. (Basically they laid people down on top of new shoots. As they grew, they would pierce the body)
Here in Australia you have to pick up the snakes before you can mow.
That…suddenly puts everything in perspective.
JohnF is exaggerating. The crocodiles eat most of the snakes.
You’re wrong, Dean. In fact, the snakes will eat the crocodiles:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26413101
On the other hand, the Australian spiders will take care of the snakes for you:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-11/snake-vs-spider/7154854
Who wants to go to Australia now?
True, it’s such a lovely place, such friendly animals. Even the Kangaroos can actually gut you if you piss them off…
…Plus the koalas have some lovely claws for climbing, but then you got the Drop Bears… O_O
I am firmly convinced that Australia is the one country in the world where just about each and every one of the native animals are capable of killing you — and they are perfectly willing to do so should the slightest opportunity arise.
I did say ‘most’.
Don’t limit it to the animals, the plants like to get in on the action as well.
No, just anyone with both trees and a lawn. Fuck lawns; that’s space that can be filled by MORE TREES!
We only picked up sticks that were too big for the mower to run over. Smaller ones just got mulched.
I forgot how creating a brush pile sucks. Thanks Willis!
Ok, I feel like I’m missing some serious context on the sticks thing…
Must be an Indiana thing. One of their weird customs.
I envy you for your lack of knowledge.
I also have some non-knowledge on the subject, so feel free to have some of mine.
Please tell me it doesn’t have anything to do with hitting children, which was my first, chilling thought?
Honestly being hit would be preferable to picking up sticks, if I got hit at least the pain would eventually end.
Naw, you have to pick up the sticks in the yard before mowing if you’ve got trees. There’s often a lot of sticks. It’s a pain.
Nah, sending a child out into the forest to find an appropriate willow switch for the parent to beat them with is an entirely different punishment. This is just a punishment chore – frustration is its main goal.
Did your parents never tell you to pick up the sticks in the yard, to clean it up?
I feel like that is only relevant for people who grew up with yards. Or at least yards with trees in them. I grew up in the city and our yard was mainly concrete and some struggling grass xD
Welcome to the urban jungle. Population:Enough to create a rush hour.
…or in the middle of the woods beyond the yard for no apparent reason?
As someone who never grew up with a lawn… this isn’t Joyce being Joyce, is it? It’s an actual chore that’s a PITA for most normal people as well?
Can confirm, actual chore. Luckily mowers can handle twigs, but I had to pick up anything over a few inches long in the yard pretty often as a kid before my dad could mow.
I grew up in a house with a yard and trees; never heard of this. We just… mowed the lawn.
Was your lawn mower a push model or a riding model? Because I can assure you, running over a big enough stick in a push mower is no fun and actually kind of dangerous. Riding models also have their share of danger, but A) that stick couldn’t possibly be aimed at you, unless there was some freak ricochet and B) a rider is big enough to be a proper mulcher.
Also depends on the trees and how you want your lawn to look.
Generally picking up the branches that are big enough to actually be a threat to the lawn mower is a pretty quick task. You can mow over the rest, but most of them won’t be more than broken up by the mower and then you’ve got small sticks scattered throughout the yard. If you want a nice looking lawn or if you just want to be able to run around in barefoot, that’s where the picking up the sticks comes in.
And it’s those little sticks that never end.
I say this having just spent an hour cleaning up the yard from all the stuff that came down in the snow but couldn’t easily be reached until now. It’s now kindling 🙂
If I was really serious, I’d be trying to get rid of all the acorns, but that’s a far more daunting task.
Of cour
Motorized push mower, but I guess our trees just aren’t in the habit of dropping branches big enough to be obstructive? What kind of trees do you guys have that do that?
Some really old pines; most of the fallen branches are about forearm length and one or two fingers thick. The perfect size to knocked about by the rotors and flung out form under it, at least for my mower. The trees also drop pine-cones all over the place, and those really fly when hit. Light, roundish object + rapidly rotating blade = ballistic trajectory.
Oh yeah. Especially if you live, like I did, in a semi-rural area right outside a forest. God but that was horrible. Thankfully, my Canadian father was of the mind that a lawn should only be mown in summer, and thus picking up sticks was a mercifully infrequent afair.
Only in summer in Canada? That would be twice a year then.
We have over a dozen trees in our yard and picking sticks was only ever a thing after particularly nasty storms. We just run the smaller ones over by the lawnmower and call it a day. Vole mounds on the other hand…
I feel much less alone and confused now!
I had forgotten, yes.
Sticks are the metaphor here… I think.
For penises
It’s the whiteboard ding-domg incident all over again! And I thought I was deranged…
Out house backed into a forest. There could literally be no end to the sticks, depending on how angry my dad was and how far back he decided our property went on that particular day.
Mowing the lawn was a bongo too.
Holy shit, this isn’t just me?
I mean, it was never used as a punsihment, just an occassional chore. Also applies to raking leaves.
I had to deal with sticks AND leaves AND we had black walnut trees in the backyard. The nuts (these foul smelling green things you could break a windshield with) were everywhere.
Later on my dad had to offer us a nickel a piece to pick those fuckers up. Me and my brother could easily make $20 each.
My mom used to give me and my sister a nickel per snail. I think the most I ever made was $4 though.
Apparently you can make a horrible tea out of crushed black walnuts, and if you pour it on the ground all the worms will come up and you have free fishing bait. Youtube is surprisingly educational
You were fortunate to be paid for the walnuts i was tasked with doing said chores just so we wouldn’t injure someone while mowing
Dandelions.
Oh god the dandelions, especially since the neighbors didn’t weed their yards properly.
And the spurge. People using an invasive weed as “pretty groundcover.” *shudder*
The trick is to mow them before the flowers bloom. No pollenation means no viable seeds.
Dandelions are easy mode compared to poison ivy. The only thing you can do is keep cutting it until it gives up. Not easy when birds eat the berries off the neighbors’ poison ivy tree and spread the seeds far and wide.
I’ve also discovered that after four blooming cycles, the dandelions’ roots will become weak enough you can pull it out whole sale. Which is good, because by that point, the whole plant has so many tiny blooms that just ripping the plant out of the ground is a good idea. They get really tall too, almost two feet high. Of course, first you have to go out and behead all the Dandelions three times. Oy.
The best way to combat the problem is a combination of weed killer and cutting the flowers before they reach thier second bloom into the puffs
Talking about picking up many bundles of sticks with your lesbian friend… Either Willis didn’t think about this very well, or he thought it through VERY well
I don’t… oh… ohhhhhh. Wow. I don’t think he realized that word association, but I might be mistaken.
OK, I had to google that one!
Wow– despite having run into that reference in a lot of the books I read as a kid, I still had to google that too.
Yup same here…and then went Duh! Of course!
I’ve either been really sheltered or an from the wrong generation I can’t even Google this.
I will not say that word, but I can give you hints. It can mean a bundle of sticks or a slur against gay people. A shorter version is used in the UK to refer to cigarettes.
I also just found out that, here in the US, we spell the words differently–with only one G instead of two for the sticks version.
I think the only time I have actually seen that term used to refer to a bundle of sticks was in Good Omens.
Where, incidentally, another character then confused it with the slur.
I think it referred to a cigarette in Good Omens. That American GI was pretty impressed when he heard that Brits usually burn their homosexuals.
Not too many miles from where I grew up (in the UK), it was also the word for a common dinner food (basically pork offal meatballs).
Which led to some hilarious moments, let me tell you, when transatlantic visitors being taken to the pub caught sight of the “Today’s Specials” board.
Carol looks out the window as Joyce and Becky are picking up sticks, each carrying her own bundle.
Her happiness fades to horror as she realizes what she’s done.
As much as that chore/punishment thing is irritating and tedious… Mowing the lawn with a paint scraper is worse. *twitches*
Okay INFINITE STICKS is apparently one thing, but mowing the lawn with a paint scraper? I am now very confused.
We spent half the year on a wooded farm in Indiana, and half the year at a house with a tiny yard in a city several states over. But it doesn’t matter how tiny the yard it, when you have to “mow” the lawn by cutting five or six blades of grass at a time with a dull scraping tool, it takes fecking DAYS. DAYS, I TELL YOU!
AND THE GRASS KEEPS GROWING
Wow. Whoever told you to mow the lawn with a paint scraper sounds like somebody who should get punched in the face.
Did you have to clean the driveway with a toothbrush too?
The driveway, no. The bathroom and the floorboards in my bedroom, yes. I am really good at cleaning stuff, now…
Charge for it.
Were your parents in the military or something?
Yeah. And both from abusive families, so their concept of “discipline” is a bit… skewed. Yeah, skewed. Just a bit. My mom’s nice, just more interested in “keeping the peace” than keeping my personal Toedad in check.
A toothbrush makes sense!! Like, it’s tiny and ineffective but the concept is solid. How do you mow a lawn with a paint scraper it is not a cutting tool do you have to hold fingerfuls of grass I what
Surely at that point you’re better off just ripping it up by hand?
That or using your teeth ungulate-style
You HAVE to be making this up.
That is like…ABSURDLY evil.
Yes, Joyce… give in to the vampiric impulses, pick up the sticks… pick up ALL the sticks…
Then listen to Bauhaus for six and a half hours straight.
Not on Sunday, though
Does that sign on her door say Carman?
Well, Thor has a Thormobile
Also on Joyce’s door:
Hymmel the Humming Hymnal returns!
Despite having grown up with the actual real-life thing that Hymmel parodies, I still read an entire DOA story arc about it without realizing it was about Psalty or even remembering that I’d been subjected to the same weird shit as a kid. I didn’t make the connection till Willis posted a Psalty video in his blog to prove that Hymmel wasn’t hyperbole. One way or another, DOA gets out even the most stubborn of repressed memories.
I know who Psalty is but was never subjected to it. To other Christian stuff yes but not Psalty.
Googled it: Oh yeah! I didn’t watch much of it, but I’ve seen Psalty a few times.
The shows I remember was a show that Carman had (“Do you wanna drive my car, Man!”), one in a clubhouse with a robot, Quigley’s village, some robot with a time machine that took you back to Bible days, and, later in life, VeggieTales.
Oh VeggieTales! My sis and I used to babysit the neighbor kids and they would always bring a couple tapes over.
Me: OMG sis this is so lame
Sis: I know right
*secret enjoyment intensifies*
….We still sing the songs 12 years later
Wow. Just… wow. That is amazing. Psalty. Wow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carman_%28singer%29
…But who is Joyce texting to? Or tweeting, or…
Watch it be Joe.
Maybe to Dorothy?
Probably Dorothy. At the very least, it will be somebody whose parents are not both either dead or in jail.
Too long for a Tweet, and that doesn’t read like a public post anyway. I’d bet she’s texting Dorothy.
She could be DMing, but yeah, too long for a tweet.
Bizarre outside chance: Joe.
Continuing the unexpected texting from class.
i really hope it is thatd be great
That’s where my money’s at actually.
I get a strong feeling that she is texting Joe.
Whether she intended to or no.
Satan. She wants to let him know his plan is going along swimmingly.
Forget? Ha I wish I did.
“Five, Six, pick up sticks..”
JoyceDeathGlare.png
Sorry, Joyce. I’ll stop now.
This rhyme also popped into my head, but Joyce’s mom was saying it in a low, evil voice, wearing a sinister smirk, while watching Joyce pick up the sticks.
Seven, Eight lay them straight.
…
Oh dear god, I just got the subtext there.
That ruth face is super fitting for your response
It’s worse than you may know! Are you aware of one of the older names for a bundle of sticks?
Don’t lay them at all until after marriage, by preference.
The joys of inner city living
Wow. The Carman poster on the door takes me back… 20 years or so I think? Are kids still listening to him or are we just seeing Christian music references from Willis’s youth?
I had to go back and look. I was more into Petra back then myself. Carman. Hadn’t thought of that for a LONG time!
Heh, we used to upset the supervisor at out local Youth Centre, he used to insist that AC/DC stood for AntiChrist/Devil Child and KISS was short for Knights in Satan’s Service. We countered by declaring PETRA to be an Acronym for Preparing Everyone To Recieve Antichrist
My mom follows him on Facebook. He’s currently on tour for “Carman: For Real-For Now.” He’s not as kid focuses anymore.
And if you want a laugh, go to carman.org (his real website) and check out his bio. Whoever wrote it is laying it on thick.
I’ve receently come across some of the older high-energy “Christian Rock” groups — like ‘Planetshakers’ or ‘Hillsong’. Not saying that I would necessarily buy copies of all their music, but I could easily see myself going to a concert or performance and actually enjoying myself.
Is there more to the stick thing that I should know about?
A common chore/punishment in households that have trees is picking up sticks in the yard, especially before mowing.
My family really only did the big ones right before we mowed, so I was confused too.
Is this an American thing? I’ve never heard of that and I used to have trees in my front and back gardens and was never asked to pick up sticks even before mowing.
We did use to have to rake the grass after mowing because our mower didn’t collect the grass, but we didn’t have to ever specifically pick up sticks.
We also didn’t really get many sticks from the trees, we got far more leaves which were always everywhere to the point the neighbour complained even though in reality, those were his goddamn trees the entire time. XD
It probably has more to do with “didn’t really get many sticks from the trees” than anything else. If you get enough, you’ve got to do something with them.
Loading the new Dumbing of age strip is always kinda terrifying, especially if Mary was in the last one.
Life lesson: If your parents send you out in the yard to clean up but don’t give you a rake to do it with, it’s not really about the yard.
Unless, of course, the sticks in question are as big as the rake.
I love elm trees.
Wrong – we’ve got dogs, so a rake might not, uuuuh. Let’s just say it was more sanitary for us to pick up the sticks and then worry about cleaning out other stuff.
That poster in the second panel..ABOMINATION!
*Evil giggle* I’ll go get the flame thrower…
On one hand I kinda see the thing. I mean My mom certainly felt weird about me sleeping in the same room as other girls well through high school even though I’m a pure maiden.
On the other hand I doubt she’d tell me I couldn’t sleep in the same room as my buddy who came out as Bi. I guess because if I suddenly become insane with intense sexual lust he’d be strong enough to fight me off?
Yech. I know the type.
(Of mom, that is.)
“Pure Maiden”
Some of the stuff I’ve seen you draw contradicts that.
Haha, it’s cute that you think that’s my impure drawings.
If you keep this up you’ll never become a Sailor Scout.
Sailor Uranus disagrees.
Suddenly I’m having “We Know the Devil” flashbacks.
If we’re swapping stories, I was embarrassingly late in my life before I realized people asking “Are her parents okay with you staying over?” meant anything other than “They’re not going to be annoyed having a guest, are they?”. And by realized, I mean had it outright pointed out to me.
I was a very innocent youth.
…I didn’t realise that until just now. So you’re not alone there.
Seconded, but I’m still a teen.
Wait, I thought you were male? Or am I just missing the joke completely?
I’m a Guy. Just poor at wording things.
The word “virgin” works for either gender.
I think it’s more of a reference to me saying “Other girls” silly.
How can people not like picking up sticks? You get to collect all those perfect, unshaped pieces of wood and totally make weapons out of them. I remember me and my friends would make literally hundreds of spear over the summer and pretend we were fighting monsters in the woods.
We even stuck some bottle rockets to the real skinny ones and went all Siege on the forest.
One task is work while the other is play.
Well that’s one way to have fun with sticks…till someone gets their eye poked. But, I also enjoy collecting sticks..for the barbecue grill.
That’s why we wore our parents old motorcycle helmets.
Come to think of it we were probably some weird little shits.
Some of us still do that. We just got better sticks and helmets. (That’s me on the right.)
Excellent! What kingdom?
East. Shire of Mountain Freehold, mundanely northwestern Vermont.
All right. I was in Burlington in mumbledy-mumble-81. Vermont is very fine. A few years later I dwelt in the lower pits of hell with other BoD members. West, myself. Mists. Nobody’s perfect. Since then, however…
Not too many places had rattan lying around in the back yard.
Daniel here. I kept finding swords.
Long, straight sticks made perfect swords. Taught myself a few basic swings & I was happy. A good way to pass some time…
I made bows and arrows. Lots of arrows. Really sharp ones, actually.
Did your neighbourhood get ridden of cats back then?
Awwwww, I wanted to see Joyce go nuclear :c
Is she texting dorothy or ethan?
Not the sticks!
So that’s what John Cougar Mellenkamp meant by going nuts, girl/Out in the sticks on his song “Cherry Bomb”.
Of course, my mother thought her own Indian name was “She Who Picks Up Little Twigs”.
Wait, Twilight: so her mom let her have a story where magic isn’t evil.
“but it promotes waiting till after marriage”
Well OK then.
And Joyce still have the singing hymnal poster (which reminds me of the real life singing book kids TV show that was nightmare fuel),
and I am going to assume that other pic is Bibleman.
That’s part of it. And they didn’t explicitly call it magic or have spells or anything. And it appealed a lot to the fundie housewife demographic, giving them a non-dirty romance novel.
Still probably not allowed in Mary’s house, though. Can’t have something written by a Mormon, after all.
(And sorry if I make someone sad by mentioning her.)
So who’s she texting? Dotty?
I’d say the odds are sitting at a solid 98% +- 2 %.
I was thinking her brother.
Which brother? It doesn’t seem to me like she has a relationship with her brothers that’s the kind where you text about your feelings and problems? I mean, I could be wrong, but she almost never brings up her brothers.
I think Jocelynne is Joyce’s favorite sibling (unless I’m remembering that wrong) and even she and Joyce don’t talk about the really important shit in life much. At least not ‘on screen’, as it were.
Picking up all the sticks is second only to cutting all the fucking dandelions. D:
¨Why are you standing outside my door¨ ¨Because of the universal wavefunction and the boundary conditions of the universe.¨
… so it’s a standing wave.
Shit, I meant to have more diologue…
¨I didn’t know you were a physicist Becky!¨
I’m surprised she’s allowed to have the door closed. That’s like…a secular kid’s privilege.
Eh, not really. I was raised by atheists, and we weren’t allowed to have our door closed unless we were getting dressed/undressed.
Wait, there were families that didn’t even let their kids close their doors? 8o
My knowledge of awful family structures is sorely lacking.
I’ve talked about my abusive father before on Patreon with you, cerberus, but, yeah – doors were NEVER to be closed in his presence. If they were locked, he’d try to kick them down. My punishment for closing my doors too often was to have my doors literally removed, so it was impossible for me to have privacy, so he could come and inspect whenever he wanted to. It was *really* important that he be able to do inspection at any time. :/
That’s so awful. *so many mega giga ultra hugs*
glad im not the only one who lost door privlages as a kid
I’m not alone? I’m not alone! I never got door privileges. Mom still makes a point of asserting her place as head of the family and walking in on me if the door to the room I’m in is closed.
Ugh, that’s completely horrible… My mother never let us close our doors, but that was (according to her) because she was claustrophobic. So her punishment never involved anything too harsh for it. it still was uncomfortable for everyone, though…
I… it’s…
…
*sympathy by light touch*
ive never actually lost door privileges, but that didnt stop my mom from breaking the door down one day anyway
it still doesnt close
this is also bizarre to me, I never heard of it until recently. is it a US-only thing?
I’m Canadian. So not a US-only thing.
I was not even allowed to have a door until 12. Soooyeah. That’s a thing that happens. Was never allowed a lock. Once, I bought a doorknob with a lock and installed it while they were out (I was like 16, so old enough that privacy and having boundaries respected is a genuine need, and I was sick and fucking tired of getting walked in on in the middle of changing and then getting yelled at for changing in my bedroom because my sister had been in the bathroom for 3 hours as if it was my fault they couldn’t be bothered to knock) and they kicked the door down on me and then made me pay for the damages. Allegedly because “safety” because “what if there’s a fire?” but in reality because my folks wanted to be able to barge in whenever they damn well pleased without so much as a knock, as evidenced by how irritated they got when I started putting heavy stuff in front of the door so I’d have warning when someone was coming in. “I don’t care if you want privacy, it’s my house, I will go wherever I want, whenever I want!” and “As long as you live under my roof you play by my rules!” and “It’s my way or the highway. I’m sure you can get loads of privacy under a bridge somewhere.” etc.
It’s a control thing: some abusive families express their control of their kids by never allowing them to ever relax or let their guard down and refusing them any privacy. It wasn’t about the door or whether or not I needed privacy, it was about their ability to control whether or not I could relax even in my own space.
Also “keep the door open” is a thing that happens a lot in more conservative households if the parents think that “inappropriate” behavior is going to happen (so, basically, if you’re with a different-gendered friend if they think you’re straight or if you’re with anyone if you were outed as bi to them involuntarily like what happened to me. Fun times. */sarcasm*)
So basically it was all “We are worried about your safety but perfectly willing to throw you up to the gutter over our petty controlling fix”. But seriously so sorry to hear about that *hugs*
Oh yeah. I was even being molested by my creepy af stepdad and had my door privileges as well as my door removed a few times. Totally a thing and all about the control/breaking you psychologically.
I got told that there weren’t doors in prison, and if I didn’t straighten up, that was where I was headed, so I should just get used to it.
My mom wouldn’t let me shut the door when I was younger, even if I was just trying to keep my brothers out. The only exception was when I was changing clothes or wrapping presents.
I was never allowed to lock my door. They made me throw away the keys when the lock was changed (the old door handle got stuck). Add to this that my room is quite big, so we have several wardrobes here, storing a wide selection of things aside of my cloths: table cloths, towels, less used cloths of my parents, etc. And there was the fact that my father was in my room from morning till late at night until I was like 19 or so, since we only had room for his computer in my room. After that I finally managed to get him to set up his place in the dinner and leave me alone in my room. They generally don’t come in unless they have business in here (my father checking the wifi router when his net is down, or my mother packing away clothes), but then they come in without knocking or anything.
Closing the door was never an issue, I could always do that. I was never punished with anything like this. It wasn’t a psychological warfare thing. It’s just that my mother is very prudish and at least borderline asexual and she just never realised that I might need privacy. As for my father, he once said jokingly, that I shouldn’t fap to porn when everybody is up and about in the house anyway and he’ll knock after sundown, which he really always did.
If you don’t have doors how can you angrily shut them after a heated conversation?
You stomp down the hall or up the stairs, and then have your parents yell after you, “Don’t stomp in the house! And I don’t know what you’re mad about, anyway.” XP
I grew up fundie. I could hang a privacy sign outside my door if I wanted.
My door is basically never open unless I’m being punished. I assume because my mom is well aware that I am a young adult who has the internet in his room.
I have a PS4, A PC, a tablet,a phone, an Xbox, a DS, A DSI, a DSIXL, a 3DS, Nintendo 64, Gameboy, Gameboy advanced, WII, WiiU, WiiFit. Leave me in my room mom, I can entertain myself. (I’m not spoiled, I worked for that stuff)
I can’t tell if you missed the point for why a young man with internet in his room would want to keep the door closed.
*cough* slipshine *cough*
As a man who was young before the internet, I’ll just add that there were reasons to keep the door closed long before the internet. And they were probably the same reasons.
picking up sticks?
Wait, Joyce likes Twilight? That seems counter to her upbringing…
Twilight has a very strong message of celibacy, which is definitely in line with a lot of abstinence-only education. Wait until marriage, and all that.
The fact that the marriage happens to produce an unholy hellspawn is kind of besides the point.
But I thought all marriages produced unholy hellspawn. The internet has lied to me 🙁
Nah, it has a lot of Christian themes, abstinence til marriage among other stuff, the author is super religious. Only I bet Joyce’s parents are unaware of the author being a Mormon lol.
My mom wouldn’t have let me watch anything like that…vampires are evil after all. So was Santa, Disney movies and a whole raft of other things. I could go with the vampire thing but the rest was pure crap of course.
It is known.
(And, yeah, I totally remembered that. I actually think about Joyce whenever I run into Twilight in other contexts now.)
After reading the comments thread tonight, I’ve discovered there are two types of people: those who spent more time than they cared to picking up sticks as a kid, and those who did not. ^^;
I guess I’m lucky I never had to experience that. Sounds super un-fun.
It can be frustrating, but when you do it for a grill it doesn’t matter.
Yeah I’ll do anything for a good hamburger.
Some kids probably grew up in apartments or condos
Also, some people??? don’t mow lawns??? don’t have lawns with lawn grass??? have yards without lawns??? i don’t even know how to properly call it
it just seems really weird to me that people assume non-urban house = lawn why is this such a universal thing
I always told my Dad we should just pave it and paint it green. My other suggestion was to replace it with Astroturf, but he didn’t want to spend the money.
Oi, these two doofuses and their desperate desire to “not impose” on each other the one thing they probably most need. I mean, Joyce clearly needs to be able to rant about family, but feels constrained by Becky’s experiences, but Becky also needs to rant about Carol and her own family and feels she needs to keep quiet to respect Joyce’s own collapsing faith and awkward situation with her own folks.
Both desperate to “not make things worse” but also leaving both feeling somewhat abandoned.
Which also makes that Panel 4 all the more meaningful. Joyce taking Becky’s joke and using it as a symbol of acceptance that it’s okay for her to not freak out at the thought of “making things worse” with her mom and letting herself get bullied out of her normal Becky way of being.
It’s… really quite sweet.
Hmmm…
Sounds like we need to call Mike.
Possibly. But I’m pretty sure his talents would be better utilized elsewhere.
Dooooooofuses 🙂
Looks like we just received a hint about punishment at the Brown household. I guess it could have been worse. http://www.examiner.com/article/another-couple-found-guilty-of-murder-for-parenting-by-to-train-up-a-child
I have never had more pure unadulterated hate for anyone before learning of Mr. Pearl.
I literally vomited when reading this. Oh God.
Joyce is one of those swipe-typers…
A bundle of sticks or twigs bound together as fuel? Heh.
Oh god the sticks. Willis why with the sticks. No more sticks grandpa please we’ve already raked the lawn bare…
I just know the sticks are a metaphor.
Also, I think Carol’s mom may have sold her soul to the devil in exchange for the snake demon powers necessary to rid her home of meddling lesbians.
… I’m missing a reference aren’t I?
I’m riffing on the “unhinging her jaw” part.
She is forgetting the Evil Overlord List: “I will not turn into a snake. That never helps.”
Actually, snakes don’t unhinge their jaws. They just have very strange hinges.
IM-HO-TEP
IM-HO-TEP
Clearly Mr. Brown is into some kinky shit.
I’d say is speaks more about his anatomy.
So … Joyce is half-reptoid?
No, no, no, she only sold her soul when she found out Becky was a lesbian. Joyce would still be full human.
No jokes about “if I come in here”?
We saved that for you
I remember that chore–except instead of sticks it was dog poop. We had and fostered many dogs at a time in my youth, and the poop neverended
Willis, I want to thank you. This version of the comic *is* much funnier.
??? What other version was there? Do you mean you like DoA better than the old Walkyverse comics?
He posted it 1 day in advance over on Patreon, as usual. But he decided he didn’t like panel 4 (panel 3 here) and said he would redo it. I don’t see the difference, but then I am a philistine artwise. He did move his patented obligatory borderless panel from 3 to 5, ad rewrote the text a bit.
Willis posts the comic one day earlier for Patreon supporters. This one was slightly changed.
Apologies, I should have probably been clear from the start that I was referring to the Patreon version.
its like trying to bag the grass after you mow the lawn!!!
I was thinking WTF do sticks have to do with Twilight?!?
Then I looked again and saw the poster.
Seriously. I grew up on a farm with lots of trees in our yard, and after EVERY damned storm there’d be hundreds of the things, everywhere, of all sizes, and my grandpa insisted we even get the small ones. You’ll never pick them all up. They just keep coming.
This got dark. Nobody told me there’d be stick-collecting in this comic.
Brr. I won’t go back- you can’t make me!
Always more sticks. It never ends. It never ends. It never ends. @_@
Hah, the last strip with ‘twilight’ tagged was almost five years ago.
Don’t even joke about the sticks. You crossed a line, Becky.
At this moment I am glad that in my family we don’t have any obsesion of having big grass surfaces, there is only a small patch under the tree at the front and perfection is not required from it…
Those 10/10 Brown Girls.
NSFW
I wouldn’t label this NSWF, they are pretty much wearing clothes..and a sign.
Yeah but if you were at work that might raise some eyebrows. I can’t just look at victoria’s secret at work and be like “She’s in underwear boss, it’s fine”.
underwear is still nsfw
Awesome Yotomoe!
Awwwww, I can’t say what I love more, Carol’s disaproving glare, Joyce’s monkey master bra or Joyceline
Charlie’s Angels: The Webcomic
It’s a good thing Jocelyne is fictional, because I now have an urge to pay for her hormone therapy/surgery, and I don’t think I could afford that.
That last panel is proof that Becky is filling her head with all sorts of new information.
Well if nothing else, I can respect Joyce’s parents for their creative forms of punishment for misbehaving children.
i’m right there with joyce on the “how do i complain about my parents to my bff with a much worse parental situation?” topic. my best friend and i are pretty even on the “things to complain about re: our moms” front, but while i’ve got hella daddy issues, she was super close to her dad….who died of cancer a couple years ago. she’s had time to recover a bit from her loss and she does understand that different people have different relationships with their respective parents, but i still feel guilty for complaining about my dad situation when hey, at least he’s still alive, right? (not that he’s putting much effort into that, BUT ANYWAY.)
So the “shoot me?” joke seems in poor taste
It might be, but what’s Becky gonna do, Shoot her?
It’s a call back to when Becky did the same joke earlier. That time Joyce was shocked by it. That she now make the same joke herself is a powerful signal to Becky that she is allowed to be Becky.
Somewhere, Walky shivers with a sudden sense of dread.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/hero-2/
Good catch, Bagge! I didn’t get that.
Thanks! I got it from Cerberus a bit up 🙂
Seems like Joyce got the short end of the stick there *canned laughter*
Awwwww, Joyce and Dotty is messing.
Awwwwwwwww, Joyce doesn’t want to make Becky uncomfortable by complaining about her parents (a bit misguided, but still awwww-worhty)
Awwwwwww, Becky doesn’t want to impose
Awwwwww, Joyce is having none of that bullshit and lets Becky in and closes the door and refuses to be part in Carol’s attempt to make Becky feel miserable
Awwwww, Joyce and Becky can joke about the shooting together
Awwwwwwwww, Joyce and Becky joke about chores, just like they undoubtedly did as kids.
AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW….ouch
Spouse: “What happened to your jaw?”
I think you meant to write “jawwwwww”.
Becky would rather eat a bucket of bugs than pick up sticks
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1990/05/19
Noooo, don’t hurt the bugs.
Outside, Carol starts to hyperventilate.
“They closed the door!!! Our daughter is alone with a LESBIAN”
“She’s alone with Becky, dear…”
“YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN”
“…I’m afraid I do.”
*Crashes door open, glares suspiciously at girls.*
“DO YOU WANT SOME TEA?”
*Five minutes later, crashes door open, glares suspiciously at girls.*
“BISCUITS?”
#haveabiscuitpotter ?
*dalek voice* YOU DO NOT RE-QUIRE TEA??
“Mom, you still haven’t brought the tea.”
I think I have a new punishment…
This sticks thing was legitimately confusing until I read the comments. I couldn’t tell if it was an inside joke or some weird abusive thing that had happened to them in the past (though maybe I’ve just been reading too much achewood lately, as if that’s possible).
But apparently it’s just that, since I’m from the city, I had no idea people go around picking up sticks in their yards as a chore.
*Looks at tags*
*Looks at posters*
HYMMEL!!!!
Having picked up the sticks in my, sizable, yard. IT NEVER ENDS. IT’S SO F***ing BIG! WHY THE F*** IS IT TAKING SO LONG. WHY CAN’T THE TREES JUST HOLD ONTO THEIR FREAKIN’ STICKS?
CARMAN
I keep seeing that as “Cartman”.
Mrs Brown stop being a complete and utter creep and stalking Becky. You are being a terrible host in so many ways.
Joyce is a fan of the remake of Twilight that’s made in 2036, not the original.
Also I suppose picking up sticks is like the real life equivalent of Sisyphus and the boulder? Nice.
http://i.imgur.com/9e3bYIJ.png
Joyce may have a stain on her carpet tommorow.
I’m such a fan of your mind.
That’s because you’ve only seen his better side.
Yoto you beautiful bastard, you
Also, did her boobs increase between the first and second panels, or is it just me?
“Think of dinosaurs, think of dinosaurs…”
“dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinasaurs, Dina, threesome… FUCK!”
I wonder who Joyce was texting? Dorothy, Jocelyn or maybe one of her brothers? I can’t think of anyone else with whom she’d feel able to discuss this. Unless she’s writing a public blog post… Wouldn’t that have repercussions!
I just want to note that I grew up in a house on over an acre of land in a tree-ridden region of the US, and never heard of this picking up sticks thing.
So obviously this is another one of those things Willis just made up.
OK, so that’s the second mentioning of humans unhinging their jaws in two days in the few comics I am watching. Is there a comic-meme going on?
JAWS MUST UNHINGE
My theory is it’s a shoutout to the best hamburger commercial of all time.
I don’t get it sticks?
People in areas abundant with trees who don’t have proper lawnmowers have an endless supply of sticks in their yards.
And if your parents are of a certain age, they make you pick up sticks anyway regardless of lawnmower quality.
Now that I mow my own lawn I don’t give a fuck unless it’s a particularly large branch or something (which is fairly frequent during the spring.)
I grew up with a yard that had a few trees but we didn’t have to pick up every single tiny stick.
Ah, OK. I thought I was missing a key reference.
Honestly, “collecting sticks” is a thing? We had many trees in the garden but all we ever did was make leaf piles which were fun to jump in.
And on a side note: why would Joyce complain about her dad? Her mom I can understand but her dad has so far been the one only person (besides her) who’s willing to apply christian principles to his way of thinking. All other “christians” have been hate-spewing, poisonous, intolerant, vitriolic, self-righteous assholes.
Did you forget yesterday’s strip? Both Sierra and Agatha are devout Christians, at least enough to voluntarily go to church, and both are good characters. Mary, Carol and Ross Babies MacIntyre are the only hate-spewing Christians in the comic, and they are currently out-numbered four-and-half to three on the known Christian front (Becky counts too; Hank is trying, but not yet there).
Agatha is Mormon.
Mormons are generally considered Christian. At least by those who don’t like to wall off anyone they don’t approve of from Christianity. Like Mary, who probably also considers Catholics non-Christian. (Do we have a Catholic in the cast? I don’t think so.)
That said, the sociologist part of my brain does think they really shouldn’t be classified as Christian. The new revelations and holy books push them into a new category – offshoot of Christianity, much like Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism.
As an atheist, I don’t intend any value judgment with that, unlike many Christians who want to “other” Mormons.
Amber is Catholic.
Is she? Cool. I didn’t remember that.
Did it come up here? Or in Shortpacked?
Not in comic, but Willis mentioned it at some point in the comments. Something along the lines of “Like all good guilt ridden superheroes, Amber O’Malley is Catholic.”
Ah yes, with that family name it’d be weird if she hadn’t been raised Catholic.
I dunno, hating queer people has been a “Christian” value for a good long while now. Christians who don’t suck may dislike that, much as they may dislike how the religion in America has become synonymous with hating sex, sexuality, women’s freedoms, and backwards racial ideas, but it doesn’t mean that the religion’s most public face hasn’t stood for exactly that.
Nor does it mean that the type of Fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity that Willis grew up with hasn’t stood for exactly that.
There’s a lot of good Christians in comic. Hank, Joyce, and Becky for Evangelical Christianity. Danny, Billie, Agatha, Sierra, Sierra’s parents for Christians in general.
And erasing them to convince oneself that Willis is being unfair rather than speaking from painful personal experience is kinda a bit of a douchey thing to do.
I wasn’t erasing anyone. I just have no clue who Sierra and Agatha are, and I forgot several others. Many of this comic’s characters simply don’t stick (LOL) with me. And I’m a german atheist, so this american religious war is totally alien to me anyway.
This is what sticks are for:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=pooh+sticks&client=ubuntu&hs=WrR&channel=fs&tbm=isch&imgil=R2chEkBPmUG-eM%253A%253BGpa7r9GKF55mLM%253Bhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%25252Fnews%25252Fnewstopics%25252Fhowaboutthat%25252F11823069%25252FWhy-Christopher-Robin-lost-at-Poohsticks-his-stick-was-too-thin.html&source=iu&pf=m&fir=R2chEkBPmUG-eM%253A%252CGpa7r9GKF55mLM%252C_&usg=__UMLzDGPKyOggf4cadQyj6tVs9Qs%3D&biw=1366&bih=641&ved=0ahUKEwjLxtb8k4bLAhWH1BoKHYooAaUQyjcIUA&ei=80LIVouBFYepa4rRhKgK#imgrc=UrAeLZUpt7VvAM%3A
That preview panel for the 31 is suddenly more terrifying.
Also, the sticks! i think of them, and i just want something to crawl into to be safe and warm forever.
Sticks might be bad, but there are worse things – like parents deciding that it’s a splendid idea to have a vegetable garden in the yard, or never ending invasion of reeds from outside the fence…
People with yards that are receptacles for leaves in the fall: buy a Stihl BR600. Don’t be like “Ugh but it’s SOOOO expensive! And I don’t need the pro version, i’m not a professional.”, just buy one. It is seriously a game changer.
Joyce, i guess you are “stick” doing it.
eeeeeh?
Geeze, that’s some serious emotional trauma right there. o.O
Oh CRAP! Joyce’ mom is… MY MOM!?!
I think Joyce is posting on a blog or more likely (based on the scrollover text) Twilight fandom sites. She is probably talking to fellow twilight fans.
I’m glad she has an outlet *somewhere*.
I now see that the scroll over might refer to the poster in Joyce’s room.
SO THERE GOES MY AMAZING FANBLOG THEORY. RIP.
Wait wait wait, Hymmel the what now?!
Hymmel the Humming Hymnal, the high point of children’s entertainment.
Oh my god Joyce’s hand movements are so weird here
that’s… still supposed to be a cast, right??? not a weird long fingerless glove???
it was never a cast
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/sprained/
Casts are so XXth century.
I guess this comic settles that Becky’s mother has passed away. I remember reading some questions about it the comment thread a while ago.
First time commenting, very long time reader. This strip just hits home SO HARD! When I was a kid my “job” was to pick up the sticks in my backyard (we lived on a 2 acre forest. One summer, THE SUMMER of 1990, I picked up sticks every day for 2 months in order to “win” a Super Mario 3 cartridge. I still have my mario 3 game and box and is one of my most coveted possessions because it taught me the value of work at an early age.
Thank you so much for this strip!
Oh god, STICK CLEANING. I remember that. It really does never end.
The Batman*-tilt in panels 2 and 3 is giving me flashbacks to Joyce’s hanky-panky dream.
* 1960s TV version
The sticks just keep coming!
Not only I had forgotten that Joyce was a Twilight fan, I did NOT expect the Hymmel poster >_<
But then I guess nobody expected it.
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition, either.
I like how people are either like “OMG YES, picking up sticks was the worst” or “What? Sticks? What is this?” and I’m like “Yeah, I never had to pick up sticks myself, but if you have trees in a yard, sticks are going to fall off sooner or later, that’s pretty obvious.”
Am I the only one who read “mae you pick up sticks” and at first thought it was the old “go get me a switch” thing?
I used to live in Connecticut. STICKS EVERYWHERE.
Still in Connecticut. I don’t really remember this from my childhood, but I’ve bought a house recently and it has all the sticks. And even more acorns.
Even within a small state, it’s very area dependent.
Joyce has a Carman poster on her door… clearly Willis has lived this life.
I like to think the detail on the Eclipse poster isn’t a time-saving thing but that that’s just how the poster looks in-universe.
“There’s always more sticks, Becky. THERE’S. ALWAYS. MORE. STICKS.”
——————————
OK, now I’ve got THIS stuck in my mind……
I feel the pain. My father once cut some 12′ of twine into half inch pieces for me to pick up…when I finished he just took the pieces from me and tossed them back out and I got to start over.
Off the wall theory on who she is texting:
Mike.
She’s employed him before (her date with Joe). He specializes in making people miserable. She’s pissed at her mom. His rate for moms: a nickel.
Wait, what? You can’t just rake them up?? I’m confused…
Yardwork is where I draw the line.