Since about 1895 according to dictionaries.
Merriam-Webster says “a meal usually taken late in the morning that combines a late breakfast and an early lunch”.
Oxford even more directly says “a late morning meal eaten instead of breakfast and lunch”.
I’m feeling a pedantic urge to point out that given Tolkien’s encyclopaedic knowledge of languages, he was well aware that “second breakfast” is an oxymoron.
That is totally subjective. Breakfast is a a break from fasting, so considering a Hobbit’s fondness for all things edible, it isn’t so much a contradiction to say that they can have a “second break from fasting”, but much more of a logical conclusion, given that not eating between first breakfast and elevenses would constitute as a period of fasting – albeit too short for humans to be counted as such.
Also a time for novel food, made as cheaply as possible, with all the ingredients the restaurant couldn’t get rid of before, and prepared and served by surly staff that would rather strangle you.
I feel like if you’re trying to save money by combining two meals into one at a restaurant, not only are you doing it wrong, you’re walking right into a meme.
Funny story: where most people think Brunch is a combination of lunch and breakfast, that way of spelling the word is actually only a coincidence. The word originally comes from the combination of any (and, indeed, all) meals in a day into one which was called Broke-ass Lunch or, because there are kids present taking all our money so we can’t afford multiple meals, Brunch.
I think people are harsher on Amber because the narrative is often pretty sympathetic to her—and because, as a Nerd Comic from Nerd Culture, we’re used to the shy white nerd having bad behavior (like being an effin’ cop) excused. People are angrier when they think a character’s bad behavior is going to be vindicated.
I honestly do not see Walky get much hate—he gets a bit, yeah, but not as much as Billie or Amber or Sarah.
Billie’s an ex-cheerleader, and the narrative pretty explicitly sees her as the iconic “lovable garbage” character of Dumbing of Age. Of course people hate her—but most of us do it in an affectionate, “I’m worried about this girl” way.
Billie’s never quit drinking. I don’t think she’s even said she was quitting drinking, other than that one long broken deal before they actually got together.
No, no. Kris is not claiming that men make waffles differently then women or Canadians. Rather Kris seems to be advocating controlling the sexual preference of ones own waffles.
Wasn’t there a strip where Joyce was discussing things that Becky might have been hiding from her, and the idea of pancakes and waffles being stand ins for male and female, in which case this strip is Billie saying that right now, she wants ladies (specifically Ruth, but whatever)
Yo! Maple syrup’s expensive! I don’t know how much it costs in Vermont but in California it’s upwards of 30.00$ a bottle American, and that’s probably still low quality for you authentic folks up north. I’ll take my affordable, glorified sugar water and pay my rent on time, thank you.
American “Syrup” is absolutely awful. At that point, you should just put jam or something on your waffles/pancakes! Or just lemon juice and powdered sugar. Or cinnamon and sugar. Anything but Syrup.
It’s not not that much more expensive than the fake stuff here in Mass, but we produce it here too. Once you’ve had the real stuff you can never go back to the cheap crap. It’s worth it.
Standard 32 ounce jug of maple syrup in California at least runs between 20-30 bucks. I guess when I said “bottle” that might have been unintentionally misleading. It might be cheaper online. Someone linked a bottle that was priced at 20$ but I’ve seen that same brand at my local grocery store for 28$. Smaller bottles are still around 2-3x what you’d pay for the sugar water and molasses substitute.
It literally grows on trees here. I haven’t actually paid for syrup in years. A friend’s wife’s family makes it, and I’m given more than I can use for Atheist Kids Get Presents Day every year.
Last time I actually bought syrup, it was so I could give it as gifts to people who were stranded in the benighted South, and as I recall, it was $24 for a gallon can.
If you get syrup in a diner or whatever here, you have to specifically ask for it to get the fake shit, and the waitress will give you weird looks.
I dated a girl from California for a while, who insisted on having what she called “California syrup” on her pancakes. I won’t comment as to her mental health.
There is a sort of inverse dilemma for some diners who turn out great pancakes for a less-than-wealthy clientele. They lose their profit margins if they let those cakes be covered with maple syrup that costs the diner a dollar an ounce.
Too bad. I’m not a maple syrup person very often (I am not a person who puts things on my food) but maple flavoured stuff is delicious and the syrup by itself is very good.
The nuclear-survivable liquid sugar is about as much maple as I am, and had better not be calling itself maple syrup of any kind. It can be labled “syrup,” or “pancake syrup,” or “viscous liquid looking vaguely like motor oil” but it’s not maple syrup. That said, it’s not that expensive if you buy the small bottle and convince yourself it’s an occasional treat, which for me it is. The Kornglopp — well, it’ll do, and it serves to remind me how good actual maple syrup is.
Actually, Indiana is a pretty large producer of maple syrup. I live in the southern part of Indiana, and not an hour away from me is a huge maple syrup-producing area, they through a huge Maple Festival every year. Because of that, maple syrup is not near as expensive here than in other areas, but the real stuff is still like, $7 for a quart or something, whereas the cheap stuff is like $2 for 2 quarts. I will often get both kinds when in the mood for it, use the fake stuff if eating like, frozen waffles, and the real stuff if I make pancakes or latkes myself.
Sure, I’m not knocking people for not eating it because it’s expensive. I AM making fun of what Americans call syrup because it is glorified sugar water. 😛
An extremely generous interpretation on my part given that Billie has clearly shown that she’s still drinking or at least trying to get drinks in the past, but it could have just been a slip of the tongue to Ruth. Even if she’s not necessarily offering that they themselves get mimosas at this place, if that’s what she remembers this place for, that might be what she uses as a selling point, without really thinking about that “Ooh, yeah we’re kicking alcoholism”.
Billie isn’t kicking alcoholism herself though. She still hasn’t had the breakthrough she’s got a real, serious problem. The closest she got to that was deciding she was poison and going to make a suicide pact with Ruth (which ended when Ruth got blackmailed by Mary and had to be hospitalized. We already know Billie’s skipping the therapy she’s supposed to have been going to after that and we know she’s still drinking).
The fact that Billie’s drunk driving incident didn’t clue her in to the fact that she has a serious problem kinda tells me everything I need to know about her to hate her indefinitely.
This is excessive. She stopped drinking and driving. “I’m only hurting me now” is where she’s at. Billie is a toxic person, yes, but hating her for being depressed and borderline suicidal is?
Ruth is actually trying to get better. Billie is overwhelmed by the prospect of recovery. Part of why Billie is attracted to Ruth is that she doesn’t think her destructive lifestyle can hurt Ruth any worse, which seems wrong. I think Ruth is still upset that Billie never went sober when she needed the support. Billie can still let Ruth down. Walky/Amber isn’t the only relationship formed on the pretense of garbage, but as we just saw, they eventually had to reckon with reality. If Ruth weans herself off alcohol, Billie would once again be a destructive influence. Maybe like those chicken nuggets, she finds a way to ruin this, too.
You don’t need to recover if nothing is wrong. Taking care of Ruth gave Billie another reason her depression isn’t ‘that bad’ and she ‘doesn’t have a problem’.
I really relate to Ruth’s last line in the last panel, at least how I’m reading it which is, “It’s important to make killing yourself seem like a hassle.” Like, in her case she’s making it into a more absurd situation to perhaps gain distance from it, and I get that. And sometimes if it feels like everything’s too much, and you can frame killing yourself as yet another thing to take on, it can kind of help push it away. It’s not the best solution, but if it keeps you alive another day, that’s something.
Sometimes too it’s hard to process the intense emotional impact our death would have on people close to us, and it can help to just think of people who may be incidentally upset or inconvenienced. “I can’t kill myself tonight,” I’ve thought, “because then in the morning someone’s gonna find me and that’s gonna ruin their morning and they’ll probably miss their morning classes.” Same sort of idea, whether for you or for someone else, that killing yourself is inconvenient.
Yo, don’t talk shit about my state. We’ve got the eighth-largest carillon in the world, and my hometown is famous for having a stupid sports mascot and a guy who got shot in the same car as JFK. We’ve also got three Dollar General stores. Three.
Ruth has made me reconsider the way I rate and judge syrup. How can I tell whether or not it is passable when I have never in living memory had authentic, maple-tapped and hand cured syrup with my pancakes and waffles?
New mission: go on vacation Canada, and have a local direct me to the good stuff.
I’ve heard of that, they dig little trenches in a snowbank and pour it right in until it hardens to a taffy. I live in Colorado, and every time a blizzard hits I’m always tempted to try it myself but always decide not to coz I doubt the results would be at all appealing…
You can also just scoop up a bowl of snow and put maple syrup on it and eat it. I have no idea if this is a thing other people do, but my mom taught it to me when I was a kid. I wish there was snow outside right now.
It’s not the sanitation of the snow that always stops me, but the quality of the syrup. Do off the counter, cheap-o syrups taste good on a bed of crumbled ice, or does it have to be the good quality stuff to not taste like a sugared bowl of snot?
As a Canadian maple syrup is overrated and this strip perpetuates a stupid stereotype of Canadians who don’t sell maple syrup giving a crap about maple syrup.
I know you don’t particularly like Emily’s comments, but is there any need for you to reply to every comment of hers in the same antagonistic sarcastic way? Just don’t engage, dude. I know you probably just want to ‘own’ her, but you’re just coming across as obnoxious and bratty.
Am I reading it wrong? My take was that Billie was only making an additional statement about the waffle place, not actually expressing any intention to have a mimosa with her breakfast.
It’s not so much Billie doesn’t hate being self-destructive and suicidal – she certainly doesn’t ENJOY feeling like poison who ruins everything – so much as she’s swimming in a river in Egypt. RUTH is the one with the problems, Billie’s FINE, Billie’s not catatonic and lying there waiting to die so everything is FINE.
I can relate. Three generations in a direct male line of alcoholics. S’not pretty, and any humor we can find in the situation is vital to dealing with the issues, no matter how morbid…
So many people think anti-depressants are “Happy Pills”. Having been on most available over the years, until I hit the one that worked for me, they don’t work like that at all. They don’t make me “happy”, but now I’m on an effective dose of the right meds the world is no longer in shades of grey. I can appreciate the moments of joy and beauty in the world, and I no longer have to deal with suicidal ideation.
But I’m still sad and empty a lot of the time. At least now I see enough value to life to keep living. The pills don’t make me “happy” though, that’s my choice whether to try to be happy or not. Previously that choice was denied by major depression.
Actually should depend on the meds, some increase impetus (right word? The impuls/wish and energy to act) more than others or before the other effects set in and that’s not what you should give people who have suicidal thoughts.
Though it would be great to have a realistic depiction of the shit of finding one med doesn’t work for one and grade out that and grade in another, I’d rather Willis didn’t make us watch Ruth going through with that.
If there’s one single thing I respect about Billie, it’s that she REALLY loves that girl. Knowing that it’s going to be like this every time, and being prepared to go through this shit again and again for her sake, that’s true love.
My first impulse was to say “both”, but I think for Billie alcohol is a necessity which makes life bearable. I’m not sure she “loves” it. She thinks she needs it – can’t manage without it – and is not willing to try life without it.
Do we have any backstory of abuse or something? I don’t remember seeing that, but it seems plausible.
So long as she doesn’t have Joyce as Ghost of Christmas Past, Sal as Ghost of Christmas Present and Sarah as Ghost of Christmas Future, I think she’ll be able to manage!
I mean besides the obvious recovering alcoholic thing, you really should NOT be drinking alcohol with meds. Some meds you can get away with it, but the higher the dosage the more likely you’ll be better off just… not. (or skipping a day if you want to have a drink)((this is just in my experience))
Yeah, I was on epilepsy meds for 16 years and they told me when I got older I couldn’t drink with my meds. That was actually one of the reasons a neurology resident told me I should come off my meds when I was fourteen.
That resident was a quack and I did not take her advice. I’m 22 now and I rarely drink.
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I feel like brunch is a millennial necessity to save money by combining two meals into one
all that “not getting paid by people who have money” and all
Nah, it predates Millenials by a good bit. Hell, you could argue that the Hobbits inspired it with “Second Breakfast”.
Brunch is the opposite of second breakfast, isn’t it? One is merging meals, and the other is splitting them out.
Since when does brunch replace breakfast and lunch?
If you want a good brunch, it’s almost certainly going to be more expensive than just cooking some eggs and calling it a meal.
The end result of that purchase, then, should be not feeling hungry any more that day. Maybe not even until tomorrow.
Otherwise you’re just wasting your cash on an exorbitant meal that wasn’t feeling.
Filling! Stupid autocorrect.
“I ate myself today / to see if I still feel”
“and drank a smoothie made, with raw banana peels”
The waffles filled a whole
the coffee made a sting
They try to take my food away
But I devour everything
Since about 1895 according to dictionaries.
Merriam-Webster says “a meal usually taken late in the morning that combines a late breakfast and an early lunch”.
Oxford even more directly says “a late morning meal eaten instead of breakfast and lunch”.
I’m feeling a pedantic urge to point out that given Tolkien’s encyclopaedic knowledge of languages, he was well aware that “second breakfast” is an oxymoron.
It’s just the closest translation of a concept we don’t have in our culture.
No, no, it’s because Second Fast is the time in the mid-morning in which you musn’t eat* or you’ll ruin your whole day’s schedule.
*more than a light sub sandwich and soup
Every meal is breakfast, it’s just that the fasts in between each of them are not very long
That is totally subjective. Breakfast is a a break from fasting, so considering a Hobbit’s fondness for all things edible, it isn’t so much a contradiction to say that they can have a “second break from fasting”, but much more of a logical conclusion, given that not eating between first breakfast and elevenses would constitute as a period of fasting – albeit too short for humans to be counted as such.
I eat like a Hobbit, by which I mean I have second breakfast. That’s what you call it when your dinner is dry cereal.
No, brunch is more than that it is a time honored excuse for day drinking
Also a time for novel food, made as cheaply as possible, with all the ingredients the restaurant couldn’t get rid of before, and prepared and served by surly staff that would rather strangle you.
So much more in-your-face than suffocation!
Eat at Arbies.
What day drinker ever needed an excuse for day drinking?
“Beer: It’s not just for breakfast anymore.”
I feel like if you’re trying to save money by combining two meals into one at a restaurant, not only are you doing it wrong, you’re walking right into a meme.
But those lazy milennials don’t cook! They’d rather get their avocado toast from their local artisanal bread shop at $7 a slice.
/s
I didn’t say which meals so it’s like tea + happy hour lolololol
/doesn’t actually know anything about brunch bc no money
A true visionary.
[Dog with frisbee meme]
No pay! Only spend!
I have never had a brunch that wasn’t more expensive than a breakfast and lunch combined
This has been another episode of “deep cuts with Ana”, where you laugh until it hurts because it hurts.
Funny story: where most people think Brunch is a combination of lunch and breakfast, that way of spelling the word is actually only a coincidence. The word originally comes from the combination of any (and, indeed, all) meals in a day into one which was called Broke-ass Lunch or, because there are kids present taking all our money so we can’t afford multiple meals, Brunch.
Pretty sure brunch predates broke-ass/
The concept seems to derive more from late risers than any need to save money.
I’m a little surprised Ruth didn’t call out Billie for suggesting a drink, given her therapy.
I think that’s what’s implied by her saying “dining hall it is”.
That was a bit odd of Billie to suggest. I mean, not for Billie per se, but given the current situation.
Billie is a raging alcoholic who’s fine with dragging her potentially-recovering SO back into alcoholism and depression.
People spend a lot of time ragging on Walkey and Amber, but holy crap do they have nothing on Billie for being a horrible person.
With Billie, I think it helps she’s dealing with the same issues, but you’re right to worry – I’m worried this is going to go full crab bucket too.
I think people are harsher on Amber because the narrative is often pretty sympathetic to her—and because, as a Nerd Comic from Nerd Culture, we’re used to the shy white nerd having bad behavior (like being an effin’ cop) excused. People are angrier when they think a character’s bad behavior is going to be vindicated.
I honestly do not see Walky get much hate—he gets a bit, yeah, but not as much as Billie or Amber or Sarah.
Billie’s an ex-cheerleader, and the narrative pretty explicitly sees her as the iconic “lovable garbage” character of Dumbing of Age. Of course people hate her—but most of us do it in an affectionate, “I’m worried about this girl” way.
“I’m worried about this girl (or boy, as appropriate)” is how I feel about most of these characters.
Billie doesn’t actually want to quit drinking. That was kind of an, “Ehhhhhh resolution for her.”
Ruth is ignoring the fact Billie’s shits given are zero regarding recovery.
Billie’s never quit drinking. I don’t think she’s even said she was quitting drinking, other than that one long broken deal before they actually got together.
Always procrastinate.
The life you save could be yours.
Oh, the eternal struggle with happy meds. :/
Sorry, Ruth. Sharking Training of Age is a different comic, and they don’t have any slots for new characters.
For some reason my brain focused on reverse engineering that joke to determine that Ruth’s current major must be ‘Dumbing’.
Also, I pretty sure that Shark Training of Age would have new slots for characters on a fairly regular basis.
Not if the focus is on the sharks and not the trainers 😀
So the DOA cast is sharkified?
Wait, why would the cast need to change? Seems to me Willis would have a really hard time getting trucks all the way into the ocean!
Well, as long as they don’t start the “Jumping the Shark” course, I am good.
Waffles is always a good answer.
My dining hall had good waffles, but if theirs just has the reheated kind, I can see that not being particularly appealing.
Also, depression! “Do these meds work or do I just not want to start over” is where I’m at.
Waffles.
I’ve always preferred waffles to pancakes because they have little squares you can pour your syrup into.
Waffles are better ’cause they’re crispy. Pancakes are better when they’re layered and thin.
Thick pancakes and soft waffles are the Devil’s breakfast.
Or you could make your own waffles like a man.
Or waffles like a woman.
Or waffles like a Canadian.
A Canadian woman.
Which is ordering Joyce to make them.
No, no. Kris is not claiming that men make waffles differently then women or Canadians. Rather Kris seems to be advocating controlling the sexual preference of ones own waffles.
Wasn’t there a strip where Joyce was discussing things that Becky might have been hiding from her, and the idea of pancakes and waffles being stand ins for male and female, in which case this strip is Billie saying that right now, she wants ladies (specifically Ruth, but whatever)
There was, but waffles were boys in that scenario.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/gunshot/
It DOES seem like a lot of work and a lot of your credits wouldn’t transfer to an animal training major, so you should just stick with English, Ruth.
And oh, Billie, sweetie, no, alcohol is not going well.
I’m with Ruth btw. I don’t want to know what Americans consider syrup. I’m happy without this knowledge.
Some of our syrup is maple.
We have trees here, too.
But most of it’s colored sugar and corn starch stuffed into a bottle shaped like an old woman.
I’m a Vermonter. That crap can eat me. (I”m certainly not going to eat it.)
Yo! Maple syrup’s expensive! I don’t know how much it costs in Vermont but in California it’s upwards of 30.00$ a bottle American, and that’s probably still low quality for you authentic folks up north. I’ll take my affordable, glorified sugar water and pay my rent on time, thank you.
You’re no fun. 😛
(I kid, I kid – it’s understandable. That said, I’m still gonna make fun of Americans’ alleged ‘syrup’.)
American “Syrup” is absolutely awful. At that point, you should just put jam or something on your waffles/pancakes! Or just lemon juice and powdered sugar. Or cinnamon and sugar. Anything but Syrup.
It’s not not that much more expensive than the fake stuff here in Mass, but we produce it here too. Once you’ve had the real stuff you can never go back to the cheap crap. It’s worth it.
Plus you can get it in what kind of looks like a liquor bottle, so Billie should feel right at home with it.
$30 a bottle? How much are you buying at one time?
Standard 32 ounce jug of maple syrup in California at least runs between 20-30 bucks. I guess when I said “bottle” that might have been unintentionally misleading. It might be cheaper online. Someone linked a bottle that was priced at 20$ but I’ve seen that same brand at my local grocery store for 28$. Smaller bottles are still around 2-3x what you’d pay for the sugar water and molasses substitute.
It literally grows on trees here. I haven’t actually paid for syrup in years. A friend’s wife’s family makes it, and I’m given more than I can use for Atheist Kids Get Presents Day every year.
Last time I actually bought syrup, it was so I could give it as gifts to people who were stranded in the benighted South, and as I recall, it was $24 for a gallon can.
If you get syrup in a diner or whatever here, you have to specifically ask for it to get the fake shit, and the waitress will give you weird looks.
As she should. Anyone who actively chooses colored corn syrup over real maple syrup is probably mentally ill.
I dated a girl from California for a while, who insisted on having what she called “California syrup” on her pancakes. I won’t comment as to her mental health.
There is a sort of inverse dilemma for some diners who turn out great pancakes for a less-than-wealthy clientele. They lose their profit margins if they let those cakes be covered with maple syrup that costs the diner a dollar an ounce.
Too bad. I’m not a maple syrup person very often (I am not a person who puts things on my food) but maple flavoured stuff is delicious and the syrup by itself is very good.
“Organic” syrup is actual maple syrup.
“Normal” maple syrup is a liquid sugar that will last the nuclear apocalypse and still be good 200 years later in the next Fallout game.
So is honey!
I love the new Fallout 76. Just sayin’.
The nuclear-survivable liquid sugar is about as much maple as I am, and had better not be calling itself maple syrup of any kind. It can be labled “syrup,” or “pancake syrup,” or “viscous liquid looking vaguely like motor oil” but it’s not maple syrup. That said, it’s not that expensive if you buy the small bottle and convince yourself it’s an occasional treat, which for me it is. The Kornglopp — well, it’ll do, and it serves to remind me how good actual maple syrup is.
@Yumi: But is American Maple syrup good enough to be worth stealing?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Canadian_Maple_Syrup_Heist
just sayin’
I have to assume that any industry in America is riddled with crime, which is to say that someone’s probably stolen it.
They stole it to sell in America. So, yes?
Yeah but you can’t get the good kind of maple syrup in Indiana. Gotta go to Wisconsin, Minnesota or Michigan.
I get that, but it will not stop me ragging on the abomination Americans call syrup.
Or New England. Vermont is the classic, but you can get good local syrup pretty much in any New England state.
whoops I forgot Vermont sorry
Actually, Indiana is a pretty large producer of maple syrup. I live in the southern part of Indiana, and not an hour away from me is a huge maple syrup-producing area, they through a huge Maple Festival every year. Because of that, maple syrup is not near as expensive here than in other areas, but the real stuff is still like, $7 for a quart or something, whereas the cheap stuff is like $2 for 2 quarts. I will often get both kinds when in the mood for it, use the fake stuff if eating like, frozen waffles, and the real stuff if I make pancakes or latkes myself.
As a european I will happily yeild that Canada makes superiour syrup.
It’s basically maple flavored Karo syrup.
Everything is sweetened with corn syrup in the US because the government subsidizes corn production.
Y’all say Americans like maple syrup is readily available everywhere else
I personally love it but its expensive as hell
By everywhere else I mean places other than america. In my country we can make sugar, but you can’t grow a maple tree
Sure, I’m not knocking people for not eating it because it’s expensive. I AM making fun of what Americans call syrup because it is glorified sugar water. 😛
I was mildly traumatized the first time I went to the US and discovered the abominations that USians try to pass off as syrup.
*plays the jingle for the International House of Bacon Fat on a nearby speaker*
so Billie has dropped all pretense of helping Ruth kick her alcoholism?
All pretence of kicking alcoholism herself anyways.
An extremely generous interpretation on my part given that Billie has clearly shown that she’s still drinking or at least trying to get drinks in the past, but it could have just been a slip of the tongue to Ruth. Even if she’s not necessarily offering that they themselves get mimosas at this place, if that’s what she remembers this place for, that might be what she uses as a selling point, without really thinking about that “Ooh, yeah we’re kicking alcoholism”.
Billie isn’t kicking alcoholism herself though. She still hasn’t had the breakthrough she’s got a real, serious problem. The closest she got to that was deciding she was poison and going to make a suicide pact with Ruth (which ended when Ruth got blackmailed by Mary and had to be hospitalized. We already know Billie’s skipping the therapy she’s supposed to have been going to after that and we know she’s still drinking).
Generous: Billie is just insensitive or doesn’t think mimosas are “real” alcohol.
Cynical: Billie is really annoyed by Ruth’s recovery actually including self-improvement.
The fact that Billie’s drunk driving incident didn’t clue her in to the fact that she has a serious problem kinda tells me everything I need to know about her to hate her indefinitely.
This is excessive. She stopped drinking and driving. “I’m only hurting me now” is where she’s at. Billie is a toxic person, yes, but hating her for being depressed and borderline suicidal is?
Does she even have a license to have that choice at this point?
Baby steps. And I am proud of Ruth for calmly, maturely shooting the suggestion down, and for Billie acceptng the denial.
I think Billie would be surprised at any idea of getting better and be a little offended by it, actually.
What kind of suicide pact is this?
Ruth is actually trying to get better. Billie is overwhelmed by the prospect of recovery. Part of why Billie is attracted to Ruth is that she doesn’t think her destructive lifestyle can hurt Ruth any worse, which seems wrong. I think Ruth is still upset that Billie never went sober when she needed the support. Billie can still let Ruth down. Walky/Amber isn’t the only relationship formed on the pretense of garbage, but as we just saw, they eventually had to reckon with reality. If Ruth weans herself off alcohol, Billie would once again be a destructive influence. Maybe like those chicken nuggets, she finds a way to ruin this, too.
You don’t need to recover if nothing is wrong. Taking care of Ruth gave Billie another reason her depression isn’t ‘that bad’ and she ‘doesn’t have a problem’.
I really relate to Ruth’s last line in the last panel, at least how I’m reading it which is, “It’s important to make killing yourself seem like a hassle.” Like, in her case she’s making it into a more absurd situation to perhaps gain distance from it, and I get that. And sometimes if it feels like everything’s too much, and you can frame killing yourself as yet another thing to take on, it can kind of help push it away. It’s not the best solution, but if it keeps you alive another day, that’s something.
Sometimes too it’s hard to process the intense emotional impact our death would have on people close to us, and it can help to just think of people who may be incidentally upset or inconvenienced. “I can’t kill myself tonight,” I’ve thought, “because then in the morning someone’s gonna find me and that’s gonna ruin their morning and they’ll probably miss their morning classes.” Same sort of idea, whether for you or for someone else, that killing yourself is inconvenient.
*appropriate gesture of support and comfort*
Yeah, that’s at least part of how I’ve made it this long myself.
I will defend the syrup of… at least four states to the death!
…well, at least three.
Vermont, Minnesota, Wisconsin, maybe Michigan?
Illinois makes the best syrup. You can take that to the bank.
The best corn syrup (think ‘Karo’), perhaps.
I’m sure somebody else does corn syrup better. Illinois isn’t actually the best at anything, I was just havin’ a goof.
Oh good. Illinois sucks.
Yo, don’t talk shit about my state. We’ve got the eighth-largest carillon in the world, and my hometown is famous for having a stupid sports mascot and a guy who got shot in the same car as JFK. We’ve also got three Dollar General stores. Three.
You forgot West Virginia.
The only real maple syrup I’ve ever had was the homemade stuff back in West Virginia.
I ate a styrofoam packing peanut one time. I was urping up styrofoam-flavored gas for hours afterwards.
It was still better than the dining hall food.
Some packing peanuts are starch-based. We learned that because the cats started eating them.
Now I want syrup-dipped styrofoam.
…and ‘Jhon’ because I didn’t want to be ‘Other John’.
Ruth has made me reconsider the way I rate and judge syrup. How can I tell whether or not it is passable when I have never in living memory had authentic, maple-tapped and hand cured syrup with my pancakes and waffles?
New mission: go on vacation Canada, and have a local direct me to the good stuff.
You can also eat it with snow.
It’s pretty good.
Or crystallized, or as straight maple sugar!
I’ve heard of that, they dig little trenches in a snowbank and pour it right in until it hardens to a taffy. I live in Colorado, and every time a blizzard hits I’m always tempted to try it myself but always decide not to coz I doubt the results would be at all appealing…
You can also just scoop up a bowl of snow and put maple syrup on it and eat it. I have no idea if this is a thing other people do, but my mom taught it to me when I was a kid. I wish there was snow outside right now.
It’s not the sanitation of the snow that always stops me, but the quality of the syrup. Do off the counter, cheap-o syrups taste good on a bed of crumbled ice, or does it have to be the good quality stuff to not taste like a sugared bowl of snot?
Couldn’t tell ya. People who put maple syrup on snow wouldn’t touch the fake stuff with a ten-foot pole.
Just watch out where the huskies go.
Always good advice.
It really is very good. Incredibly sweet, though; a very little goes a long, long way.
You know, we do have sugar maple tapping in the US as well, notably (but not exclusively) in Vermont.
As a Canadian maple syrup is overrated and this strip perpetuates a stupid stereotype of Canadians who don’t sell maple syrup giving a crap about maple syrup.
Yeah, imagine someone who isn’t an artist giving a crap about a web comic.
And don’t forget the stereotype about Canadians who consume Maple syrup. Real Canadians never touch the stuff.
I know you don’t particularly like Emily’s comments, but is there any need for you to reply to every comment of hers in the same antagonistic sarcastic way? Just don’t engage, dude. I know you probably just want to ‘own’ her, but you’re just coming across as obnoxious and bratty.
I dont even get what you’re trying to say here. Is this supposed to be some sick burn or something?
i approved two new commenters who showed up just to dunk on you, clif, so maybe get a clue
Clue taken . I’ll try to avoid direct replies. I’m not even sure why I find the remarks so anoying. Objectively they shouldn’t be.
As a Canadian, I love tree sauce! 🙂 It even makes breakfast sausages edible! 😛
Maybe Ruth just isn’t a wild partier, Billie. Maybe a mentally healthier Ruth doesn’t want to start drinking before noon.
And maybe you shouldn’t be trying to, either!
Am I reading it wrong? My take was that Billie was only making an additional statement about the waffle place, not actually expressing any intention to have a mimosa with her breakfast.
That’d be a reasonable take if Billie weren’t an alcoholic.
I think Ruth will not be happy to discover Billie actually doesn’t hate her self-destructive suicidal side the same way Ruth does.
It’s not so much Billie doesn’t hate being self-destructive and suicidal – she certainly doesn’t ENJOY feeling like poison who ruins everything – so much as she’s swimming in a river in Egypt. RUTH is the one with the problems, Billie’s FINE, Billie’s not catatonic and lying there waiting to die so everything is FINE.
Billie’s NORMAL
I’m glad to see Billie is keeping true to the realization that some things are more importance than romance – like alcohol.
Notably this is said entirely in black humor from a person hailing from family of alcoholics married to a woman who suffers clinical depression.
I can relate. Three generations in a direct male line of alcoholics. S’not pretty, and any humor we can find in the situation is vital to dealing with the issues, no matter how morbid…
Not that Billie deserves any credit toward sobriety, but there is such a thing as a dry mimosa. I’ve had a few, they’re pretty good.
How does one mix a dry mimosa if s/he wants to try one?
Waffles. Yumi says that Waffles is always a good answer.
Indeed it is. This world would be a much better place if folks had waffles more often…
I personally used lemon lime soda w/orange juice and I used sparkling cider and orange juice. 🙂
That DOES sound tasty.
It’s been so long since I last saw an American talking about cider, I was confused there for a moment about how that could be a virgin mimosa…
Hard cider vs what’s basically spiced juice.
They’re usually talking about Martinelli’s, which is pretty much the de facto standard non-alcoholic champagne substitute in America.
Sure, but we all know that’s not what she means so it’s kinda irrelevant.
I know you’re obsessed with me or whatever but could you please stop?
Didn’t you say you were going to stop replying to Emily and ignore her?
When does that start, because this got old a while ago.
Since there are a bunch of people now in the market for maple syrup…
Ooooh! *licks lips*
‘M probably biased, but I prefer the Vermont stuff.
A wise man once told me, New Hampshire maple syrup is what they would make in Vermont if they knew how.
I can certainly sympathize, both with the “terrible, shitty-ass morning” thing and the ‘do my meds even work or is this what I am like’ feeling.
The best medication I ever had was love, though. Take good care of it, because when it ends, it’s really hard to get a new prescription.
So many people think anti-depressants are “Happy Pills”. Having been on most available over the years, until I hit the one that worked for me, they don’t work like that at all. They don’t make me “happy”, but now I’m on an effective dose of the right meds the world is no longer in shades of grey. I can appreciate the moments of joy and beauty in the world, and I no longer have to deal with suicidal ideation.
But I’m still sad and empty a lot of the time. At least now I see enough value to life to keep living. The pills don’t make me “happy” though, that’s my choice whether to try to be happy or not. Previously that choice was denied by major depression.
I think Billie assumes happy meds will be “party Ruth” and not, “Ruth who does not want to die.”
This is not a good assumption.
Mind you Ruth will be not happy to find her alcoholism may be different from Billies in terms of why they do it.
I’m assuming Indiana would be a difficult place to learn how to train sharks, what with there being no oceans nearby and all.
As Dina will tell you, freshwater sharks can swim into Indiana. 😛
i want waffles
Good answer.
Just a reminder that, medical treatment or no, Ruth is still having to find ways to cope with mental illness and strong suicidal urges.
And the risk of suicide actually increases when one first starts anti-depressants.
Yeah, the extra energy makes it riskier they’ll carry it out before the meds kick in.
Actually should depend on the meds, some increase impetus (right word? The impuls/wish and energy to act) more than others or before the other effects set in and that’s not what you should give people who have suicidal thoughts.
Though it would be great to have a realistic depiction of the shit of finding one med doesn’t work for one and grade out that and grade in another, I’d rather Willis didn’t make us watch Ruth going through with that.
Mimosa?
*Google search*
Oh, it just a weak ass Buck’s Fizz.
In my country we add vodka and gin to it on top of champagne and orange juice and we call it Agua de Valencia 😛
Yeah I’d so eat brunch for every meal. Omelettes and toast, mmmm.
As someone who’s had suicidal thoughts before, I know just how important it is to make it seem like a lot of work. Laziness saves lives, people.
Yay laziness!!! Impetus of progress! Preserver of lives! My constant companion and benefactor!
Laziness, and knowing something’ll hurt, and badly at that. That one helps as well, esp. when you have a low pain threshold like me
BRUNCH DATE!
If there’s one single thing I respect about Billie, it’s that she REALLY loves that girl. Knowing that it’s going to be like this every time, and being prepared to go through this shit again and again for her sake, that’s true love.
Billie loves booze more than Ruth….
That is going to be a problem, yes.
Is that ‘Billie loves booze more than Ruth does’ or ‘more than she loves Ruth’? Either way could well be true.
My first impulse was to say “both”, but I think for Billie alcohol is a necessity which makes life bearable. I’m not sure she “loves” it. She thinks she needs it – can’t manage without it – and is not willing to try life without it.
Do we have any backstory of abuse or something? I don’t remember seeing that, but it seems plausible.
Seems more like emotional neglect in her case.
I’d like Ruth to meet that girl Billie dated in high school who utterly cut ties with her. That would be an interesting meeting.
You mean Alice? Billy met her again in the dining hall so maybe that’s where this is going.
It would be better to throw other people in the shark pool instead tho
The shark bites might ruin their femurs!
Something something happy holidays something something.
*Ruth voice* EHHHHHHHHHHHHH
So long as she doesn’t have Joyce as Ghost of Christmas Past, Sal as Ghost of Christmas Present and Sarah as Ghost of Christmas Future, I think she’ll be able to manage!
Heh, now I REALLY want to see that.
On first read I thought ‘mimosas’ was a new kind of fancy waffle.
Turns out they’re actually trees.
these days restaurant/bar mimosas are just cooks champagne in orange juice
I mean besides the obvious recovering alcoholic thing, you really should NOT be drinking alcohol with meds. Some meds you can get away with it, but the higher the dosage the more likely you’ll be better off just… not. (or skipping a day if you want to have a drink)((this is just in my experience))
Yeah, I was on epilepsy meds for 16 years and they told me when I got older I couldn’t drink with my meds. That was actually one of the reasons a neurology resident told me I should come off my meds when I was fourteen.
That resident was a quack and I did not take her advice. I’m 22 now and I rarely drink.
We were given as a Canada souvenir some maple syrup in a bottle shaped as a maple. It was super nice but I realized I am more of a honey person.
YAS RUTH I am also a syrup snob