My wife says I should just describe this strip as “A delightful romp about a boy that trusted and lost. Ebert gives it three thumbs up!” And then go to friggin’ bed already. But I’m gonna get all wordy instead.
For the most part, I was Eddie in school. Relentlessly picked on, initially gullible, ultimately paranoid. But this strip is inspired by a brief moment in time where I took on, to some degree, the role of the narrator.
There was a kid I went to school with – let’s call him Eddie too, just to keep things confusing – who annoyed the hell out of me and my friends. He constantly said nasty stuff about us and made up clearly-false stories in an effort to make himself look awesome. I can’t remember what else he did, but please accept that he sucked. My friends and I were reading “Great Expectations” in English class around this time (because whatever gods there may be are thoroughly unfamiliar with the concept of mercy,) and we decided to see if we could convince Eddie that “Orlick” was, in fact, a naughty and derisive word.
We began calling Eddie an orlick, and calling other people orlicks when Eddie was around, in an effort to introduce the word to his vocabulary. When he asked us what it meant, we laughed at his ignorance. When he finally started using the word himself, we mocked his usage of it (i.e. “Your Mom’s an orlick!” ”What? How the hell can a MOM be an orlick?”) But eventually he started using it regularly.
I don’t know what the point of this was, exactly, but the fact that it worked (despite Eddie being in the same English class that we were and reading the same book) is something I’ve always chalked up as a minor victory.
Have a great weekend! See you glorious people next week!
-=ShoEboX=-
Now if Eddie were actually Spok…
This was a good one. It reminds me of a joke we used to tell our kids.
the joke goes:
Two bears were washing in a stream. One bear says to the other bear ” you got any soap?”
the second bear says ” not soap, RADIO” (pronounced RAY-DEE-OO all drawn out).
Then we would laugh hysterically like it was the funniest thing we’d ever heard.
Our kids would laugh along and then walk away with puzzled looks on their faces.
When they finally got up the gumption to tell us they didn’t understand, we’d tell them they would when they got older. So they started asking adults at random, like teachers, other friends parents, etc. Some of the adults told them they shouldn’t tell jokes like that. Others went along with the “when you’re older” line. Only about half said they didn’t get it either. So about half of the adults couldn’t admit that it didn’t make sense.
Try it out.
You’ll see.
Poor Eddie. Maybe he was just misunderstood, or maybe he just needed a little guidance. But no, you just mocked him relentlessly.
I FEEL SAD NOW :[
“See you glorious people next week?” You mean… you can SEE us?!!!
MooseDrool: I’ve heard that joke around somewhere before. So either it’s more common than you think, or you’re from Indiana.
I wholeheartedly agree of this story and the strip.
Agree of? To? Sorry English is far from being my mother tongue. Maternal language? Tongue? Mother? BAh!
ORLICK!