If you can tolerate Law & Order, then you’ll love this strip because it’s been ripped and plucked from the headlines…of the Town Crier, which serves Austintown, Canfield, Boardman and Poland, Ohio. Ryan had originally pushed to make this an 80-panel epic, but David was like, “No, just three. My wrists are so tired from all the puppet shows I’ve done for school.” (David went to art school.)

So here’s the rest of the story, as reported by Joan Fybb, deputy editor of the Town Crier:

Grandpa Paul wasn’t only fat, drunk, bitter, racist and diabetic. He was also a millionaire. He was never around for Grandma because he was always busy boating in the Caspian Sea and bathing in caviar with the Saudis. And about Andy’s surgery: it was just a nick on the forehead. He only needed two stitches, which is practically zero stitches. And if anyone should be ashamed, it’s Grandma. She’s the one who sold all of Andy’s codeine for round-trip airfare to LA so she could be in the Wheel of Fortune audience. No, she was not a contestant, just an audience member. The usher sat her next to a healthy old man named David Gonzales (not our David Gonzales) and he started stroking her neck and kissing her hand and telling her how he wanted to take her back to the shelter (he was, to all intents and purposes, homeless). And she obliged him. After the taping they went back to his shelter in West Hollywood and humped until the cows came home. He stuck it in her pie and pinched her minnow. She arched her back and moaned three Hail Marys in forgiveness. Back in Poland, Ohio, Andy, all alone, had to make his own peanut butter and honey sandwich and rub Neosporin into his head wound. He had to get up from his sickbed and change the channel on the television all by himself. But don’t cry for Andy. He’s an Eagle Scout, and a Christian. If anyone’s gonna be all right, it’s Andy. He may not have Grandpa Paul’s riches or Grandma’s joie de vive, but he’s got a half-decent head on his shoulders, good posture and a wide wet tongue. And if that’s not enough to get by in this $4.30-a-gallon, $8.50-a-pack-of-Camels world, then fuck it. Dig a hole and sit in it, Andy.

This titanium wedding ring with 14k gold accents from Just Men’s Rings reminds me of an old story I once heard from a Romanian nun. She was nearly senile at the time, so the story and its themes only make sense after the third or fourth time you read it. Here goes:

Outside of Bucharest, in a hamlet known to the locals as Kimz (but known to cartographers as Kymz), lived a young boy and his mule. Years ago, when the young boy was even younger, his parents went out for some milk and gasoline, and never came back, so he was left to raise the mule by himself. He didn’t mind this, as his parents were terribly cruel. They would often douse him in maple syrup and watch as the horse flies swarmed and gnawed at his sticky body.

One day, while the boy was taking a bath with the mule, he realized how handsome it was. Its body was lean but not scrawny; its face was perfectly proportioned, like that of an ancient Greek statue. Its hooves were smooth and blacker than any black object the boy had seen before. He suddenly became aroused. He wasn’t sure if what he felt was true love but it was the closest he’d ever been to feeling such a feeling, so he considered it so.

“I love you this much,” he said, and extended his hands as far apart as possible.

“Why don’t you prove it?” the mule said.

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Dos Factotum fan and native Ohioan (and Centervillian!) Cameron Jett has won the Cameron Jett Memorial Dos Factotum Superfan Award, which is named after Cameron Jett because he’s the first person to ever win it. Why is he so special? He created the first ever (to our knowledge) fan strip. Using the magic of Ctrl + C and then Ctrl + V, we’ve pasted the hotness below:

Well done, Cameron! Your prize: Ten years from now, at your wedding, we won’t ruin everything by telling your wife that you used to make Dos Factotum fan strips.

As discussed in part 1 of this TBD-part series, I’ve had a sizable bump on my right thigh since at least Halloween ‘07. Two weeks ago I went to the dermatologist. He pierced the bump with a needle, causing a viscous brown fluid to flow out of it. While the bump went away, the purplish scabby nub on top remained. During the weeks that followed, the bump refilled itself, presumably with the same type of body gravy. By the time I walked into the dermatologist’s office for the biopsy today, the bump had grown to the depth and girth that had once taken it months to achieve.

Men’s Vogue is bullshit but it’s the best publication in Skinworks’ Manhattan office, so I skimmed it during my half hour wait. For such a swanky waiting room and expensive location, you’d think they could do better.

The bald and Spanish or Portuguese dermatologist had forgotten about me and the bump, which was to be expected. Considering the fact that any yahoo with a rash on his chest can come in his office and demand treatment, he probably sees a lot dudes, and a lot bumps.

“I’m the guy with the bump that oozed brown stuff.”

“Oh, right. On your thigh,” he said. “OK, so take off your pants.”

I had consciously picked out my top-shelf Banana Republic dog print boxers this morning, knowing Javier would see them later.

“It filled up again,” I told him.

“Yes. It. Has.” He studied it.

I asked if he had a clue what it was.

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Updated*

Wilbur/Wilber Hardee died recently, and no one seems to know how to spell his name.

Google search for Wilber Hardee.

Google search for Wilbur Hardee.

Being an ace reporter, I checked a trusty source (i.e., the Hardee’s Cool Kids website) and discovered that it’s spelled Wilbur, assuming the dude’s own company would get it right.

I guess that’s what you get when editors care about you just enough to use your obit to fill real estate but not enough to fact check your first name.

* The Hardee’s site has it spelled as Wilber in the company history. So maybe both spellings are acceptable. What a boring mystery.

Updated*

We threw a party last night. Empty bottles are everywhere. I foolishly ate a bagel after 4 a.m. and now I feel like poop is trying to come out of my mouth.

But instead of writing about the party I’d like to share something that I found on the floor of my room this morning. It’s a large customer’s copy of a receipt for karaoke, one of the extra-wide older types. The only name on the receipt is Michael C. Fux, so I’m assuming it had belonged to him. It’s from Karaoke One 7 in the Flatiron. The funny part: the tab was $962. The tax alone was $160. The local and federal governments made $160 off of drunk twenty-somethings butchering “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” and “Sledgehammer” and what have you.

Even weirder is the fact that it’s dated June 8, leading me to believe that Michael C. Fux carried this receipt in his jeans or backpack for 13 days, and then figured it’d be cool to drop it in some dude’s bedroom during a house party. Chances are people paid Mr. Fux for their share of the singing and booze, and he put the entire bill for the birthday or (terrible) bachelor party on his card. But still. Jesus.

I read somewhere that contemporary college-aged Americans, taken as a whole, are the most fortunate demographic in the history of the world. Not necessarily the happiest, but the most well off considering overall quality of life, upward mobility and health. Sure, there’s royalty, European aristocrats and Saudi oil brats, but they were/are such comparatively small, isolated groups.

When I first read this piece (or was it a radio program?) I was like, “Nuh, uh. I don’t believe this garbage.” With so many young people in debt and un- or underemployed, it was hard to take. But after finding a $962 receipt for karaoke in my room, I’m starting to come around.

Another artifact: there’s a sizable pool of broken green glass near the oven. It’s most likely from a Yuengling bottle. This is not so much an artifact as it is a mess.

And another one: there are four—count ‘em, four—unopened Dos Equis bottles in my bedroom, and for a second I considered drinking one this morning but I’m not gonna because throwing up on your laptop is no way to start a Sunday. There’s also a can of Coors Light, which I will put in the fridge presently and drink after I eat eggs and nap and clean up.

Last one: again, not really an artifact but still noteworthy: a black lady was in our apartment. We’d never had one here before because 97% of our friends are white and hardly any of them know any black people. We hadn’t been preventing black ladies from entering in the past; they had simply never wanted to. Until last night, that is. The story: a black hetero couple was on a Saturday night stroll on Bushwick Ave. I like to think they’d went on a date at Il Passatore, the ‘hood’s No. 1 date place. And while strolling passed Powers St., they saw the radical house party that had spilled out onto the sidewalk and thought, “Hey, these people seem alright. We’ll stick around and see what’s what.” They weren’t the only crashers but they were by far the coolest and most fashionable. Then the black lady had to use the bathroom, so she walked into our apartment and did a No. 1 in our toilet. She didn’t know it at the time, but she was making history.

*They weren’t crashers after all.