Comics on the Fridge

What makes people seek out the kitchen scissors (why are they not in the drawer where they should be?) and cut out a comic from the newspaper (oops, forgot to check what was on the other side and now there’s a swath cut through the article on rebuilding Israel that I had good intentions of reading)?



I had this thought as I cut out the above comic from the Toronto Star today. Why this one? And why did the comics below make it to my fridge, displayed in perpetuity, garnering smirks as I reach for the milk, and not fade from my memory as I curse the 4 flights of stairs I must negotiate while taking the comics, along with the rest of the unending piles of newspapers that seem to pile up at an astonishing rate, out to the recycling bin?




Well, first of all, they're clever in a cerebral way. Not in a "oh, isn't that cute?!" Family Circus kind of way. They require the merging of several areas of knowledge: Stonehenge and its celestial precision and Daylight Savings; the story of Robinson Crusoe and the pop culture phrase shepherding the weekend; laws of probability and songs by The Clash.

Second, by residing on my fridge, they represent me as intelligent and clever - I was sage enough to understand, appreciate and subsequently cut out the comic. So anyone that casts their eyes across the disarray that is the front of my fridge, immediately reads me as insightful and canny.

Well, either that or I know where to find the scissors...