Mmmmmm. . . . Meatloaf

For the first comic in my "Marriage Sucks Challenge" I am going to take the easy way out. I am going to post something from a comic called The Lockhorns. As their witty and evocative name tells us, this is a couple who, yes, constantly lock horns. Unlike some of the other miserable marriage strips (Hagar and Helga, Beetle Bailey's general and Mrs. General), The Lockhorns is a strip solely devoted to marriage suck-itude. There are no lazy soldiers, Viking raids, or other hi-jinks to dilute the humor. I used to see them in the Sunday Parade insert, but they haven't been there in awhile. The local paper here doesn't publish them, but I know I have lived somewhere where they at least show up on Sunday -- Washington, DC? Richmond, VA? Well, according to their website 500 papers publish this crapola daily.

I am just going to head over to their site and pick the latest panel posted.

From October 30:

Hey, waddaya know? The wife's cooking sucks.

Why in the world is this funny? If her meatloaf is so bad, why did she bring it to a dinner party? Is it because she doesn't think it's so bad? If that's the case, why does the husband announce it to the host? Why does he want to embarrass his wife like that? I would think he's just making a light-hearted joke, like everyone is supposed to know he's kidding (like the time on Friends when Chandler and Monica had to go to Chandler's boss' apartment for dinner, and the boss made the lame joke about his wife's coffee being so weak it shouldn't get in any fights, then Chandler and Monica had to fake laugh). Anyway, I don't think the husband here is being falsely jovial because the wife looks pissed and the host looks ... bored? Disdainful? Why does he look like that? Because the husband is being a jerk-off? Or is he pissed because now he has to serve crappy meatloaf at his party?

If the wife is such a bad cook, why don't they get take-out to bring to the dinner party? They could buy something from a take out place -- most grocery stores do prepared dinners now, then they could fake it by putting the store-bought food in their own dishes.

Lots of unanswered questions, but the biggest one is, Why is this supposed to be funny? I think it might be the term "meatloaf." Tee hee. MEATLOAF. A big loaf of meat. Each word in and of itself is a funny word. MEAT. LOAF. Put them together, and you really have something. Meatloaf. Meatloaf. Meatloaf. Say it to yourself a few times.