2008-12-20
Original: 2008-12-20 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Mother (to her young daughter, outdoors with houses in the background): "Spot isn't dead, sweetie. He's just tired."
Daughter: "T-tired?"
Mother: "Yeah... he, uh... he got all tuckered out from... falling off the roof."
Panel 2:
(Nighttime, indoors. The father sits up on a couch/bed looking distressed, hand on his face. The little girl stands nearby.)
Daughter: "Daddy? Why are you still up?"
Father: "Oh, I couldn't sleep. I'm, you know... Daddy's just worried over losing his job."
Daughter: "Why don't you jump off a roof!?"
Votey:
(Two women talking. One holds a cat.)
Woman with cat: "My kitty won't sleep."
Other woman (grinning): "I can help!"
Mother (to her young daughter, outdoors with houses in the background): "Spot isn't dead, sweetie. He's just tired."
Daughter: "T-tired?"
Mother: "Yeah... he, uh... he got all tuckered out from... falling off the roof."
Panel 2:
(Nighttime, indoors. The father sits up on a couch/bed looking distressed, hand on his face. The little girl stands nearby.)
Daughter: "Daddy? Why are you still up?"
Father: "Oh, I couldn't sleep. I'm, you know... Daddy's just worried over losing his job."
Daughter: "Why don't you jump off a roof!?"
Votey:
(Two women talking. One holds a cat.)
Woman with cat: "My kitty won't sleep."
Other woman (grinning): "I can help!"
Alt text
A two-panel SMBC comic. Panel 1: outside near houses, a mother reassures her worried young daughter, saying their pet "Spot isn't dead, sweetie. He's just tired." The daughter asks "T-tired?" and the mother explains he "got all tuckered out from... falling off the roof" -- implying the pet actually died from a fatal fall, with the parent using "tired"/"falling off the roof" as a euphemism for death. Panel 2: nighttime indoors, the father sits up distressed with his hand on his face. The little girl asks why he's still up; he says he couldn't sleep because "Daddy's just worried over losing his job." Having absorbed the earlier euphemism, the girl cheerfully suggests "Why don't you jump off a roof!?" -- innocently telling her dad to kill himself. Votey (small black-and-white aftercomic): a woman holding a cat says "My kitty won't sleep," and a grinning second woman replies "I can help!" -- darkly echoing the roof-fall "solution" to sleeplessness.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.