surprise-2
Original: surprise-2 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman with dark hair: One day next week I am going to surprise you with sex.
Man with reddish hair: That's impossible.
Panel 2:
Man: It can't be Saturday next week because by midnight Friday I'll KNOW it's coming Saturday.
Panel 3:
Man: Having eliminated Saturday, I know it can't be Friday because I'd know it was coming on midnight Thursday.
Panel 4:
Man: It follows that you cannot surprise me with sex! Your logic destroys itself!
Panel 5:
Caption: THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY...
(The woman sits alone on a bed at night in her underwear, looking at her phone.)
Panel 6:
(Close-up of a hand holding the phone, showing a text message.)
Text message: I'm doing your best friend.
Votey:
Speaker (off-panel / the woman): Heh. I just got it.
Woman with dark hair: One day next week I am going to surprise you with sex.
Man with reddish hair: That's impossible.
Panel 2:
Man: It can't be Saturday next week because by midnight Friday I'll KNOW it's coming Saturday.
Panel 3:
Man: Having eliminated Saturday, I know it can't be Friday because I'd know it was coming on midnight Thursday.
Panel 4:
Man: It follows that you cannot surprise me with sex! Your logic destroys itself!
Panel 5:
Caption: THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY...
(The woman sits alone on a bed at night in her underwear, looking at her phone.)
Panel 6:
(Close-up of a hand holding the phone, showing a text message.)
Text message: I'm doing your best friend.
Votey:
Speaker (off-panel / the woman): Heh. I just got it.
Alt text
A six-panel comic parodying the 'unexpected hanging' / surprise exam paradox. A dark-haired woman tells her reddish-haired partner, 'One day next week I am going to surprise you with sex.' He replies, 'That's impossible,' then launches into the surprise-exam logic: it can't be Saturday because by midnight Friday he'd know it was coming Saturday; having eliminated Saturday, it can't be Friday either, and so on. He concludes triumphantly, 'It follows that you cannot surprise me with sex! Your logic destroys itself!' A caption reads 'THE FOLLOWING SATURDAY...' and shows the woman sitting alone on a bed at night in her underwear, looking at her phone. A close-up of a hand holding the phone reveals her text message: 'I'm doing your best friend.' The joke: she surprises him in a way his paradox didn't account for. Votey: a speech bubble reads 'Heh. I just got it,' a pun on belatedly understanding the joke.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.