pced
Original: pced on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Woman (on phone, house on fire): Hello, 911? My house is on fire and I only have time to save my elderly grandmother or a priceless work of art.
Panel 2:
Dispatcher (voice): Hold on ma'am, we'll transfer you to our philosophically-complex emergencies department.
Panel 3:
(The woman screams into the phone amid the fire.)
Panel 4:
(The woman, looking weary, holds the phone to her ear.)
Panel 5:
New dispatcher: Hello this is 911-P.C.E.D. Does the woman in the burning building have any organs that could be harvested to save several lives?
Panel 6:
Woman: No, she and the painting have both been carbonized.
Dispatcher: Your ticket has been resolved. Have a subjectively pleasant evening!
Panel 7:
(A bespectacled dispatcher wearing a headset sits at a computer, typing.)
Panel 8:
(The woman sits holding her phone, staring at the charred, burned-out remains in front of a wall of flame.)
Votey:
Woman (speech bubble, looking down dejectedly): I wish she'd proved to me that I exist before she hung up.
Woman (on phone, house on fire): Hello, 911? My house is on fire and I only have time to save my elderly grandmother or a priceless work of art.
Panel 2:
Dispatcher (voice): Hold on ma'am, we'll transfer you to our philosophically-complex emergencies department.
Panel 3:
(The woman screams into the phone amid the fire.)
Panel 4:
(The woman, looking weary, holds the phone to her ear.)
Panel 5:
New dispatcher: Hello this is 911-P.C.E.D. Does the woman in the burning building have any organs that could be harvested to save several lives?
Panel 6:
Woman: No, she and the painting have both been carbonized.
Dispatcher: Your ticket has been resolved. Have a subjectively pleasant evening!
Panel 7:
(A bespectacled dispatcher wearing a headset sits at a computer, typing.)
Panel 8:
(The woman sits holding her phone, staring at the charred, burned-out remains in front of a wall of flame.)
Votey:
Woman (speech bubble, looking down dejectedly): I wish she'd proved to me that I exist before she hung up.
Alt text
An eight-panel SMBC comic. A woman with blue hair phones 911 from her burning house, saying she only has time to save either her elderly grandmother or a priceless work of art. The dispatcher says they'll transfer her to their 'philosophically-complex emergencies department.' As she waits, the fire spreads. A new dispatcher (a bespectacled person in a headset at a computer) asks whether the woman in the burning building has any organs that could be harvested to save several lives. The caller replies that 'she and the painting have both been carbonized' while the fire burns out of control. The dispatcher cheerfully closes the ticket and wishes her 'a subjectively pleasant evening.' The final panel shows the woman sitting amid the charred wreckage in front of flames. In the votey aftercomic, the woman looks down dejectedly and says, 'I wish she'd proved to me that I exist before she hung up.' The joke: an emergency hotline staffed by philosophers turns a life-or-death dilemma into useless abstract debate until everything is destroyed.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.