was

An older woman with gray wavy hair sits slumped at a table, looking sad and defeated. Her speech bubble reads: "I was a bad teacher. I was never happy. I was never loved. Nothing was ever meaningful to me." A caption beneath the panel delivers the pun: "Why was the linguist sad? Because the past was imperfect!" (a play on the past imperfect verb tense). The votey aftercomic is a hand-drawn empty square with tiny text in the corner reading "(sorry)" — the artist apologizing for the groan-worthy joke.