0097 — Gaslighting Roast Beef
Added 2024-11-22 18:00:09 +0000 UTCEarly drafts of this strip appear in tiers 2 & 3 at noon! This month, the upper tiers also featured Ray's Place, an interview with Cornelius about the afterlife, several installments of my new personal fashion column, Roast Beef's post-election interview with Philippe, a look inside my art studio (including dozens of pieces), and much more! Please come look!
It is time for Lauren and I to face the hard fact that our cat, Sunny, is slowly revealing herself to be an actual idiot.
Usually you assume that cats have it together. These cunning little hunting machines self-clean, suffer no fools, and pierce your soul with the unblinking eyes of independence. Sunny, on the other hand, gets trapped behind open doors. Freezes up. To back out the way she got in is a few semesters beyond her.
Yesterday she got stuck under the deck, even though there are no entrances to the enclosed space under the deck. To exacerbate her condition — and the anxious hour I spent searching for her with a floodlight — she went silent when I would get anywhere near enough to echolocate her. ZZ Flop, her brutish and short-legged sister, mewled while skirting the perimeter of Sunny's oubliette, but drew forth no response.
This is precisely what happened two winters ago when she somehow got herself stuck in the crawl space of the old house for so long that we assumed the coyotes had done their thing. Suffering in silence isn't just a dumb human habit.
Now she's sitting on my lap, and her breath, which is always terrible, is wafting from beneath the board my laptop sits on. It's unbearable. She's about to get escorted out of the room.
Oh, Sunny. If you weren't constantly getting some kind of UTI that makes you pee your special awful variety of marking urine on the bath mat, I might actually feel sorry for you. It's a good thing Lauren tries to figure you out and make you healthy again when you seem particularly out of whack.
Enjoy this week's comic, which is about cats with a more evolved kind of stupidity. Sorry to vent.
Comments
I'm reeling from an insane moment after reading this strip, when my brain went, "Wait, Molly's here on a green card, that means Beef and Molly could be on 90 Day Fiance." I'm going to go spend some time in the corner feeling shame. This is not the way.
2scrogz
2024-11-27 18:21:33 +0000 UTCU.K. people cook baked potatoes submerged in oil?
Chris Onstad
2024-11-25 00:29:30 +0000 UTCMy wife asked me to find out the best cooking oil to slow cook baked potatoes, then complained I hadn't made her coffee mid-google. I feel this would be prime therapist fodder if we didn't live in the U.K where such things as mental health and therapists are regarded with suspicion. Unsurprisingly, Olive oil is recommended.
Daniel Burt
2024-11-24 09:12:54 +0000 UTCBeef wanting to control the chair his wife sits in and thinking she's attacking him for wanting to decide what to put her butt on is just a hell of authentic all-american love story.
Ruxine
2024-11-23 07:11:00 +0000 UTCRoyal Canin Urinary is a dry cat food with a diuretic and a different mineral balance than other kitty kibbles. You could soak and ferment it but I don't see why you would.
Julie (HiDeeHoGal)
2024-11-22 23:38:22 +0000 UTCShe looks confused and scared This is not different, however
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 23:37:03 +0000 UTC"Sometimes the universe just generates conditions" is more comforting than I suspect it should be. Please tell Sunny I, a stranger, love her
Lionstooth
2024-11-22 23:33:59 +0000 UTCLet's be honest RB gaslights himself better than anyone.
Omnithea
2024-11-22 23:01:54 +0000 UTCOne gets the impression they have received similar paperwork at least once.
GruntyGinMan
2024-11-22 21:49:52 +0000 UTCHey Beef! Check it out! I’m NAKED! That is some sweet beans Ray.
Matt Mitchell
2024-11-22 21:05:13 +0000 UTCYou have to fill out both forms, but one of them takes 400 years to process. It’s not the one you think.
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 20:55:36 +0000 UTC“Rolling continuity” is hereby how I will refer to Achewood. That is a gift; I thank you and master Schulz in equal measure.
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 20:53:09 +0000 UTCI read an article somewhere that described Peanuts as having "rolling continuity," whereby whatever was in easy reach of memory and germaine to the story at hand remained "in continuity" but it didn't attempt or need to keep every detail in order dating back to 1950. I've always imagined that Achewood runs on the same engine, so for example there's no "reboot" moment between cats having to wear hulls to go into town and cats just being guys who can drive cars if they want. The Molly thing just hits me right in a particularly ontological spot
Sedric And Charlie
2024-11-22 20:51:43 +0000 UTCIs Molly immigrating from Wales or death?
Douglas Wykstra
2024-11-22 20:46:30 +0000 UTClet us save a little space for those who use literalism in their fiction as fuel for chuckles and nothing more the occasional but-character-did-this-other-thing-before observation from a dedicated reader can provide unintended silliness short of requiring fanfiction to remedy or the you-ruined-my-childhood type of where fun goes to die
Zen Window
2024-11-22 20:20:34 +0000 UTCGood to know. We had that same debate last week…I should buy flowers.
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 20:19:13 +0000 UTCHey at least it isn't another argument about unsalted butter. I rode to divorce on that shit.
J Hardy Carroll
2024-11-22 20:16:11 +0000 UTCthank you for your service against the Literals.
s b
2024-11-22 20:12:22 +0000 UTCThere was a cat food commercial cat named Morris in the 1980s. he looked exactly like that.
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 20:00:42 +0000 UTCI want to more eloquently write it, but I see it as an expression of how bare and exposed and judged he always feels.
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 19:59:58 +0000 UTCWell, I operate the Achewood universe as a place of fiction that exists in service to the character-driven behavior — and craftily-worded dick references — more than it is in service to the current observable laws of reality. The brains are the interesting part, not the landscape, I suppose. I know some readers will be preoccupied with solving the logic issues, and that is as valid a way to experience the work as any...but it will, I must say, not be the most satisfying or conclusive experience. That is, until I can do better than the MCU in developing my unified theory of everything. I thought Everything Everywhere All At Once did a nice job of making a "kinda simple" explanation for parallel timelines, inasmuch as it didn't require me to memorize a bunch of obnoxious rules. It mainly just told me, "don't worry about it, there won't be problems."
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 19:58:00 +0000 UTCMorris is a fine name for a gross cat
kdusjjdhxksj
2024-11-22 19:57:00 +0000 UTCIt's got to be part and parcel of his depression and his friends' cares for him. As I say almost any time it is tangentially related to a situation, nobody cares if a bear is naked.
Professor Hazard
2024-11-22 19:52:36 +0000 UTCWell then, if you want to use The Curse of Gladdington Castle as a diagnosis, you have my blessing. Perhaps it can be submitted to the relevant journals.
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 19:52:06 +0000 UTCDude wears clothing like any of his other guys. It gets cold sometimes! But, I was wondering the other day, why have I never seen much discussion that Beef is the nakedest of all his friends? Only Todd is more consistently naked.
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 19:50:26 +0000 UTCsir we need to address the idea of roast beef's pants and the existence of them re: shoving his phone in his pocket
Professor Hazard
2024-11-22 19:48:37 +0000 UTCSunny got her head stuck in a grocery bag handle once and tore around the house like a lightning bolt, even knocking over a vase, until the thing finally tore and she resumed being a moron in other, quite ways. Is Royal Canin Urinary Health a beverage I can try? It sounds like an intriguing beer name.
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 19:48:22 +0000 UTCI mostly work with queer clients and I actually get a ton of “what made me gay/trans/whatever” questions—and the state of the science being what it is right now, it’s only a slight exaggeration to say that “deathbed curses over hot raisin pudding” is just as good a hypothesis as any
Andrew
2024-11-22 19:35:32 +0000 UTCIn the depths of continuity lurks madness
s b
2024-11-22 19:33:55 +0000 UTCEvery time I think about Molly's whole died-in-the-16th-century deal I remember the Little-Nephew-in-Wales arc and get excessively tangled up in questions about where Molly is during all of that, and how Iowerth and the rest of the family relate their day-to-day lives to the experience of having been, I assume, ghosts at her future wedding. I expect none of these questions to be answered
Sedric And Charlie
2024-11-22 19:31:49 +0000 UTCI have had therapists tell me that anger is not a baseline human emotion. It is a special breed of fear. Given Beef's anxiety, that might make sense. Also, I have a stupid cat (Miss who is a dilute tortie) and a smart but UTI prone cat (Mister who is black). Royal Canin Urinary Health has kept him crystal and infection free for a couple of years now. Miss has never had a UTI but will go into a bag or box after something and get stuck and be unable to extricate herself. She will back up until she runs into something, change angles, and continue to back up until I take pity on her and remove the offending object. Not once has she used her paws to hold the bag or box. Mister got his head stuck in a box once many years ago and immediately held it with a paw to escape. They are littermates but Mister seems to have all the logic brain.
Julie (HiDeeHoGal)
2024-11-22 19:28:09 +0000 UTCPiss Goblin just rolls off the tongue. It is a blėssed union of syllables.
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 19:26:30 +0000 UTCThank you Oppido. And, what an honor to be a bird uncle! We once had two big raccoons living on a neighbor's roof, and we named them George and Rosemary Cooney.
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 19:25:45 +0000 UTCah, I see. Indeed, Molly might get a bit creative in her dance with getting Beef to eat less of that inflamin' sodium.
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 19:24:48 +0000 UTCOur cat also suffers from UTIs and the resultant horrors, but she's fiendishly clever. I call her Piss Goblin (requests to formally rename her thus have been rejected by my family)
Tim Pratt
2024-11-22 19:15:51 +0000 UTCI would like to register my approval of "ZZ Flop" as a cat name, speaking as the bird-uncle of parakeets named Marty McFly and Bruce Wingsteen.
Oppido
2024-11-22 18:59:27 +0000 UTCI thought perhaps in way of a joke or perhaps a misfiring lesson. The Welsh believing in tough love as they do.
Josh Egbert
2024-11-22 18:48:00 +0000 UTCHow does your profession regard the Curse of Gladdington Castle-type ancient hexes and their legitimacy or lack thereof?
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 18:47:25 +0000 UTCOh, I don't think she's inclined to be vindictive at that level. Unless I am forgetting an earlier example otherwise?
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 18:46:03 +0000 UTC..... that actually sounds like something Molly would do. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're wrong, Beef!
Josh Egbert
2024-11-22 18:33:08 +0000 UTCAll four horsemen at full gallop, with lances
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 18:27:15 +0000 UTCThat could be a short story of its own. I suspect Lonis Edison would need to facilitate.
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 18:27:01 +0000 UTCI would end up concluding that he is indeed a dick. (Also, the signed print I ordered of Ray saying "being in trouble is a fake idea" has been hanging in my office ever since I went into practice years ago, so thank you for confusing my clients who don't read the strip)
Andrew
2024-11-22 18:26:54 +0000 UTCOne time roast beef’s hat felt a little loose and he admits he wondered if the welsh had head shrinking folk curses
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 18:26:21 +0000 UTCWe haven’t yet seen how she spent the time between dying and meeting beef, outside of her apartment in heaven, so this information is yet to be conclusively added, I believe.
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 18:25:28 +0000 UTCNo respect. No moderation. (Interviewer’s notes)
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 18:24:22 +0000 UTCOh man an Achewood therapist! Guest column where you analyze pat?
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 18:24:01 +0000 UTCI never did. As a youth I had a tabby named Feisty and a drooler named Morris.
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 18:23:09 +0000 UTCYesterday we decided that a vet trip was going to be far more conclusive than rubbing the finger cot toothbrush around her mouth. Thanks for the corroboration.
Chris Onstad
2024-11-22 18:22:28 +0000 UTCHave you had a vet check Sunny's teeth? Our guy Arthur had some pretty horrible breath for a while, and he ended up having to have a bunch of teeth that were in real bad shape removed.
Andrew Wagster
2024-11-22 18:20:04 +0000 UTCApologies if this is betraying my only halfhearted memory for Achewood knowledge, but did you ever actually have cats named Ray, Roast Beef, Pat, and/or Molly?
Uncle Elephant
2024-11-22 18:18:13 +0000 UTC"Sometimes the universe just generates conditions" is one of those Achewood phrases that's going to pop into my head as a therapist (my brain has already been infested with "I come from circumstances," "being in trouble is a fake idea," and the immortal "don't you do cocaine at me")
Andrew
2024-11-22 18:14:13 +0000 UTCSo full of sodium even his marriage is salty
Ryan Boyle
2024-11-22 18:12:27 +0000 UTCis molly’s consciousness hundreds of years old? like unbroken memories from Wales > Heaven > Achewood, CA?
s b
2024-11-22 18:10:41 +0000 UTCShrinkage!
b.zap
2024-11-22 18:08:12 +0000 UTCThe paperwork on Molly's green card was, no doubt, bananas.
Mackenzie Guillory
2024-11-22 18:05:06 +0000 UTCHell of toxic. Poor bastards.
Ben Wissett
2024-11-22 18:03:25 +0000 UTC
