Suggested wine pairing: Bronson Pinchot noir.
Welp, that’s another
SHAMPOO WEEK
in the books. Truly, Shampoo Week is the second biggest testament to my inability to let a joke die.
Thanks for reading! Tune in next week for Mountain Time proper (the biggest testament of all). Maybe we’ll find out what’s going on with that bear.
UPDATE
So I know I said to tune in this week to find out about the bear, but then I had a meeting with a lower back issue that required several days’ time to conclude. MONDAY’S TUESDAY’S episode, however, is mostly finished!
Huh, this pilot episode for the new sitcom “Balki & Cousin” would seem to actually preclude the possibility of the show continuing.
Unless it were held back for the finale, or the premise were to undergo progressive metastasis beyond what we would normally expect of network television.
The possibilities intrigue me, so much for sales resistance.
How about a sitcom that airs in reverse? Start with the death of the characters and regress to the point where they first meet. Watch them woo “the girls” backward until they haven’t even met them. Thrill as they start at a new job, then empathize with them losing the previous one. Also, they’re fleas.
Reading this comic and reading the comments makes me think of a fly made out of shampoo watching sitcoms.
Hey, we could make a sitcom around that!
I think I’ve said so before, but I really appreciate Shampoo Week, and I think I’ve figured out how to articulate why.
It’s a landmark in the year that I don’t expect in advance. Other things that happen every year, bleed into the preceding month as something I’m already thinking about, making the year blur and slip away. But Shampoo Week isn’t on any of my calendars and doesn’t factor into any of my plans. It’s both forgettable until it arrives, but odd and memorable enough that it does lodge a place in my memory. Every time a Shampoo Week appears in my RSS feed, it digs up a little time capsule, making me unusually aware that it’s been exactly a year since the last one. I can really feel that year, not like “oh no where is the time going, didn’t it just feel like the end of summer was still a ways away” but as “man, what has happened since last time I sat here surprised to find that it’s Shampoo Week again? Quite a lot now that I think about it.”
This must’ve started with how strongly I remembered the circumstances around the first time I was reading Mountain Time during one of these. It was the year I lived with my parents again after college, I was getting home from work after my parents were asleep, it was weird sitting in my old bedroom, with an alcoholic beverage because why the hell not I was an adult relaxing after work… in my childhood room at 10pm. And then every October after, I’m blindsided by that memory (not a sad one but a very distinct one), and the unexpected ability to measure my life in terms of how it’s changed since then in yearly increments.
MESH: It’s interesting to think that instead of a flyswatter you could kill a fly with a squirt gun. Dissolve that mofo. I’m into it.
Stephen: It’s rare, but I’ve had the the extreme pleasure of reading stories like yours a few times. The idea that Mountain Time is a defining point for anyone in any way makes this whole thing feel more than worthwhile.
As a guy who also moved back in with his parents after college and spent his nights binging webcomics while enjoying a few alcoholic beverages in his childhood room, I salute you!
What a beautiful ending, i love shampoo week!
well-put, Stephen. I never thought about it before but it IS completely unexpected. And I have a lot of expectations. For example, I expectate those fleas to have hilarious vague eastern european accents
This was… actually sad somehow.
superstructure