Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Chicken

6 comments:

John Robert Mallernee said...

Oooh, a GOOD one!

I only hope I can memorize it, so I can spring it on some unsuspecting victim!

Anonymous said...

Thank God I have Johnny to give me a chuckle after the sick feeling I get from today's topic over at your other comic. And as the dad of two elderly labs, thank God poor Johnny has faithful Lance to get him through.

Stilton Jarlsberg said...

@John- All you need to do is wait for the subject of terminally ill chickens to come up naturally in conversation, and you're good to go!

@Anonymous- More and more, it seems like Johnny's motto "hurt till you laugh" is a useful survival skill for all of us. And fear not- Lance will always be there for Johnny. My own daughter has told me, in no uncertain terms, "don't let anything bad happen to Lance." I think she meant it as a warning.

Stan da Man said...

I have a cousin in terrible shape in hospital (some degenerative thing) he's not expected to recover, and he's too far gone for the nursing home he had been in (needs intubation and suction, or some shi'ite) but the hospital will only keep him like three more days...and I'm reading the family update email and thinking why the Eff don't they just let the poor bastard DIE already?
Jeeze.
And no, we're not at all close, so no HUGE deal to me, but goddamit, someone please save us from ourselves?

"Cross to the other side" would have been funnier, Dr.J, but yours was not bad too..

Stilton Jarlsberg said...

@Stan- I'm genuinely sorry to hear about your cousin's condition, and sorry for the pain that you and your family must be going through. Personally, I believe in euthanasia but - like abortion - I can see it spinning wildly out of control if it becomes a matter of convenience rather than a heavily weighed moral choice.

Too often in my life, I've carried beloved pets into the vet's office and held them as they were given that lethal injection ("the pink shot," we call it in my family, because of its neon glow). If anyone wants to tell me that I chose that moment of death for my dear friend out of anything but love, I will happily explain the error of their thinking with a tire iron.

We should be able to provide for our human loved ones in the same way we do our pets. But again, that's me talking. I'm afraid that too often in our society, if euthanasia becomes commonplace, it will be the animals (albeit human animals) making the decisions based not on the needs of the ill, but on the financial returns and "convenience" factors.

Which is sort of the point of today's cartoon; Johnny doesn't want out...but Pharmy is hinting that maybe he should check out anyway, for the convenience of others. Bad Pharmy! Bad!

Stan da Man said...

Thanks, Stilt