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Teresa Burns Parkhurst has created a cartoon for our times. It\u2019s set in a kitchen, where a man is preparing a salad and saying something to a woman who\u2019s in a hazmat suit and preparing the entr\u00e9e.<\/p>\nTeresa Burns Parkhurst has created a cartoon for our times. It\u2019s set in a kitchen, where a man is preparing a salad and saying something to a woman who\u2019s in a hazmat suit and preparing the entr\u00e9e.<\/p>\n
The \u201cStay Home, Save Lives\u201d campaign (which is being heavily promoted in Chicago, where I live) discourages people from venturing outside unless they\u2019re wearing protective gear. That made me think of this caption: \u201cI hope you\u2019re not disappointed. I know you wanted to go out.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Even if you do go out, you can\u2019t eat at a restaurant because they\u2019re all closed, so I considered this: \u201cAll dressed up and nowhere to go.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n This next caption assumes the woman has suggested changing into something more alluring: \u201cWell, I can\u2019t imagine your slipping into something less<\/em> comfortable.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n And here\u2019s a caption based on my own life. My office is closed so I\u2019ve been working from home and enjoying not only the time I save by not commuting but the fact that there\u2019s significantly less to do. For the first time in years I\u2019m not working late or on weekends, so I\u2019ve been watching TV (\u201cWatchmen,\u201d \u201cVeep,\u201d \u201cThe Plot Against America\u201d), reading (\u201cTrue Grit\u201d short stories by William Trevor, John Lewis\u2019s \u201cMarch\u201d), and sleeping in. A week ago my wife interrupted this reverie by encouraging me to do something I really didn\u2019t want to do, and I said, \u201cCan\u2019t you just let me enjoy the pandemic?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Now let\u2019s see how you did.<\/p>\n Since the couple appear to be on a date, several of you submitted sex jokes:<\/p>\n This next entry focuses on the fact that the man is making a salad: \u201cWould you like Three Mile Island dressing on your salad?\u201d <\/strong>That\u2019s a clever pun, but it buries the punch line by adding three unnecessary words at the end. Here\u2019s a better salad dressing joke: \u201cRanch, Italian, or Purell?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n This is a fitting variation on a phrase that we\u2019ve all heard a lot during the past few weeks: \u201cYou seem socially distant.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Every cartoon that features a woman wearing an unusual outfit elicits a lot of \u201cDoes this make me look fat?\u201d jokes, and I usually don\u2019t care for them, but these three work well with the drawing:<\/p>\n For selfish and obvious reasons I like this caption: \u201cAll dressed up and nowhere to go.\u201d<\/strong> But here are more clever variations on the idea that you can\u2019t go outside now without protective gear:<\/p>\n Here, as a kind of palate cleanser, are a couple entries that have nothing to do with Covid-19:<\/p>\n In this entry, the man selfishly appreciates the woman\u2019s effort to protect herself: \u201cThe great thing is, only one of us has to wear the suit for both <\/em>of us to be protected.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n But in this next set of entries he\u2019s undermined that effort:<\/p>\n\n
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