8/13/14

The arrival of little Trina into The Bitmore's home caused no small amount of consternation for Bertram, who, in only one of his many trials, lost a favored spot on his owner's lap. As a result, Trina's mother was left to wonder why her newborn somehow always seemed to wet herself on the outside of her baby clothes!

The eleventh time proved to be the last straw for Chip as he was forced to listen once again to how Jerry almost caught the foul ball that Catfish Hunter knocked into the stands at Oakland-Alameda Coliseum...

Though Gypsy intended from the start to share her birthday cake with her owners, the darn thing tasted so good that by the time she'd finished her first three bites, all that remained was the little ring of frosting around the perimeter of where the layers once stood!

Though it had been on his "bucket list" for years, when the day finally came for Allan to venture out into the Bronzed Hills Nudist Colony, he was beyond tentative (and suffered from two pulled biceps the following morning!)

All the delicious Christmas treats and all the delightful gifts in the world couldn't get Sherilyn to shake off the feeling that something amiss was brewing behind her back between her husband Mike and her mother Trixie.

Though the occasional visitor might scoff or sneer, Howie thought his decision to mask the TV antennas by placing them inside a deer statuette was sheer genius!  And after all, it was only in the summer months, when tree foliage was at an all-time high, that he had any trouble picking up channel 5.

8/11/14

On those rare days when neither Sabina nor Adelaide was grounded, Grover wound up having to share the garden swing with both of them, leaving precious little room on the seat...

Shown here with their owner Thom are Wolfie and Tag, on that tentative, yet hopeful, night prior to the experimental surgery that would ultimately separate the first recorded Siamese dogs.

It wasn't enough that Red ate dollops of peanut butter in front of Bartley without sharing any, but his breath reminded the dog of it all evening. A later series of incidents in which Red's socks had the toes chewed out of them was unrelated...

One of Ben's favorite pranks was sneaking up on Tammy while she was reading The Exorcist and trying to turn her head around 360 degrees.

...And so with considerable trepidation, Lung Yen decided to find out why Gary's swim trunks had been bunching up that way during their afternoon at the beach...

Though he always felt that strong winds had more to do with it, Kelvin's hair was nonetheless blamed for knocking over one of the new fiberglass patio umbrellas at Strongwater Falls Community Pool.

8/8/14

The frenzied host asked a hungry Allison if she wouldn't mind darting into the kitchen and grabbing a cocktail weenie, which sort of set off a chain reaction...

All the pleading in the world from Betsy to watch Bozo the Clown was never going to sway Jimmie, who'd saved up all his paper route money to buy his official Mickey Mouse Club hat!

...And so after ringing up the final customer during her shift at Dollar Deputy, Fern plunked down her smock on the counter, tossed a forwarding address to Mr. Beanklocher and hopped in Reggie's roadster for a whole new life of fun and frolic!

It was at this precise moment, when she only rated a crumbled sliver of the Betsy Ross Independence Day cake, when Felicity realized that her mother-in-law Lil was never going to truly accept her into the family and she would be resigned to clearance sale presents and the driest, toughest parts of the Sunday roast.

Now properly trained to the idea that he was never again to touch Virginia's prized lamp, a tentative Raymond was at last permitted to be photographed alongside it on the day it came back from Evans' Repair Shoppe.

Long accustomed to the notion that her own personal grooming took a back seat to the other needs of her household, Velma opted to use the eight minutes of water per day doled out to each land owner during the Breck County drought to hosing down the tomatoes...

8/6/14

Left-fielder Jerry Batson was sick to death of his Yankees losing game after game because of a shoddy catcher, so he encouraged his teammates to press for the signing of the best candidate he'd ever known when it came to receiving and retrieving baseballs - his pal Nicodemus.

Thelma knew that Barton adored the taste of the chipped beef and redeye gravy served on Wednesday nights down in the Cloudy Acres dining hall, so rather than bring him back half of her own, she thought she'd try to smuggle him in disguised as her old sorority friend Berniece...

It disappointed Juliana so much that every time she momentarily stepped away from her daughter Francie, she would later find her loitering someplace likely to find a guy!

That fact that it had been a present from Aunt Florence during his and his mom's visit to her did nothing to change the fact that Richie had no intention in this world of riding home alone in the backseat with Ziggy the Rabbit...

And so another potentially relaxing afternoon in the sun was spoiled for Ponce when he noticed the neighbor's cat Trix trying to slink in uninvited...

As the "All That Magical Jazz" routine wore on, Charity's mother began to regret asking her to demonstrate it in the living room where the white carpet was in such close proximity to the moist potting soil contained in the recently obtained poinsettia!

8/4/14

Not content to merely help his grandpa weed the flower beds and mow every now and then, Wilbur also felt it was his duty to protect the family grounds from any interlopers, or even visitors, who might stumble on the property!

Timothy always thought he knew so much and did everything better than anyone else, but Megan knew in her heart that he was holding up his calendar at an angle in which the flash would wash it out while hers was just right. Unfortunately, she'd have to wait two weeks until the film came back from developing in order to prove it!

Oswald had no way of knowing it at the time, but this was the day Monica decided that his nightly saucer of cream was going to be switched with 2% milk until it no longer strained her shoulders to pick him up and pose for a quick snapshot!

Yes, Christmas was nearly spoiled for Travis when he opened up his first present and saw that an overworked Santa had accidentally sent him Cathy Quick Curl, but fortunately the Steve Austin figure he'd really wanted was inside the very next package he opened...

Marianne swiftly found out that her mother hadn't been at all exaggerating when she predicted that her new polka-dotted, backless halter dress would have the neighborhood boys falling over themselves to catch a glimpse of her!

Ordinarily, Kenny was concerned about potential wisecracks from his fellow classmates whenever his father Claude came to school, but as this was the Annual Halloween Father Son Pancake & Goetta Social, things fell right into place for once!

8/1/14

A particularly industrious lemonade (and skillet steak) stand led to Rupert being able to purchase his dream car at only age six!  What a long decade it would be for him until he could legally drive it...

During painfully peckish nights such as this one, Jan desperately regretted rubber-cementing the refrigerator door shut and sometimes even resorted to putting on her sneakers and driving to the all-night market!

While commemorating the fortieth anniversary of their first kiss on Spear Crest Beach, Leatrice and Fred wound up spending twenty minutes searching the terrain for Fred's partial plate, which had come unhinged and fallen free during the re-enactment!

In his haste to dress as Tiana's husband Leonard pulled into the driveway, Rodney made the telling error of buttoning his shirt one hole off instead of symmetrically!

As The Combs Family posed for their first official portrait since Donnie could stand up on his own, Ronald could take pride in the fact that his son seemed to have inherited his ancestral hairline...

What could have been a charming and delightful snapshot of Clarence and Daphne was spoiled when Clarence caught a glimpse of the strained hominy and stewed radishes that were being prepared for lunch in the nearby kitchen!

7/30/14

To the disbelief of her daughters-in-law, Carol and Anne Louise, Pegatha describes what the height of the pine tree behind them had been only two weeks beforehand. They continued to doubt her story up until one month later when one sixth of the house had been dismantled by the expanding trunk and branches!

Initially, Shirl went along with Janay's little lark of getting tied up to the campus flagpole, but after both breakfast and lunch had passed without any escape in sight, she was beginning to lose patience...

Cliff had been up most of the night doing everything he could think of to ensure a win at the 6th Annual Gainesboro Dog & Owner lookalike contest, but he hadn't counted on neighbor Angelique tinting both her and her poodle Germaine's hair a pale cotton candy pink!

Sherilyn knew she'd chosen both the right lipstick and the right tube top when she stepped off the bus and began walking up to Larry's porch in anticipation of their usual Saturday afternoon together!

After enduring endless complaints from Mr. Crankmeyer about the noise from his drum set, Jesse thought he'd try another instrument and instead brought home an electric guitar and amplifier...

After waiting so long in line at Falafel House, Rameses started to wonder if he should have put bumblebees on the hit list as well all the other mandated executions he'd put forth over the previous years...

7/25/14

Magdelina and Yvette wished Nancy Kay all the best at her wedding reception, but knew from the grapevine that any marriage to a long-haul, cross-country truck driver like Griff could be a lonely one...

This time out, Harriet had two birthday wishes. One was that she hadn't worn as much Final Net as she did that afternoon and the other was that The Knotty Elm had installed a sprinkler system...

Not even years of playing Mystery Date with her older sisters could have prepared Cynthia for meeting Bruce for the first time as he arrived to take her to the Erie County Park fireworks!

The little hamlet of Poeville, Nevada was home to a secret society of medical students devoted to the study of brain function at a time when few doctors specialized in such matters.

Years after his first career as a figure strap artists model, Hubert still found it difficult to strike a simple pose for a snapshot and occasionally slid back into old habits.

Mrs. Stoeffer thought she was doing Chester a favor by surrounding him with her stuffed animal collection while she was away at work. What she didn't know was that some of them, like Pecky the Owl and Fluffy Bear could get downright menacing when they thought they could get away with it!

7/23/14

Melanie Crookbang thought she was smart to multi-task by having Alexander fed at the same time he was receiving a haircut... until he later coughed up a hairball and she realized that Similac wasn't all he'd been swallowing during the appointment.

The other girls could have Marmaduke, Family Circle and all the rest of the comics on the funny pages. Helen, always a progressive-minded gal, invariably headed right to the Business and Finance section of The Cashton Wisconsin Trumpet.

And so Mrs. Badinage found out the hard way what a mistake it was to give Anna Sue a fresh apple fritter in the kitchen when Champer and Spike had not yet been let outside...

Saturday, in anticipation of some hot dates, was always "haircut day" for Charlie, Len and Reno, chief hands at The Ben Dover Ranch. This time, though, they looked and felt so good about their new cuts that they opted to forgo their night on the town and head right back to the bunk house!

Bert didn't mind at all that his parents liked to stage a little photo shoot like this after his morning bath, but with the outdoor temperature a crisp 44 degrees, he couldn't help but wish that one of them would reach over and turn the radiator on!

An otherwise happy Halloween was spoiled for all time when Jeff and Janice went to pose next to their Uncle Irving's Jack O'Lantern... and it threatened them!