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No. 3940: Garfield Minus Patience

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Garfield Minus Patience

First | Previous | 2020-03-02 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=3940

Strip by: Wibi

{Jon is standing in front of a pinpad}
Pinpad: Please swipe your card
{He swipes his card. Garfield briefly gazes to the fourth wall}
Pinpad: Would you like to donate a dollar to charity today?
{Jon taps the pinpad with an angry expression. Garfield is angry as well}
Pinpad: Enter pin
{Jon taps the pinpad several times. His and Garfield's anger grow}
Pinpad: Your total is $3.32. Is this correct?
{Jon, shocked that this transaction isn't finished yet, simply looks at the pinpad in disbelief. Garfield throws an angry glance to the viewer that resonates with us all}
Jon: ALL I WANT IS A BAG OF CHEESE DOODLES!
Garfield: DON'T WE ALL?!!

The author writes:

Not shown: panels 9-25:

"Our struggles with digital payment end here and now!" Jon screams, loud enough that people start noticing, people start paying attention. "We have been oppressed by these complex self-checkouts for too long! Conforming to a world where it takes four steps to buy a whole American snack food only contributes to the technological singularity!"

"The computers may outsmart us now, but this will change." With that, Jon rips the pinpad off its stand in an impressive feat of strength. Onlookers gawk and cheer, surprised that one completely ordinary man can be endowed with such bravery. "Humanity was born to stick together, and those siding with the machines will be outed as traitors to our species!" he quips, hoisting himself onto the scanner and holding his fresh kill skyward for all to see. "When we fight the world, we win!"

Every customer in the store is rooting for him now. Even Garfield is purring in approval!

Looking upon the faces of his furious peers, Jon has a warm feeling - a feeling that feels alien to him, yet oddly familiar, like a long-lost sibling. He feels like he... belongs...

Jon wakes up in a cold sweat, clutching his polka-dot body pillow to his chest. Another taunting dream. It's been two weeks since the incident. By "the incident", I mean, of course, that day he bought some snacks from the grocery store and it took him a minute longer than it should've.

Locked fast within a time when he can no longer comprehend the processes involved to purchase cheese doodles, Jon grapples with his greatest fear... being left behind. Not only by society, but by the world itself.

Overtaken by rage, Jon storms out of bed, and finds himself a pencil and a bit of scrap paper. He is about to draft the most important cartoon he may ever draft.

For in this time and age, he has only one weapon.

The funny pages.

Original strip: 2019-02-03.