We’re on-schedule. We expect tomorrow’s comic on-time. Believe me, this is a hard-worked semi-miracle. ‘Getting ready to sell’ is the biggest threat to a silver-anniversary comic-producing couple than I’d ever expect. I still love Codex. But I insist she remove her hair. It’s the tape. The critically-vertical painting-tape. There wasn’t an inch that didn’t include her hair.

I’m not a witch; I didn’t care before, but holy surveyicle monkey-chow.

Never mind, unless you understand the hair/critical painting-tape dynamics of reality. You might. You know what looks awesome on a post-wall hot septuagenarian woman? A blue wig. Or purple. Maybe black? Black seems a little goth to me, so unless you are going to lean into it…

Codex isn’t going to lean into it. That’s okay. That’s why God invented sanding foam blocks, in addition to painter’s tape and various colored paints.

I spent four hours of prep time to finish one hour of painting to finish off the kitchen, and I went to the grocery store.

It’s a Kroger. That’s QFC in our part of the world.

The liquor section: fully stocked.

The soda/beer section: 2/3 stocked;

The chip section: 1/2 stocked;

The cereal section: 2/3 stocked;

The baking section: 2/3 stocked;

The cooking section: 4/5 stocked;

The seasonal section: 4/5 stocked. Lots of Valentine’s day garbage is two or three years old. Yum. Nothing says “I love you” like two year-old Hersey’s we’re-fully-vaxxed chocolate.”

The card aisle: I don’t know, that one I didn’t wander down.

The Meat Aisle: Okay. I took three of the last four 80/20 burger meat. Nothing was on special. Resisting… sausage… was… brutal. Apparently I’m supposed to be reducing sodium. Because of doctors. The same one’s insisting the jab is a life-saving thing. Doctors: “No! Don’t breath volcano vapors!” Um… duh. “Unless you take Pfizer anti-volcano wonder-pills.” Well, sign me up!

The Cleaning Aisle: No idea. I have no fingerprints from using cleaning products, even on freshly-painted surfaces, and we don’t need more yet. Did you know most cleaning products are a chemical ‘base’ and not wearing gloves eats identifying finger marks? It isn’t like acid-based cleaning products, such as Coke.

The frozen food/ice cream aisle: No idea, I haven’t bought products from there in over two decades.

The fresh milk/eggs/OJ aisle: normal enough; eggs looked low, but I attribute that to Weird Super Bowl Bets. Nobody consumes 4-percent-small-curd cottage cheese except me. Large-curd cottage-cheese is super-duper gross. Both were super-duper stocked.

I also needed band-aids. No odd shortages.

Meanwhile, I was the ONLY PERSON not wearing a mask in the entire store. There was a sheriff, which I found a couple reasons not to run into, mainly because I didn’t want to tempt him, shopping fully-masked and ready to resist rogue truckers; or terrorists.

The Terrorist Aisle provided protection. Err, sorry, that was the potato-chip aisle. It provided a better view on the automated ring-a-ding machines with Nutella just around the corner.

Meanwhile… I finished painting the kitchen, Codex is working on the comic, Glyph is tutoring (yay – a real job!) and photographing TapeHenge, and we’ll provide even more updates on Wednesday. Ya know, after Monday’s post.

Now, all I have to figure out is what to name Monday’s comic… I’m insulting atheists… any suggestions?

–> Q