Cathy Classics by Cathy Guisewite for March 09, 2010

Isn’t this how they condition lab monkeys?

EJ - Yep. B.F. Skinner found that behavior that gets rewarded tends to repeat itself. That’s true with lab monkeys, house pets, zoo animals, kids, employees, spouses, etc. If a ‘ping’ or a ‘hooray’ pop-up is a reward for you, then you tend to do things that will get you more of them.

No wonder she loses herself at the mall. LOL, ejcapulet!

Cathy could do pings and pops…pings coming from a BB gun makeing holes in the PC moniter, and pops from the rolling pin as she hits Irving on his empty head…might get a nice echo for her reward.

Susan001–but where would Cathy go? She’s just a female version of Irving, obsessed with shoes and makeup rather than iPhone apps, but otherwise the same. About the only person who’d take her in would be her mom. She knows that, and that’s why she stays with Irving. And Irving knows the only place he could go if he dumped Cathy is back to his parents, so he stays with her. It’s a match made in… well, not exactly heaven… more like a match made in the mall.

The monkey did also get M&M’s Ophelia. Peanut M&M’s. We heard about that in one of my Psyche classes years ago. I’d rather have M&M’s than Irving any day.

Do the name “Pavlov” ring a bell?

Cathy has known exactly who Irving is for 10 or 20 years, and she even pretty much gave up trying to make him be somebody else well before they were married.

I still think the Dump Or Divorce Campaign is hopeless, and in fact Cathy was fit for not much different from way back.

Puddleglum is right. If Cathy G wants to create new characters she might as well just create a brand new strip.

Lots of us are quite satisfied with the strip and like her just the way she is. If she had a “normal” husband, family etc., what would there be to laugh at?