Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for April 07, 2015

A $250,000 wine cellar for a $15 bottle of wine…yeah, that’s the ticket.

What about that sailing boat they bought? Haven’t seen hide nor hair of it in forever. That much money sunk into something they never use?

I think the gag would have worked better if all the shelves were chock full…That’s the fantasy of a wine cellar, right? Who would dream of an empty wine cellar…?

There’s THAT word again!

What a basement!!

How many people have vaulted brick basements? I think that’s part of the joke. The first three panels looks like Arlo’s walking through a dungeon.

We live in a Condo. No basement. I guess we’re out.

Some wine collection you’ve got there, Arlo.

The joke here is, “with only one cheap bottle of wine, they don’t NEED the wine cellar, but one would be awesome”.

Our wine never makes it to the cellar….

I disagree Arlo, I think it would be tres creepy. I haven’t had anything resembling wine in over a year. Not an alcoholic, just a square.

I think the first three panels are what Arlo is imagining as he goes into their ordinary basement. He would need a cellar arrangement of some sort if he were a home winemaker. Poor as I am, I have a couple hundred bottles in, unfortunately, the crawlspace. I don’t depend on fresh fruit, but will use it if it comes my way. Modern bag-in-a-box kits make 30 bottles of pretty good wine for 2 to 5 dollars a bottle. It takes half an hour to start a kit. You need about a hundred dollars of equipment, plus bottles and corks. It is good to have more wine than potatoes stored away.www.winemakermag.com

We have a house that was built in 1883, and the basement is old fieldstone and plaster. It never gets too warm or too cold, always at about 50 degrees. Hubby brought back over 400 bottles of good German wine from his overseas deployment. (long story). We do have a wine cellar, just not arched or as dark. It is quite the conversation starter.

For the love of God, Montresor!

Two Buck Chuck.

Get a grip folks — the first two boxes in the panel are sheer Arlo fantasy…

Most of what we “NEED” we don’t really.

I’ve always regretted not installing my manufactured marvel over a basement. I never had a need for a basement, but it would’ve been neat, a cool retreat during hot summers.

I can see the idea of the arched basement pass throughs being a “fantasy” image for Arlo of his wine cellar. However, I had a different thought. To me, I was imagining that Arlo had a basement, and that the basement did simply have a basic cement block construction and had the funny arched doorway. I thought he had actually convinced Janis to have a “wine cellar” in the basement…. hence the shelving unit.++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++To me the joke read that he was saying to Janis that “NO, I never said we NEEDED the wine cellar (since they only kept one bottle of wine in the whole thing)”. Arlo was making the point that he said only “It would be ‘awsome’ to have one (wine cellar)…. (with the implication that Janis agreed also and does not get to complain about it now).”

Right, who doesn’t need a dungeon?