Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for March 14, 2016

Rat’s version of relationship counseling.

I love lox on a bagel.

They actually took down the 700,000 locks from the famous bridge in Paris last June.

If a couple carved their initials on a tree would Rat cut down the tree ?……………..With initials on a tree you can watch your love grow……

I’m kind of surprised Pastis didn’t work Snoopy into this somehow then make a bad pun about “locks and beagles.”

They did cut the locks off the bridge in Paris because of the weight issue.

Locked you forever into a relationship – until the lock is cut.

Off on a tangent, why are bolt cutters, pliers, and pants referred to as a pair?

Rat is a lochs nyet monster.

With Rat…ALL his relationships are issues

are they in France?

More of a Freeze,

Another clever marketing scheme by the lock industry.

On the bridge locks in Paris…. When I was there three years ago, they were appearing on almost all the bridges over the Seine. I first spotted them from the boat while on a river dinner cruise and asked a server about them. She gave an evasive answer. Turns out many people were so angry about the things that they hesitated to discuss them to avoid getting into arguments with those who thought the locks were “cute” or “sweet.” Later, when at the top of the Eiffel tower, I saw that people had even fastened locks on the protective metal mesh there. As for the bridges being unsafe…. actually the problem was that the chain link siding on many of the bridges was being overburdened and was sagging, or the screws and bolts holding the metal framework for the chain link were breaking, bending, or pulling loose. The bridges per se aren’t in danger. But the locking craze was so intense that it was costing a fortune to cut off the thousands appearing everywhere. They’d cut them off one bridge and start on another and then have to go back to the first one because the locks were reappearing. I don’t know if the anti lock campaign is succeeding or not, but I still see reports in the news from time to time.

We have the same problem in Montreal. People find a stroll in the Old Port sooooo romantic, they immortalize their love on an old bridge. Problem is, the bridge will be less immortal than their love if it keeps getting weighed down that way. So, lock goes up, port officials take them down, locks go up, port officials take them down…..hey, it’s a living. My tax dollars at work.

All the ones cut off are for him and Farina. Wonder if she’s about to make an appearance again.

Rat cuts to the heart of the matter. My (new) hero!

I’ve always found using liquid butane and a hammer to shatter the cryo-frozen shackle to be more fun..

either Rat has a lot of “girlfriends” or he is seeing if breaking a lock will ruin an accident

Meanwhile a bra is singular. Figure that one out.