Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for May 07, 2016

surprize

“Life lesson number $299.86”: If your name is Robyn Banks, you might want to rethink getting your MBA credentials… -Then again, if your name is Robyn Banks, don’t be surprised if you do land that job…and don’t look the “gift horse” of the armed escort to and from the financial center in the mouth…

i’m back

Uh-oh. Les and money certainly aren’t going to go well together. (When I said yesterday him having parental issues, I mean rebelling against his parents where even his own parents tried to prevent from going to juvie.)

That bar looks like nothing but trouble.

“More For Les”“Hoping For Change“Till, I Hear From You” (♫)“Doesn’t Register "“Personal Financing”“The Key To The Henhouse”“An Opportunity, Knox”“Cash$heer Enthusiasm”“Digging For Treasury”“It’s Not Your Vault”“Love Me, Tender (♫)“A Bridge To Washington”“A Funding Grant”“Hamilton, Lincoln And Knox”“Desperately Seeking Benjamin”or“Going Green”

He’s going to frame Prudence, isn’t he?

“I have a bad feeling about this…”

ChaChing! Les heard that word “busy”, for sure! Don’t know if he’ll ever confuse that word with “buys”….

Maybe we’ll see his cousin Dirk sometime soon.

Danger, Will Robinson!

Why do they have a new menu? They only opened less than five months ago.

More red flags than Magic Mountain.

♪ Money For Nothing ♪

What an ominous thing for Les to say… but, innocent until proven guilty, right? In panel 2 that’s the closest to a real smile I’ve seen out of Les. (But what was he thinking that made him happy?) I suspect the new menu includes new recipes T.J. has added since opening, rather than a total overhaul of the old one, but I am totally guessing that.

“Can you say embezzler? Sure, you can.”

cue the opening from the Theme from Dragnet, “Danger Ahead”daaah de DAH dat … daaah de DAH dat DAAAAH

Yeah, handle it right into his pocket.

When his uncle told him to dump the anger and be pleasant, that’s not what he had in mind.

I’m sure he’ll have no problem shoving it into his pockets.

Greg, you need to read these commentaries! lol

I´m sure he can, but doubt it would be a good idea.

Meh, you can’t BS a BS-er. TJ’s got this.

This won’t end well.

This won’t end well.

Uh-oh….I can’t look!

I wonder how much money has stuck to his fingers.

Mr Al will soon want to know why the bar is in the red and blame Pru and not Leslie.

Well, THAT is certainly an ominous turn of affairs..So, in that spirit, time for a cutaway?

Did Les learn capital management from Uncle Al?

Is pru still doing any theatre at the fuse?

Hey Les, YOU are In LUCK! Old Smiley Here, is an EXPERT in “Handling” and RELIEVING folks of THEIR Money and He Can Give You a Few Much Needed Tips!

Get Him to TELL You about His “Firehouse Food Scam” where the ONLY one that paid the “Price” for that Larceny was this Babe, Tiffany. You Remember Her. She’s the one YOU tried to put the Moves on, Before Ox CHASED You Off!

And Furthermore……,Ah, But I’ve Already SAID too Much……,

Why in the world would savvy Mr. Gray put Les in a situation where money and alcohol could be a major problem if Les has had trouble with these before? Especially if it was trouble with the law? Makes less than no sense.

This is starting to make me wonder if back when Mr. Gray first mentioned “returning the favor in May” if perhaps Les was being released on probation, providing he could get a job someplace.

I find this sudden flip in Les from sullen to congenial a bit ominous. Borderline personality disorder, anyone?

You know… the interesting part about this story line is Les’ interaction with TJ… They have a lot in common, the ole line “it takes a con to see a con” … I doubt TJ with his street smarts is going to let HIS money soon part with him….

Better keep an eye on the till.

So what will happen when Pru reports to TJ that the till was “light” that evening.

Careful, Les. TJ is not a guy you want to mess with. I’m pretty sure he’s smarter than you, and he’ll lie through that toothy grin and manipulate you right into a trap before you’ll know what happened. It’ll be “checkmate, game over” before you’ll know what just hit you. Or at least that’s the match-up I’m hoping for. I’d like to see Les realize too late that he picked the wrong “sucker” to pilfer off of.

I wonder if Les is aware that his uncle is dating the mother of the “nerd” he used to bully and threaten in high school?

This is not good. Bad Omen…. Very Bad. I just hope TJ or Ox is hawking him every minute.

OTOH, It’s good to see @IamJayBlue back. Hope you and yours are OK.

He can handle a couple of year stretch in the pen too. Eitherthe booze inventory will start coming up short or the cash.“This guy is trouble with a capital T which stands for tool.”

What does everyone think th story line will be next week in the luann iverse?

Yeah, I just bet Les can handle money, as in stealing it, laundering it. I don’t trust him. He’s probably going to screw over the DeGroots, and end up going to jail.

I don’t know. TJ knows about cons, even though he is a good con man, Because of Brad, and because of the people he chooses to associate with he has a conscience, and is not likely to do anything to harm anyone. Les? The jury is still out on him, although right now being nice is suspicious. Maybe the point of this arc is that Les may actually get some good vibes that will help him become a better person. I mean after all Dirk reformed. So anything is possible.

Oh yeah, having an angry pissed off teenager deal with the public. What could possibly go wrong? I mean besides losing business ?

Very likely.

Les is at least 21 since he can serve alcohol. Wasn’t he in high school with Luann and Gunther their senior year? He must have been held back a time or 3. Les looks very happy to see the alcohol and cash register.

“I can handle money”. Another way of saying “I robbed some banks”.

Oh no…Les is probably going to steal it if he lands THAT job…

“Better check his pockets at the end of the work day.”.Now that they cannot do.

In the real world (and Luanniverse?) managers work late and start early, with part of that extra time spent making sure that sales slips and what was rung up match (and in some cases where commissions are involved making sure someone on commission is not appropriating the sales of another person), and every day without fail making sure that the registers’ totals and the actual amounts match.If a reg has been off before then the amounts would be known with the result being to add employees if very busy and perhaps do some retraining or more.If the reg has had reliable matching till someone new is added then… Well, you know what is worried then.Do the tips wind up on the slips usually at Kafe Kablooie, or on the table?

At this point, especially when very busy, a new employee would do the easy tasks, with the precision work learned later. So, in the food industry Les would be bussing the tables, loading the dishwasher, chopping and mincing, peeling, and pot washing. He would not handle the register as a new employee in the real world (which may be locked between uses). Les might have a big disappointment coming up for a while. I have not worked the new registers (my past being on the mechanical and early electronic ones which were precomputer inclusion — and i do not mean the old definition of “computer”), but don’t at least some have separate check-in codes to better know who is responsible for which entries and when? I honestly do not know how common or uncommon that is. Nor do i know if they have cranks so they can be worked in power outages like early electronic registers could be. Now i am curious. Anyone know?

Enjoy that both words in Buck Private are puns!Good one!

Hmm, good one, WildeBill! talk about putting the fox in charge of the chicken coopbooze and money, “Les is more” in that departmenthe’s happy now. but hopefully he won’t forget about Uncle Hitch.

Les’s new nickname: Skim

7Interesting that Les smiles a bit in the last two panels. In panel two he seems to be smiling about the plethora of alcoholic libations. And, while I can understand smiling at the sight of a full bar, since I do not mind having a drink or two myself, it does seem to be a bit more “suspect” when Les smiles about the booze:1. Unless he had to repeat a number of grades, he most likely is NOT yet 21, and so he should not be working in the bar area I think.2. His smile could be construed as a scheme forming in his mind to potentially a) pilfer the booze for whatever purpose he has in mind for it, and then b) watering it down at The Fuse so it may be less likely detected.The smile associated with the cash, however is the far more suspicious and problematic IMO. However, with Ox around to let TJ and Pru know of Les’ backstory, there should be absolutely no reason for TJ or Pru to give him a job/task with responsibility for money.But, we have to hope that Ox tells them more about what Les was like!Yet, I guess it would be a dull story if Les was kept from being nefarious at least for a little while. So, perhaps Ox will tell TJ and Pru more…. or he may think he should give Les the benefit of the doubt….. but then fortunately…. perhaps after Les has started to do bad things, then Luann or Bernie, or Tiffany can get the word out to TJ and Pru.

If anyone can spot a con, it’s TJ.

The job will be dishwasher/busboy.

I see skimming and cash larceny all over Les. He needs to be kept AWAY from the register.

Yep, TJ just found the ideal patsy to take the fall for his next torch job. In the next panel that we don’t get to see today, TJ is now confidently putting the insurance company on his speed dial!

This won’t end well.

Gerry, one way to assess honesty in a prospective employee is to ask a question when you already know the answer. It woukd not surprise me if that is going on.

Keep him away from the money!

Speaking of Delta… (What that questioner is not here today? ;-)). Oh, well. Delta will be wishing she coukd be a Howard senior rather than a freshman at Howard:http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/05/07/477161891/in-commencement-speech-obama-advises-howard-university-grads-on-creating-change

“Buck Private”^Ha, ha, ha!!!!

♪ Money For Nothing ♪

…and your

checks for free!_*^Ha, ha!!! the moral is, “Don’t count your checks, until they are cashed!”

Welcome back Jay! We missed you.

uh oh… uh oh.. red flag red flag… But will TJ who may have a similar checkered past teach Les the value of behaving (now and then).

Leslie has not reformed, nor taken Uncle Al’s admonitions to heart.If he doesn’t steal from the bar and try to frame Pru, as suggested by SF1972, he may try to frame TJ, more plausible (and more acceptable: no one loves TJ much except TJ). I think Leslie needs a haircut; that mullet weighs too heavily on his pea-brain….

I think we are all jumping and too quickly pre judgimg les. Like the time we pre judged pru and thought she was trying to steal quill. We are pre judging les and thinking he is trying to steal from the fuse. But team evans usually has a surprise for us and seldom has a trite and linesr plot trajectory. I think the other employees will think les stole when money is missing but he will be innocent.

If les wants to be successful in a life of crime, he needs a few more brain cells.

Final scene: Les’s face from the window in the back of a paddy wagon…

It is after midnight here, so Happy Mothers’ Day! Didn’t know? Some individuals need calendars. ;-). Hey, was that a spoiler?

Thanks!

This thread is going to end one of three predictable ways: 1. Les will steal something, blame somebody else and get caught anyway;2. Les will NOT steal something, get blamed for it anyway and then the real culprit will be found and slapped on the wrist because is “Luann” or3. Puddles will be revealed as the perpetrator after being left in the bar for a few minutes on his own.

Will Les get a magic color-changing vest like TJ is wearing?

Sooo…that means not for cashier. Mopping floors it is!