Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for April 28, 2020

  1. Img 0910
    BE THIS GUY  over 4 years ago

    Goat appreciates the luxury of being cruel vicariously.

     •  Reply
  2. Right here
    Sherlock Watson  over 4 years ago

    Do you get to pick the song? If so, try “MacArthur Park”; that can make anyone beg for mercy.

     •  Reply
  3. Crazyforkedindianpalmsquirrel max 1mb
    B UTTONS  over 4 years ago

    FINALLY, Rat did a little something for the betterment of society!

    Hopefully Rat also put the CEO in the endless Robo-Operator loop!

     •  Reply
  4. Brain guy dancing hg clr
    Concretionist  over 4 years ago

    After the cable company that I won’t name, but it rhymes with “bombast” lied, boosted my rates, and lied again for the umty-millionth time, I hunted around and found a local company that provides “wifi-ish” service, so no cables, just an antenna on our house. Their price has been fixed, to the penny, for several years. When I call them (perhaps as often as once or twice per year) for tech support, I am ALWAYS greeted by an actual person. And about 25% of the time, that person is the one I actually need to talk to. And they play pleasant holding music IF I’m waiting… for a minute or two. Without commercial interruptions. It is true that their speed is lower than the cable company’s speed. But it is fast enough for the two of us to stream something at the same time, though not for interactive shooter games (which neither of us cares for). But that nice fixed price is about 50% of the the cable company’s actual cost.

    When I contacted them, they asked why I’d decided to call. I told them that I was sick unto death of the behavior of the cable company. Instant response: “Oh, sure. They’re our BEST sales group.”

     •  Reply
  5. 20150317 161539
    wesleylscott1  over 4 years ago

    In the words of Rage Against The Machine, " #%€# It!!! Cut the cord !!!

     •  Reply
  6. Technoids
    hammytech  over 4 years ago

    Seems fair..lol

     •  Reply
  7. Airhornmissc
    Liverlips McCracken Premium Member over 4 years ago

    Voice prompt systems should crawl back through the hellhole they came out of, and seal it shut behind them.

     •  Reply
  8. Grandbudapesthotel cr alamy
    Imagine  over 4 years ago

    24 hours on hold. Expensive call. Doubt it was an 800 number.

     •  Reply
  9. Missing large
    Doug M  over 4 years ago

    Everyone’s fantasy…

     •  Reply
  10. Avatar 2475
    Troglodyte  over 4 years ago

    Wish I could do that. “IVR” and “customer care” are two of the best smokescreens for shoddy service and dodging customers!

     •  Reply
  11. 1017207 10200214106421862 492754112 n
    Cameron1988 Premium Member over 4 years ago

    Do something similar to the C.E.O. who is currently running the Walt Disney francise. He’s nothing but another money monger. Creating a streaming service that you have to now pay to see any type of Disney and Pixar Movie. Also Marvel, National Geographic and whatever else that money hungry mongerer currently owns. He even has the control to refuse to show certain Disney movies in theaters that you’ll only be able to see it by subscribing to his streaming service. I mean it’s kind of understandable now because of the pandemic, but I’m still just trying to prove a point. So do something similar, or worse that guy who owns the Disney franchise, Rat. I will forever love you if you do ;)

     •  Reply
  12. Desron14
    Masterskrain  over 4 years ago

    BLESS YOU, Rat!!!

     •  Reply
  13. Picture
    Breadboard  over 4 years ago

    Just let me talk to a human being ! … Croc Power !

     •  Reply
  14. Missing large
    Display  over 4 years ago

    Nutley Brass, Ramones Songbook. Elevator music covers of Ramones songs. You can thank me later. https://youtu.be/MH0kHju79Ek

     •  Reply
  15. Photo 1501706362039 c06b2d715385
    Zebrastripes  over 4 years ago

    Play the “Manah manah do do do do do” song! The muppets….once you hear it it never leaves your head…..

     •  Reply
  16. Picture
    PhilipHunrath  over 4 years ago

    He should play Debbie Boone singing “You Light Up My Life” for 24 hours

     •  Reply
  17. Mr haney
    NeedaChuckle Premium Member over 4 years ago

    I hate to call, but I couldn’t get online to my credit card company. 2 hours to get a human. That is why I’m glad for the landline, I don’t know if my batteries on the cellphone would have made it thru. They did solve the problem quickly though.

     •  Reply
  18. De6fdbq 5e0a21ac bc2f 4b76 855c 395d2ca0924d
    NRHAWK Premium Member over 4 years ago

    Takes our strategy to oust Presidente Noriega from that Panamanian church to a whole new level.

     •  Reply
  19. Missing large
    Ksandler4570  over 4 years ago

    Don’t we ALL want to do this?

     •  Reply
  20. Fb img 1509486198333
    e.groves  over 4 years ago

    It seems that most hold music is designed to get a person to hang up.

     •  Reply
  21. Apollo 11 launch 04
    Steverino Premium Member over 4 years ago

    True story: When we were living in Va, we has a mother racoon give birth on the smoke shelf of our fireplace. Called Animal Control, and they told us to get a radio, tune it to a heavy metal station, turn up the volume, and put in the fireplace. Then put some cushions around the fireplace opening so it will muffle the sound.

    The racoons were gone within 24hours. The neighbor across the street saw the mother racoon carry her babies out of the chimney.

    This should be a lession to all of us.

    P.S. We put a chimney cap on the chimney the next day.

     •  Reply
  22. Ellis archer profile
    Ellis97  over 4 years ago

    I don’t think anybody is gonna get to sleep now.

     •  Reply
  23. Picture
    LaurentVaillancourt  over 4 years ago

    With my recent misery marathon on hold, it wasn’t which songs they played but the sound quality. It was like a badly tuned radio station being transmitted down a can-and-string arrangement. Hissing static and faint.

     •  Reply
  24. Abcd3
    redback  over 4 years ago

    come to think of it, wasn’t that the premise of MST3K?

     •  Reply
  25. 20141112 192913
    Aladar30 Premium Member over 4 years ago

    GO RAT!!!!!

     •  Reply
  26. Picture
    JohnNeal  over 4 years ago

    Rat the true GOAT of this strip

     •  Reply
  27. Rustfungus2a
    Cerabooge  over 4 years ago

    Not a problem for me; I can’t get through to a human at all. I need to have my robot call their robot. But, yeah, I HATE hold “music”, and would happily join Rat in his service to humanity.

     •  Reply
  28. N1495118875 241922 2408
    Ermine Notyours  over 4 years ago

    My devices seem to be breaking in tandem again. I installed the PBS app (not Pearls Before Swine) on my Samsung smart TV, but I had to change my password. My Samsung smart phone demanded that I log into it again. I had to verify through text, but it wouldn’t accept the verification even after multiple attempts. I went to my landline to call for support, and my landline was dead. I knew it worked a week ago, because I tested it when my phone company internet went out then. (Side note, the internet was going out again.) So then I had to call support on my smart phone, and try to do things on it while talking on it. The good news is that I went through to help quickly. The bad news is that the phone the help was using was very noisy and chirpy. Must be sheltering in place with their own phone. In the middle of the procedure, the call cut out. So then I had to schedule a phone company representative to come out and restore my landline service. He came out the next day, but had to summon someone out the day after that to fix the problem from the pole box. Finally the day after that I prepared to call Samsung again, but I decided one more time to have them send me a verification by voice. When I looked up how to do that, I finally found a several-weeks-old issue that fixed the original bug. You were supposed to remove the “+1” international dialing code from your own phone number that automatically comes up to request where to send the verification text, even though the text was received just fine without this. This has been happening for weeks and Samsung never fixed it?! Aaaghh!!!!

     •  Reply
  29. Missing large
    Cozmik Cowboy  over 4 years ago

    Speaking as a music lover and amateur musician, as well as a former professional sound engineer, it is my considered opinion that almost all hold “music” – including not only both the selection of notes and the shortness of the loop, but also and especially the sound quality, is carefully designed to make you hang up and go away.

    I have been known to answer the rep’s eventual “How are you today?” with “I was fine, but after 45 minutes of your vile hold noise, I’m in a really foul mood.”

     •  Reply
  30. N1495118875 241922 2408
    Ermine Notyours  over 4 years ago

    One time I gave my dad a ride to an art supply store so he could go shopping. After a while I noticed that the music playing over the loudspeakers was odd. It had a slower section, then raised to a crescendo, and then back to the slow section. There was no beginning and no end. The store was accidentally playing hold music over the speakers, unless they did it on purpose and they hate us.

    I know of a drive-in theater that played instrumental classic Hollywood music over the sound system so you could properly setup your radio before the movie. One time though they played a version of the outdated song “Wives and Lovers” sung by a woman. (Hey! Little girl. Comb your hair, fix your makeup. Soon he will open the door. Don’t think because there’s a ring on your finger. You needn’t try anymore…) And they just played that song over and over again, just to annoy us. Worse, it kept leaking through the audio of the movie after it started. This was the showing of Shanghai Noon where they swapped reels two and three. They just didn’t care.

     •  Reply
  31. Missing large
    the lost wizard  over 4 years ago

    But, you said that my call was important and then directed me to your web site to look after the problem myself.

     •  Reply
  32. Missing large
    geckoman22  over 4 years ago

    The music should be interspersed every 10-15 seconds with a recorded message saying “We are experiencing unusually high call volumes. We will be with you shortly. We appreciate your patience.” Over and Over and OVER again!

     •  Reply
  33. Chief wahoo
    aerotica69  over 4 years ago

    On the prison planet Justicia, they play “Toxic” over and over.

     •  Reply
  34. Moneypenney me
    YorkGirl  Premium Member over 4 years ago

    Some of the Hold Music is so loud and when someone finally answers you can’t hear them…. like commercials…..

     •  Reply
  35. Calvplay   2
    Mentor397  over 4 years ago

    NO WAIT!! Ahh, it’s too late. Now we have three channels of 24-hour hold music for easy listening. Siiiigh.

     •  Reply
  36. F47dd5f1 cd65 4366 b60f 37165c6b3c21
    bucker39 Premium Member over 4 years ago

    The late Whitney Houston: All my songs sound just the same; every one sounds like the last one.

     •  Reply
  37. Missing large
    ekke  over 4 years ago

    Cruel, and all-too-usual, punishment.

    Or, from the Mikado: “My object all sublime, I will achieve in time, to make the punishment fit the crime, the punishment fit the crime! — And make each prisoner pent, unwillingly represent, a source of innocent merriment, of innocent merriment.”

     •  Reply
  38. Sp
    jc  over 4 years ago

    Loosen one of the speaker wires. It’s gotta be intermittent and crackly-buzzy.

     •  Reply
  39. Missing large
    bradwallace2000  over 4 years ago

    This is my all time favorite Perls Before Swine comic!!! Made me laugh out loud.

     •  Reply
  40. Missing large
    falcon_370f  over 4 years ago

    Oh how about the “silence” about retirement of 3G networks?

     •  Reply
  41. Jerika green shirt02
    Font Lady Premium Member over 4 years ago

    I did this after the “church” next door had a band that only knew one song, the bass player only knew 4 notes, and they “practiced” until after 3AM several nights running. They were having a tent meeting and had set up the tent no more than 20 ft from our house. I asked them to stop. They said our house was possessed. The police refused to do anything because they were supposedly a church. So, after a meeting with the rest of the neighborhood, we hung very large speakers out the kitchen window facing them and while I was home, I blasted them with Mozart and when I left for school, my husband would play heavy metal. Our kids stayed at my mother’s house. It took two weeks, but they finally moved. The whole neighborhood rejoiced.

     •  Reply
  42. Missing large
    Bruce388  over 4 years ago

    When I’m on hold, the fact that my call is very important to them consoles me.

     •  Reply
  43. Screenshot 20200428 140547 google
    Mr. Snuffles' Accomplice Premium Member over 4 years ago

    There should be an spinoff of this strip called “Better Call Rat”

     •  Reply
  44. Image001
    dogday Premium Member over 4 years ago

    At the 1964 World’s Fair in NYC they had the “It’s a Small World” ride. I was a teenager but one trip around was enough for me. The ride was cool but OH THAT SONG!!!!

     •  Reply
  45. Calvin   hobbes   playtime in snow avatar flipped
    Andrew Sleeth  over 4 years ago

    Takes me back to the 1970s, when the arms race on campus was manifest in dormitories by ever-escalated speaker size.

     •  Reply
  46. Spongebob rocks go comics 2
    SpongebobPatrickBackwards  over 4 years ago

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

     •  Reply
  47. Thinker
    Sisyphos  over 4 years ago

    Go, Rat, go! I think you may need even more amplifiers!

     •  Reply
  48. Aaue7mbnrhm7lp x9ax5nglnwgvc0tdx8wwlt4efikncog
    RonYorgason  over 4 years ago

    Hopefully the music was interrupted every 45 seconds by a recording that makes you think someone finally answered, but was instead just reminding you how important your call is to them.

     •  Reply
  49. Angora rabbit
    AngoraRabbit13  over 4 years ago

    I appreciate rat too for that, goat!

     •  Reply
Sign in to comment

More From Pearls Before Swine