Gil Thorp by Henry Barajas and Rachel Merrill for August 26, 2021

A buyout? At a newspaper?!? Wow, this has to be Milford….nowhere else would a small paper do that.

P1: Couldn’t Marjie have put on something other than her slippers? Or did she spend the night on the couch, which is why the meeting is early morning?

Today’s scoreboard: Goatee, no sideburns around the face. And the same goes for the Chief.

Heather grew today….her feet BOTH touch the floor!

I don’t seem to recall Marjie being a part of the strip for that long, either. As much as ten years?

P1 What if there was a much better qualified sharp strong young man? Does sexism only work one way???

P4: “Yes, but what are the particulars?” Milford’s answer to Sally Jenkins has arrived. Back to Heather’s conflict of interest between coaching and reporting?

Are you retiring or being bought out and being sent away Marjie?

“You can’t fire me, I quit – but you’d better pay me or I’ll sue the bejeezuz out of you for age discrimination!”

P1 Marjie shows Heather her four finger technique and explains why it is better than three

P2.5 “and thank the stars he did buy me out this time, I mean, look at the scars on my wrists for all the times I’ve tried to get myself out of this hellhole strip”

P4 “we don’t pay much Heather, but we offer forty years in GT hell…errrrrr…great job security, did I mention the dental plan?”

P1, I’ll stay!

P2, Buyout? More like, “Get out!”

P3, Only if I can get off 3 to coach football.

Oh, conflict of interest, eh? Sorry Marjie, you’re stuck here forever.

Hmmm, Acey Ducey is a good 20 years younger than the Chief and she is retiring? She should be doing her Moe Green impersonation – “you buy me out? No, I buy you out.” Meanwhile, creepy Dale lines up another young female to run the sports department. Not the least bit suspicious. The #MeToo movement finally makes it to Milford.

P 2.5: “…not to mention, I’ve been one of the most plain, vanilla, boring characters that this strip has ever seen, which means something since there’s been so many of them over the years, so it’s time to go…”

P 2.75: “…and the buyout they gave me was amaaaaaazing…”

Accept the offer! Milford’s still at least 40 years away from online publications.

Hey, at this point I’d cover Star for the Milford Sports.

Should be interesting to see Heather ask Gil for his starting line ups at the start of each season. Maybe she will just fill them out for him.

P4: “Thanks, but I have my heart set on working in hospital PR.”

This is great for Heather! He’s never asked or seen a sample of her writing. All that he’s heard she’s done is google something and that Ducey had coffee with her. Now she’s the main sports writer for this rag. Wait ’til the guys from J-school in Iowa hear about this!

P3- After that “nice buyout” comment by Marjie, Dale looks a kid whose Mom just gave him a refrigerated suppository.

Go for it Heather! When they find Dale slumped over his desk cold as ice in a year or two, maybe you can become editor! The small town newspaper business has a bright future

I can’t believe that Marjie wasn’t picked off by the Times or Post after she blew the lid on the Chet Ballard privacy scandal!

Yes, Heather would love to cover the ball teams (with good stories that is).

We can offer you up to 25K a year! Yes! Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?!

Ah, the lunacy continues. She’ll take the “lucrative” buyout because she knows someone so immensely qualified can replace her. Someone with NO EXPERIENCE AT ALL. And what’s with Perry White shaving off his sideburns, etc., that he had when they all sat down at the start of this conversation? Seems kind of rude to be doing that while talking.

I can see why the Editor likes this deal. He gets rid of an older employee who probably has a high salary (at least high for Milford) and can replace her with someone that can pay jack squat since she’s so desperate.

And speaking of desperate, if you’re desperate for something that makes more sense, well look no further than today’s Mopped Up Thorp.

https://moppedupthorp.wordpress.com/

P 2: “…I have to retire because of my disability…look at my wrist….there’s no way I can type on a keyboard with this deformity…”

P-1: Someone has been tinkering with the dialog balloons. I recognize the Mafia sign language.

P-2: Marjie is moving to a Convent and proudly shows Heather he stigmata tattoo.

P-4: You know Dale, when I was a Sorority Princess, I heard guys name that thing all sorts of things; but Sports is a new one.

Vito from Goshen paid off a few longshot bettors that made a few bucks on the Heather Burns Job Search event. You can still get in on the pool to pick the date of Milford’s first football game. Always a contentious event.

Okay, now that Marjie has mentioned the “R word” (retirement) … read: she’s not as young as I thought … I don’t feel so creepy thinking she’s kinda hot

By the way, I imagine this has been noted before, but there’s an actual Marjie Ducey at the Omaha World-Herald

Wait… the newspaper industry is dead, mut Ms. Ducey can just say, “I got an idea, give me a buyout and you can hire a rookie.” The buyout part usually doesn’t happen, although the hire a rookie part does.