Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for July 24, 2011

She needs to get her eyes checked.

It’s a comment about the sad state of affairs…pointed at the younger generation…but potentially directed at all of us.

Apathy, non-connection amoung humans—texting!

I’m old enough to remember Mike as the pathetic would-be ladies’ man at college — and his later doomed flirtations outside of marriage — so it’s more a case of “It’s happening AGAIN.”

The glorious past is gone forever, guys. Along with your waists and hairlines.

I had some trouble thinking what this strip meant until I read the comments. I kinda sympathize more with the invisibility of the older men. It’s not like you want anything to happen, but it would be nice to be “noticed”.

Of course, us girls become invisible at a much younger age. At least that’s what I’m told.

Let’s turn the situation around. Suppose a very handsome young male clerk is checking out a worn-looking middle-aged woman with an overweight elderly woman. Would the strip have a point?

Welcome to my world Mike.

Hey, Vista Bill — weigh in, weigh in, dude!

Bernie and Mike need to repair to Bernie’s giant, lux-appointed man-cave to watch the game, gobble their habaneros bean dip and nachos, swig their Coronas — and lick their wounded egos. .• Will Ms. flame-redhead-and-soft-pink-lips cell-phone to come over and join them after work? • Will the sun rise in the southwest and set in the northeast? • Will Pope Benedict convert to a Lutheran? • Will Obama become a Teapublican? Will . . . well, I think you get the point.

Attacking WalMart checkout girls? Huh? Where the heck did you get THAT from this strip?

Their options are grayed out.

Kifariel and G.Martin must be at least, Teapublicanoids, since GT does indeed attack the T-pubs. But he doesn’t always attack; sometimes his humor is only meant to gently expose certain realities hidden by cultural blindness. Such is the case here. GT is trying to get men to realize that their assumptions about themselves as superior to women economically, makes them attractive sexually. When it becomes obvious to Bernie and Mike that this is not always the case, they experience a rude awakening — hey, dudes, you aren’t attracting this obvious babe..Unfortunately, G.Martin goes one step beyond even Kifariel. Sadly, he doesn’t understand the artist’s subtleties. He must forever operate in defensive mode. He must always feel under attack. Even if he simply doesn’t understand the strip. Under G.M.’s blinkered worldview, “Now Trudeau’s attacking Walmart checking girls. Must be his way of unconsciously revealing his ‘dirty old man’ [DOM] inner secret."

But that can’t be the case. If GT had a DOM side to his personality, it would already be known by virtually all his fans by now (four decades and better).

I disagree. I think the young ladies (18-65) would be hurt if I didn’t give at least one flirt per bag. Fun, harmless, and innocent, well maybe not that sweet young thing who retires next year.

the invisibiity issue aside, the hopeless demoralization & robotic sleepwalk – what B B said – of dead-end jobs and a dwindling future…..and Heidi, I think the expiration date for females is getting younger and younger…the “flatchested” become invisible before the endowed/implanted.

I don’t know. Late 40s and that seems to be the way it’s always been.

Her effort reflects her pay.

It is interesting that as I get older, the age range of girls that catch my eye gets wider.

Since I am also of that age….. all of the above comments are probably correct. However, when Bernie was Michael’s lab partner in school he used to come up with a chemical that produced a similar effect.

Folks, today’s strip is merely a graphic rendition of an old joke: A man knows he is old when he becomes invisible to teenage girls. As E.B. White said, “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies”.

I was just saying last night that a restaurant is the only place a pretty girl will talk to me any more. And they are all getting so much younger than they used to be! I can’t figure it out.

On another level, I think this happens between many customers regardless of gender / age and from many cashiers, etc. regardless of hotness. Some corporate institutions are crushing in their guidelines for interaction with patrons, i.e., stick to the script.

It’s the eternal paradox, if I knew then (in my youth) what I know now…by the way, I love the way this girl is drawn, for a comic strip character she is gorgeous! Ah, to be 20something again….(44 right now)

Lewreader is right. After a certain age, men are no longer perceived as a threat by young women. At sixty-five, I can chat with young women casually, because although I would happily kill to to be able to have a relationship, we BOTH know it’s never going to happen.

In the print version my paper left out the first two panels.Great comments.

Being invisible sure beats being repulsive. I can hardly wait for tomorrow when young women think I’m the bees’ knees!

those NUMBERS you referred to are very important to the young hotties, many like large numbers when they apply to bank account and if you spend them.

I’m thinking it’s a comment on the general disconnect of customer service, and less a commentary on age. I think she’d behave that way with anyone, not just older guys. The “everyone” who’s at the beach today is probably just everyone SHE knows.

That’s pretty good, eight panels of minimalist dialogue and still maintaining credibility.

If you’ve ever worked as a cashier in a grocery store, you’d understand…Don’t over think it guys.

Brings to mind multiple definitions of “check out.”

Genuine, basic (way basic) courtesy… a smile, eye contact, and a final “thank you” seem — to me — to be a requirement when dealing at any level of customer service.

Everyone has an off-day now and then, but if this is this woman’s SOP…? She should be fired.

It’s simply not true that all “young ladies (18-65)” feel hurt if men such as Lewreader don’t flirt. I’m 71 years old and never flirt. And I’ve heard lots of babes complain about older men trying to flirt with them, and they seem to feel relieved when I clearly don’t.

Of interest in Trudeau’s strip this Sunday: When I was a young man seeking a wife, I heard women my age say: All men have on their minds is JUST ONE THING (meaning sexual intercourse without commitment). Now that I’m 71 years old, I think that any woman who would say such a thing has on her mind JUST ONE THING (meaning money).

“[s]hould be fired ….” I agree, in Harvard business school terms, Bailey. But in Main Street real-world terms, check-out babes like this one attract the business of men like Bernie and Mike, who have money, better than do Boomer check-out women who make eye contact. Hence, when customers go south, it’s the Boomer woman who gets laid off, not the babe-with-bad-manners, who’s making a lot less $$$$ anyway.

Canadian idiot’s response (“I love the way this girl is drawn, for a comic strip character she is gorgeous!”) should alert readers to the fact that Trudeau is not just trying to mock sexually DWMs like Bernie and Mike.

Man some of you are reading way to much in this strip. Simple comment on older men.

You’re right, Baslim. Kifariel . . . wherever you are . . . I apologize. My mistake was an inadvertent reading.

I cannot believe the conclusions arrived at here. I am a former cashier, and, sorry, you are all missing the boat,She has to check so many items per hour. She has to have no more than three customers in her line, and if she doesn’t have any, she has to get other customers who may be waiting in line over to her. If she stops and talks to a customer, and others are waiting, she can be disciplined. Every action she does is on camera. Before the recession, checking was fun and you could get to know people. Now, management is looking at any excuse to get rid of people who may be making more than the minimum pay rate.And “paper or plastic?” That ended at the store a long time ago, as paper costs the store 5 cents a bag, and plastic is a small fraction of a penny.

Sorry for offending but if I leave a cashier and she pats her hair and thinks “Maybe I still got it.” have I made the world a better place? She may know I used a line as old as the mountains, but I pray it made her think a nice thought about herself.

@ Number Six: Just why DID you resign???

Every body knows Trudeau can’t draw a nose. The clerk could be anyone from a high school student to Ariana Huffington. “Vould you like help to your car?”

I loved it cause I work retail but I failed to get the punchline. Can anyone explain?

Part of Trudeau’s genius, Jordan Hunnicutt, is to allow different readers to draw different, but-still-meaningful, conclusions.For me the punchline is this: Mike and Bernie approach the “checkout babe”; they are not flirting. But they expect to be noticed — perhaps spoiled by more experienced female checkout clerks who DO notice, even if only because management’s camera is on them. However, lost-in-space “checkout babe” DOESN’T even notice them at all, to the point of rudeness. This reality finally hits them as they exit carrying their groceries. They misinterpret the snub — and it IS a snub, an inexcusable, firing-worthy snub — as a dis-affirmation of their attractiveness to the other gender.If the checker were a young male checker, they might have challenged his rudeness on the spot. But being a “babe”, she is able to get away with this outrage. The punchline: the irony of awakening to the fact that their receding hairlines and expanding waistlines, coupled with other signs of aging, is making them “disappear” socially, is unsettling.

@ Dylan: Google “patrick mcgoohan the prisoner” “Questions are a burden for others; answers – a prison for oneself.”

Scented Flower, Isn’t “left out” a position on a baseball diamond? Something like “left field”?

- “Two matures” and /or “too matures”,also they are not “there”. The cashier is not “too mature”, or interested in “two” men, ( males that want to turn her one into a couple), and also is not interested in persons not “there”. ( ""Running or “moving” or “outside” “matches”, “two’s”.Also the two are engaging in “small” talk. She is not “small” and doesn’t speak “small”, She alsolso does not “see” , “recognize”, acknowledge", “need”, knead" “2” males", and/or flirtatious men. That should about cover the bigger elements.

I’m sorry those cashiers treated you that way.“When I have asked for paper in this situation, some baggers have become testy. If I insist, these testy ones will sometimes load the full plastic bags inside the paper ones, giving me both paper and plastic.”Cashiers are under the clock. To unload groceries and decently repack them cuts into their time. As for the store being quiet and her guessing everyone is at the beach, that happens all the time. “Everyone” in town is at the lakes or the parade or the concert, and then everyone else shows up and all want to be checked out immediately.

Having worked retail for over ten years, customers slowly become invisible, like white noise.

When I ask for plastic, they point out that it will cost me 5c a bag, added to my total. Nowadays you are supposed to remember to bring your own bags. I don’t know if/what they charge for paper bags.All told, to summarize today’s strip, it was really incomprehensible to me. The comments have helped… some. I’m still not sure what I think about it! I’ll just go back & check it out (pun intended)…

Been there. It isn’t just young women. All youth find all ‘seniors’ to be invisible.

And one last comment: Wasn’t Bernie the one who invented the formula for invisibility? That was the first thought that came to mind when I read the strip.

I laughed so hard when I read this Sunday morning. I loved it! It was a fun twist on the usual women-are-invisible-over-50 bit. I showed the strip to my over-50 husband and he didn’t get it at all. Great strip.

When I tended bar, I would always ask the little old ladies if I could see their ID……they always laughed…

a moment from our current culture that could be a repeat from times past. the pretty girl confined to her own small bubble, misses not only 2 interesting guys but many other things passing by. As GT knows, not all are like this… but on a given day, one runs into it… along with the next stage up, that ironic half-smile which lets you know she knows the “true motives” which you likely don’t have anymore.

GT moves more in the direction of the great realist novelists… probably as good as it gets these days, given that realism is out of fashion & the wide range of GT’s comedy over time, the relatedness of his characters, & his growing detachment.

I thought it was one of the Bushes up until the last panel. Newer readers might not remember that the Bush family were originally rendered the same way.