Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 07, 2012

 Alex: “Good talk, Dad. Could you turn up the radio?” C’mon, Mr. Dad Mike Sir, she’s your darling dollbaby. You’ve been treating her at great emotional distance all evening. Of course, she’s going to exhibit coping mechanisms, even as her trusty MIT diploma dangles (figuratively) from the end of her inherited Doonesbury nose! Now you’re telling her to “dial it back a little”. Whatta Greek marble statue you are! Almost hate to say it for fear Dad will order me, straight from panel 3, to butt out of the ’toon. (Fuzzy bears, note the set of the Doonesbury jaw, in both parent and child in same panel.) But since you’re only a frozen Rorschach inkblot test who can’t speak out at me, I will: Daddio, if you had been SHOWING her more familial love toward her from long ago and right up to the present, she’d be in your lap (figuratively speaking) and all over you like a wet puppy Westy. (Fuzzy bears, you know how emotional she can get. Hark back to her Deaniac days.) And you’d have to park the car and deal with her with tears and hugs and a drippy nose. She’s not, and you don’t know why, do you?  Not sayin’ you don’t love her. Course you love her. And you’d gladly demo your love by giving her “up to half of your kingdom”. At the appropriate time and place, of course, of course. Like, say, on her wedding dance floor or, better, on your hi-tech death bed. Just sayin’ . . . .