Speed Bump by Dave Coverly for November 18, 2021

(Snort). Somebody from New Mexico once asked me “Since you live near Portland OR, do you know my friend Etaoin Shrdlu who lives there?”

I lived a 6 hour drive from Portland… whose population wsa around a half million people. Some people lack both numeracy AND geographical understanding.

Yup, we all know everyone.

all you humans look alike

Diana Frances Spencer

Enough with the probing questions!

Anal probe … or turnip twaddler?

Look like mouse holes under their table.

I never allow probing on the first date.

I might, but with so many people walking around with something up their butts these days it’s hard to say.

Standard response to telling someone you had been in the service.Oh. doyou know…

Oh yes. I knows Giorgio, of course.

They said that you never warm up the probes.

Then I won’t tell you how many times I HAVE known them…

Maybe. But first tell me: Do you sterilize those probes before using them again?

Oh, you work at Boeing? Do you know so and so? Question I have been asked.

BTW, I’m still trying to figure out how get rid of the rash.

I read that the creator of this strip lives in my state (Michigan). Such an odd sense of humor I wonder if I could meet him sometime.

one day when i was in high school in RI, i was talking to my buddies and i asked John what he was doing over the weekend….he said oh i’m going to a wedding …my cousin Mary is marrying some guy named Mike…why what are you doing….my reply was i’m going to a wedding too…my cousin Mike is marrying some girl named Mary…they’re still married and still sending Christmas cards to my cuz

In a Danish train station, I met someone from Bulgaria (he was asking for directions), and he asked me if I knew a certain American who he thought lived in Denmark.

Turned out that I did.

I was a Canadian living with my uncle and aunt and going to school in the Boston area. A classmate told me that she had been on the MTA, got to talking with a fellow passenger, noted the other person’s accent, found out that she was Canadian, and asked her if she knew me. Turned out that the other passenger’s parents were old and good friends of my parents.

As a new faculty member at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver BC, I picked up a hitchhiker on the way to campus. I didn’t really look at him (I’m a great believer in drivers’ keeping their eyes on the road), but, a few sentences into our conversation, he timidly asked if I was [my name]. This time I paid a bit more attention to his voice, and immediately identified him as a close friend in college in Minnesota (we had graduated nine years earlier).

Etaoin Shrdlu is an old-fashioned printers expression and a very good short story by Fredric Brown. Never a real name.