Get Off My Lido Deck!

Wil Wheaton and I got excited and made this “Fighting Time Lords” shirt! Wiblum Wablum Tempus Wempus!


MAN, it feels good to be drawing comics again. After a week of guest comics, and two weeks of Fancy Photo Comics I am pleased to be back putting pen to pixels. Still, I thought it best to transition from thinking about NOTHING BUT JoCo Cruise Crazy for the last month with a cruise-related comic.

The old people on the cruise (Snorks, as we called them) seemed to be on vacation solely to have different shit to complain about. They said some truly and remarkably horrible things. Many of them racist. Most of the dialog above is a direct Snork quote with slight to extreme embellishments. Honestly I don’t really remember which Snorkisms were real and which we made up any more. By the end of the week we were hearing a bunch of heinous and terrible stuff as well as coming up with a bunch of heinous and terrible stuff. It’s all sort of blurred together. Or rather blended in a tall frosty glass with a pretty paper umbrella, a wedge of pineapple and not an ounce of regret.

After a week of listening the elderly spend thousands of dollars to be upset, we sort of came to a collective conclusion. Being old is just shitty. Life, after a certain point, is complete shit and just gets shittier every single day until you die. Being awake hurts. Getting dressed hurts. Taking a crap hurts. Taking a shower is a near impossibility, hurts, and you are likely to die while doing it. This is why the extremely old get so upset about minor problems. If the one thing in your entire shitty life that is going to provide you a glimmer of happiness for 5 minutes (say, a blueberry muffin with breakfast) isn’t perfect, or isn’t available, then you pretty much have no reason not to eat a bullet right then and there. Guys, can we all agree to check out around 75? Or can we at least focus all of our medical technology and resources on developing a system of tests that tells you, within a month or so, that EVERY SINGLE DAY from a certain point onward is going to be shittier than the day before it? Then we would at least be able to make informed decisions.

Super special thanks to Wil and Atom for (from what I can remember, at least) writing half of this comic. I will leave you with a few other all too true Snorkisms:

“I took pictures when this [buffet tray] was empty! And when this one was empty, AND this one! They don’t got their SHIT together!”

“I really like this theater better before you changed it. Why did you change it?”
“I didn’t personally change it sir, so I’m not sure.”
“Well I liked it better. You shouldn’t have changed it.”

“They [the staff] tell you one thing when they really mean the other! You gotta take whatever they say AND DO THE OPPOSITE!”

“You gotta tell him [the drink waiter] that your gonna have to talk to his manager! It’s the only way they’ll listen!”

COMMENTERS: What’s the damndest thing you ever heard an elderly person say, shout, demand or otherwise enOLDen on some unsuspecting bystander? Were you on the JoCo Cruise or any other cruise? Do you have any Snorkisms of your own?

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  1. Not involving random strangers, but in response to a Manswers episode that covered what to do if your junk gets caught in your zipper, my father-in-law blurted out, "I'd rather lose the prick than ruin a perfectly good pair of pants!" Another time he says to me, "Are you pregnant? No? So you're just getting fat!" One day I woke up in time to hear him say to my mother-in-law, "Just one time of having sex, and we'll end up with another Matthew!" (My husband.) I should mention my in-laws are in their sixties. Just the idea of them having sex horrifies me. Let alone it happening in my general proximity at the time.

    And don't get me started on my mother-in-law. She's said some things I dare not repeat for fear of being sent to a deeper ring of hell than I'm already assigned to…

  2. Most awkward "Wow, old people are kinda racist…" moment off the top of my head was when I was working in a call centre and had a lovely conversation with an older woman, fixed her problem, helped her out, all went wonderfully until she requested to speak to my Manager to pass on her compliments for my work…

    … compliments that ended up being about "how wonderful it was to not have to deal with one of those Indians"…

    … to my Manager who is originally from India.

    • I had quite a few variations of those when I had buckled down to do telemarketing. I try to keep those memories repressed, though. People can be cruel to strangers on the phone.

    • just like the two (sometimes up to five) daily comments from somebody that tells me "oh you're so good at this, you really helped me… not like the last guy/girl, they were from Guadalajara or something". I always tell them I'm in Guadalajara, and that I'll pass on their comments to that particular agent, it's quite permitted because the whole point of our ending script is to accept all comments as constructive criticism and ensure them that we'll do everything we can to improve. The akward silence helps me hew through the next 60+ calls with a smile.

  3. We went on a cuise earlier this year…and near the pool some cranky octogenarion went on for 20 minutes straight about how "damn hot" it was…until the person he called "that damn gook fag" brought him a bucket of beers. He then spent the next 20 minutes complaining that he couldn't drink them, because the ice was "too damn cold" There's just no pleasing some people.

  4. Most awkward old racist moment was when my wife (then shiny new fiance) and I were sat down for dinner with my whole family at my grandparents. This was kind of a big deal because my dad's mother is the matriarch of our entire clan so it was really important to me she and my fiance got on. They started talking about the time my wife spent in the Australian outback blowing up chunks of it for her Rocketry thesis. I suddenly hear my usually lovely Nana saying "Oh you know what they say if you're driving in the outback at night of course? If you hit something just keep driving, it's usually just a 'roo or an abo."
    Thankfully my wife married me anyway.

    On the cruise side of thing you should try the P&O Cruiseline some time – you get a lot less Snorks and the ones you get are of a much nicer quality. They mostly are there with family rather than on their own to complain about stuff. On the other hand we do have s cruiseline specifically for Snorks over here in the UK – Saga Cruises – so maybe all the grouchy ones are on there.

    • I had to read the line containing "so it was really important to me she and my fiance got on."
      Three times. It kept becoming "so it was really important to me she and my fiance got IT on."

      • You're lucky. It's still scrolling through my head: "so it was really important to me she and my fiance got IT on."

  5. I stopped taking my grandma seriously about swearing when she discovered a scratch on my grandpa's new car. Her reaction was along the lines of 'deity be damned (you know what I mean), where did you get the damn scratch'. I never watched what I said in front of her ever again.

  6. See, this is why I tailored my diet to kill me before Im 50. All the years after that seem awful. And racist.

  7. Preach it, Joel…

    While on a cruise (I actually enjoy them, been on 5 so far…) based out of New Jersey, I had to sit beside a guy for 9 dinners who repeated the same "In the war, I killed a Jap and his knees stuck out of his shallow grave" story every night. He ended his hilarious tale of #FirstWorldSoldierProblems with a "Fuggeddaboutit"

    Know that every dinner conversation on every ship de-evolves into "It's better on XXX Cruiseline…"

  8. "If I see you around here again, I'll blow your fuckin' head off!" said the 70-something man as I walked past him on the sidewalk. This was around nine years ago and I was talking on a cell phone, so he must have assumed I was a drug dealer.

    I do wonder if Gen X, with its organic foods and neighborhood gardens, is going to have less health trouble in 30 years than the Boomers.

    • There might actually be a vast divide between the GenXers who went the route you mention and those who drink more soda/eat more fast food/smoke worse cigarettes than their grandparents did too. That would be an interesting study to read.

      Someone should get on that (and build a time machine so I can read it and see whether all my efforts are worth it at all!)

      • @ Luna

        SPOILER – live life like a vegan monk, or live it like a sailor on shore-leave 24/7 you're still gonna get old and creaky until one day they plant your wrinkly butt in the ground.

        I know people think it makes a difference, but really it doesn't. Personally speaking I watched as my great grandpa the drunkest fatty food loving no exercising having grump of a man lived to 103. His son who went the complete other direction, never smoked, drank, or ate bad food in his life died at 50. Of a massive cardiac arrest, ironically enough while celebrating pappy Morris's 97th birthday party.

  9. I still remember being at the full service filling station (early 80s) with my Grandfather and first heard him go off on the "coloredz".

    • Ooooo…almost as good as my grandpa back in the late 80's, when we were sitting waiting for the women to finish shopping, making the comment "Here come the storm clouds" as an African-American family walked past us into the store.

  10. I grew up in the suburbs, and I go to college in Baltimore. Before I left, my grandmother decided to impart some wisdom on me: "Be careful in Baltimore, there are a lot of black people there"
    Thanks Grandma /sarcasm

  11. My grandfather is just a fountain of old school passive aggressive racism. I got a real good gem out of him yesterday when he was talking to my uncle about golf swings.

    Quote: "Short golfers get longer yardage because they're forced to let the club do the work and not put all their strength into it. That's why Tiger Woods was on top for so long, he's short and has that nigger strength to boot."

  12. The thing is

    what with the high nursing home rates
    and low cruise ship memberships that give you discounts up to half the more cruises you go on
    and how the staff on the cruise caters to your every whim

    it's often cost-effective to send your senile elders to spend most of the year on cruises and live it up, see the sights, and be elsewhere so you don't have to listen to your loved ones complaining all the time

    So many of the Snorks live their senility perpetually on cruises, packed off by loved ones who don't mind not seeing Grampy for most of the year.

    The question you must ask yourself is, do you want to live in a nursing home that smells like feet and play bingo or live on cruiseships seeing Fiji, Panama, the Mediterranean, Alaska, etc, where no one smacks you when you complain and you can make fun of the young folk to your heart's content? You were on a cruise. Tell me, would you even be cognizant of your senility after much of that?? Dolphins swimming with people? free drinks with pineapple wedges and little umbrellas? Comedians and circus shows?

    • So…the Eskimos had the right idea, but just didn't have the infrastructure to build city sized ships to send off their elderly on?

    • I enjoyed the random carriage returns. I reread the first sentences four times trying to make it into some kind of poem or song lyrics. I'm still not convinced there's not one in there.

  13. Tommy Flannigan is my favorite massively facial-scarred Scotsman. I wonder if he got that Glasgow smile in a wartime potato salad incident.

    • Of course they are. They can say as much racist, incorrect bullshit as they want and get away with it because our society politely ignores it due to their age and them 'not knowing any better'. I can't wait to get old. I will be the annoying liberal grandpa who calls right wingers on their bullshit in council meetings.

      Of course, by then they will be TownMeetings sponsored by Starbucks and you can only participate if you collect 10 coupons from participating stores, but hey, I'll be crazy by then.

  14. Once while pulling into a parking lot I was sideswiped as an elderly senior screeched out of her spot at warp 9.
    After listening to the longest string of curse words I've ever heard come from one single person*, it took 10 eyewitnesses vehemently yelling at her before she realized she was the one at fault, and that I wasn't a "stupid prick who should be shot".

    Funny addendum, when the cops showed up she flipped a switch and became the nicest little old lady. Until one of them questioned an eyewitness who she happened to call a dumb n-word. God lord, it was like watching a little old lady version of Jekyll and Hyde. She cussed out me, the eyewitnesses, the cops, and people who wronged her all the way back to the 50's.

    Kinda made me wish I'd had a camera-phone to record her, because people always think I'm joking when I tell them about her.

    (*Seriously, at one point she sounded like a pirate trying to pass a clarinet)

    • Yeah, the Polack grandmother would drive at about 90 as much as possible, with failing hearing and eyesight. Yes, she got into accidents and used the "sweet old lady" trick, whilst driving her land yacht, to get out of trouble. She was always late getting to Thistledown (the local race track).

      The Irish alcoholic grandpa knew every cop in the city, every bar they hung out at, and was a very high functioning alchoholic who would build a house, drive while smoking and giving a lecture, or babysit the grandkids at a bar without any problem.

      Thems the good old days.

  15. I was getting the mail a few weeks ago and had my .45 on my hip as usual. But then I see this old lady driving by and gives me the nastiest look. It was like I was the embodiment of the devil because of the gun on my hip. I cracked up laughing because of how slow she was going and the look on her face. She then decided to roll down the window and flip me off. I started laughing even harder because of how bizarre it was. Imagine an old lady in a 90's civic flipping you off while driving at 7 miles per hour.

    • How does she know you weren't high on the goofballs, that you picked up at the saloon or pool hall, and weren't going to shewt her and steal the gold in her teeth and her SS check?

      See, it works the other way too 😎

    • I'm sorry, but I'm a little disturbed by the wearing of a gun "as usual". Are you a police officer on duty? Are you likely to be shot while collecting the mail in your neighbourhood? Maybe it's because I live in Canada, but if I saw someone walking down the street armed, I would assume they were a criminal. Perhaps she was uncomfortable with the proliferation of gun violence in America, and the odd idea that wearing a gun somehow keeps you safer. Because it doesn't. If you carry a gun, you are far more likely to get shot. The statistics prove it over and over again.

  16. Reminds me of one grandmother, who would refer to a certain type of nut as "ni**er toes" because of how they looked.
    Took me years to figure out what the proper name for them was, and I've even tried to block it all out, until now.
    Now I've shared the racist shame of my Polack/horse thieving/whaling captain/missing finger machinist ancestors, and I feel better.

    • That would be Brazil nuts. My grandmother referred to them that way too. Racism is in almost everyone's family if you go back far enough. My dad still uses that word, even when he tells people that you shouldn't judge others based on the color of their skin. Says it was part of the language when he was growing up and that it still slips out, and when it does he takes a moment to talk about how you shouldn't let race keep you from seeing the good in people. He almost seems embarrassed by it… My grandparents, on the other hand…

      • Now-a-days, that word refers more to a lifestyle than a color of skin.
        White, Black, Yellow, Green, Orange…if you're wearing your pants around your knees. Breaking into homes that aren't yours and "cappin' hoes". You are one – by choice.

        [This wasn't MY original idea. It was promoted in a paper, somewhere. I forget where, though…]

        • No, no, it still applies to blacks. Though what I think you may be alluding to is the term "wigger," which is used in reference to white people who act like their black "counterparts."

          But if you're Hispanic/Asian and dressing like that, you're a "Mexican/Asian gang member." Your source is rather wrong, and seemingly quite racist.

      • My husband's ancestors were slave-owners.

        His mother, on the other hand, grew up in Utah.

        But I forgive old-people racism, because they grew up in a different time.

  17. For the record, we've decided that regular folks on the cruise will still be called Snorks, and the nasty rude ones will be called Barnacles.

  18. I got yelled at the other day by the homeowner who's roof I was replacing. She accused me of trying to kill her with "the carbon dioxide" by running my "machine" (electric air compressor) in her "garage" (carport, open on 3 sides). Of course all I could do was apologise and move it out onto the sidewalk.

      • Tell her that she caught you, and that it was all her kid's idea. They were desperate to get at her collection of Hummel figurines and that hard candy that's been sitting on her coffee table since the Reagan administration.

    • I… Just. Wow. I'm so glad I don't normally deal with those sort of people. Why did you apologise? Tell her to hire someone else if she doesn't like the way you work, that usually shuts people like that up so you can do your job.

      • Unfortunately, if the customer is happy with you they might tell a few people, if not they WILL tell everyone. And I've become accustomed to eating and living indoors. Honestly, it just gave me the chuckles.

  19. In college I was working on a student film, when we were loading the gear into a friend's apartment the manger came out and yelled he knew what kind of movie we were making. He was going to call the cops if we didn't leave. We asked him to stay and watch. But he didn't wanna "watch no damn porno!"
    We left and found another apartment to shoot the scene where Sara leaves Steve, because he's obsessed with his brother's death.

      • @ petebone & Jingy

        Obviously the manager was wrangling for a guest starring role in your student film. Probably something along the lines of:

        "Hey somebody call for a hairy plumber? BowChicka-wowwow!

        Cause I'm here to lay some pipe! BowChicka-wowwow!

        Hey I heard you have sisters! Bowchicka…and they're twins!! wowwow!"

  20. I am grateful none of my grandparents are racist ; they're genuienly cool people, but they do say some crazy things. One time, while watching the oscars, when they named the nominees for best visula effects, Grandma said "Oh, we don't care about Visual Effects!" We all raised @ least 1 eyebrow.

    • I'm slightly confused. Is there supposed to be a punchline like "… Cause all da n***** do that crap…" Or are you leaving it all up to speculation?

      • Nothing racist about it, just 100% senility. My brother told her "Movies basically ARE visual effects."
        Another crazy-but-funny example is when my grandpa said, drawing upon years of wisdom, "All married men are disabled." He lacked the wisdom to wait until Grandma was out of the car & earshot to say that, however.

  21. My Grandfather, is nonagenarian retired colonel with a PhD (no, really). I help him and my grandmother, and sometimes it's a struggle to get him to leave the comfy couch in his bedroom to get breakfast in the kitchen. So, my cousin had an idea. My grandfather doesn't listen to any music recorded after the Korean War, so my cousin took out his phone and started playing Elton John's "Saturday Night's All Right for Fighting." After it stopped my grandfather looked at my cousin and said, "It sounds like a prison." No context or qualifiers (e.g. a prison riot, a guitar prison) just "a prison".

  22. First, I stared down a pair of neo-nazis at a fair, before I knew what one was (or that Nazis still existed). I guess I was lucky I was in a public place.

    Then, years later, I was argued over by a pair of septuagenarians while at my first job (basically a bag boy), as if they were arguing over a grocery cart.

    A few years after that (at another place), a woman, no older than 50, insisted I call her "ma'am" as opposed to "miss," as if her age actually had its own merit. I respectfully declined, and she threw a fit. I think my manager kicked that lady out of the store.

    I tend to have pretty good luck with snorks. However, one of my good friends is a baby boomer from the South, and swears up and down about the idiot liberals "running this state." I'm saddened that I cannot really argue that matter; California liberals are nutballs if you really scrutinize them.

    • I am, however, turning into a snork at an alarming rate. My everything is sore, I'm going senile, and I'm even working on my "crazy cat guy" beard.

      I also baby my plants instead of people.

      • Sadly, I can sympathize. Turning 40 caused several major system failures I have yet to come to terms with. Me no like this "Getting Old" crap

      • They are seriously the world's most proficient mariners. I don't know what it is, but they are great sailors and prolific on every ocean-going vessel that is worthy of the term.

  23. My maternal step-grandmother came to the U.S. in the late 1930s from Poland for….obvious reasons.

    My paternal side is German.

    Grandma is getting on in years.

    Somehow, being called a "dupah" just isn't offensive coming from her.

    • See, most racial slurs don't even connect with me, because I just don't know them. If I heard someone call me that, I would probably think I had misheard them.
      But I guess if it "pertained" to me, I would have picked at least that one up somewhere.

  24. My grandfather was on his cell phone (I forgot with who) and he had to say all these things to get sent to the right place (you know – 'Say the name of the department' type stuff) and he was getting frustrated when all of a sudden, in the middle of a crowded store he bust out with "THIS IS WHY HITLER KILLED THE JEWS!!!" I literally ducked behind a display.

  25. This is something that my grandfather told someone that was shaving him, "I used to teach the mentally handicap. In fact I think I taught your father." This was a guy my grandfather never saw before till that day.

  26. My Grandfather was a little racist, but aware of it. However, he once told me the following:

    "If you take the time to get to know someone, you will find many more worthwhile reasons not to like them than the color of their skin."

  27. Alright, a couple of years ago I went to my family reunion. We don’t hold one every year because it’s really hard to get everyone together (I have a really huge family). Well, my 90 year old Great Aunt Mable was talking about my grandparents and their seven kids. Having this many kids during this time and in a rural area is not uncommon. She was telling stories and everyone was laughing and remembering my grandparents who have been gone for a long time. Happy moments all around. Then out of nowhere she singles out my Aunt Brenda who has really red hair and says, “Well look at you, hair like that. You know nobody else in this family has hair like that. There must have been a n***** in the wood shed.” Implying that my grandmother had an affair and illegitimate child with a black man with red hair? My jaw hit the floor. PS – I have hair like that.

  28. Alright I got two pretty good examples of racist old people. The first one came from my great-grandmother. The last time I had come to see her I had brought one of my black friends. So after sitting down and exchanging pleasentries she tells me "You should bring your little nigger friend over again. She was such wonderful company". Now that one isn't so bad other than the use of the N-word, and could probably be atributed to just growing up in an age when that was an accepted term for black people.

    The next one isn't so much, this one actually came from my grandmother. Several of my family members and myself were having a conversation about cultures with strong family ties. My sister makes the claim that "traditional" hispanic famlies have the strongest familial ties. I brought up the point that "traditional" japanese families have rather strong family ties as well. My grandma, who hadn't been participating in the conversation as of yet, counters with "Ornamentals (her name for those of asian descent) aren't real people". Yeah needless to say everyone in the room was speechless, except my cousin who was laughing so hard he nearly passed out.

  29. I was at a social event, and an elderly couple I had never met before identified from my accent that I came from England, just like them. They proceeded to subject me to a tag-team rant about how England was overrun with "wogs and coloureds". I pointed out, in a manner I hope was courteous, that I did not share their opinions or sentiments, and indeed regarded them as hysterical nonsense. There was an awkward pause, and then the wife fixed me with a suspicious glare and snapped: "You're not Jewish, are you?"

  30. I just have to say, I learned soooooo many racist terms from the movie Clerks 2. Clearly I lack misanthropic older relatives for some reason.

    I did once, in my youth, at a shipping company use the term "Nigga, please," in front of our usual black UPS driver. The whole shipping dock became silent, because I was the only white guy there, the UPS guy was the only black guy there, and everyone else was Hispanic or Chinese or Vietnamese. I'd realized what I had said, and the whole weekend I was so nervous and upset.
    The UPS guy, on the other hand, thought nothing of it. It was part of the language at the time and he just laughed when I apologized.

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