Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 06, 2010

Reality check in panel 3.

Another number! First 40 or 450 (years), now 2,143,673 (letters). I wonder where this storyline is going…?

Time for us to play “Master Detective” and find out “who done it?” Trudeau? Duke? Mark’s ex-lover? Who?

Yikes! Answering 2,143,673 letters in 450 years would mean answering 4764 letters a year or 13 a day while more letters continue to build up… heck, I’d burn them too.

(to GrinsToYa)

Nevermind the time required to answer those letters. Assuming the standard USPS letter rate, it would have cost G.T. $943,216.12 in postal charges alone to respond to all those letters. (G.T. might have gotten a bulk rate, but it still would be a chunk of change.) Add in the cost of paper, printer ink, hiring Sherpas to haul the letters to the post office, etc., it would easily be over $1,000,000.00 out of G.T.’s pocket.

I don’t think we need to look too far to find the most likely suspect.

Can he burn the emails, too?

Studies show that 87.2546% of numbers are just made up.

too bad they weren’t accidentally recycled

Couldn’t somebody have just left Mr. Butts in there accidentally?

So 2,143, 012 from Sarah Palin fans saying “Leave the poor woman alone!”

I thought some of those letters had already been answered, and they were saving them for their records, or some such reason. You mean they had 40 years’ worth of letters,none of which they had answered yet? (Zonker says …letters that we now won’t have to answer…) I understand procrastination - I’m an expert at it - but 40 years?

@jimpow, I really admire your statistics (er, well, that didn’t quite come out right). I have one that you might enjoy: “50% of all women are below average height.”

90% (this is not a made-up statistic) of people whom I tell this to are shockingly impressed!

Uncle Stupidhead is my prime suspect.

Whatever ya do, don’t let Dick Tracy hear about it.

We be doomed.