Nancy Classics by Ernie Bushmiller for July 26, 2024
July 25, 2024
July 29, 2024
Transcript:
Boy: Wanna buy this pen for a quarter?---It writes UNDER WATER.
Nancy: O.K. This pen doesn't write under water.
Boy: Sure it does. There.
Wall reads: UNDER WATER
Panel #2 implies that Nancy gave the kid a quarter, now she has the pen and tests it ”under water.”
In panel #3, Nancy complains about the nonfunctioning of the pen under water and the kid demonstrates its power by creating some verbal graffiti with the pen on a brick wall in panel #4.
Was Ernie addressing Nancy’s naïveté about tricks with language?
During the height of the space race in the 1960s, legend has it, NASA scientists realized that pens could not function in space. They needed to figure out another way for the astronauts to write things down. So they spent years and millions of taxpayer dollars to develop a pen that could put ink to paper without gravity. But their crafty Soviet counterparts, so the story goes, simply handed their cosmonauts pencils.
This tale with its message of simplicity and thrift—not to mention a failure of common sense in a bureaucracy—floats around the Internet, hopping from in-box to in-box, and even surfaced during a 2002 episode of the West Wing. But, alas, it is just a myth.
Originally, NASA astronauts, like the Soviet cosmonauts, used pencils, according to NASA historians. In fact, NASA ordered 34 mechanical pencils from Houston’s Tycam Engineering Manufacturing, Inc., in 1965. They paid $4,382.50 or $128.89 per pencil. When these prices became public, there was an outcry and NASA scrambled to find something cheaper for the astronauts to use.
Auntie Clockwise 4 months ago
Panel #2 implies that Nancy gave the kid a quarter, now she has the pen and tests it ”under water.”
In panel #3, Nancy complains about the nonfunctioning of the pen under water and the kid demonstrates its power by creating some verbal graffiti with the pen on a brick wall in panel #4.
Was Ernie addressing Nancy’s naïveté about tricks with language?
snsurone76 4 months ago
That shyster looks like Spike. A relative, maybe?
Calvinist1966 4 months ago
The word “under” is over the word “water” so “under” is on top and definitely not under “water”.
Yakety Sax 4 months ago
During the height of the space race in the 1960s, legend has it, NASA scientists realized that pens could not function in space. They needed to figure out another way for the astronauts to write things down. So they spent years and millions of taxpayer dollars to develop a pen that could put ink to paper without gravity. But their crafty Soviet counterparts, so the story goes, simply handed their cosmonauts pencils.
This tale with its message of simplicity and thrift—not to mention a failure of common sense in a bureaucracy—floats around the Internet, hopping from in-box to in-box, and even surfaced during a 2002 episode of the West Wing. But, alas, it is just a myth.
Originally, NASA astronauts, like the Soviet cosmonauts, used pencils, according to NASA historians. In fact, NASA ordered 34 mechanical pencils from Houston’s Tycam Engineering Manufacturing, Inc., in 1965. They paid $4,382.50 or $128.89 per pencil. When these prices became public, there was an outcry and NASA scrambled to find something cheaper for the astronauts to use.
SharkNose 4 months ago
Maybe so, but it’s not as good as a pen that writes under whipped cream…
phritzg Premium Member 4 months ago
Tomorrow, he’ll be selling pens that can write “upside down”.
Zebrastripes 4 months ago
Already he’s a flim-flam man…
pumaman 4 months ago
I see a future in politics for him.
Strawberry King 4 months ago
A future used car salesman.
billyk75 3 months ago
I won a bet by saying I can type 5000 words a minute.
brklnbern 3 months ago
This guy is looking for a punch out and Nancy is the gal to do it.
Robert Miller Premium Member 3 months ago
My dad showed us how he could breath underwater…he’d hold a glass of water above him while breathing…
Sandra V. 3 months ago
LOL :)
anncorr339 3 months ago
Nancy got fooled by the jerk
rgcviper 3 months ago
Either she’s writing on the bottom of the sink, or she found some waterproof paper …