Subscribe via email to my cartoons here – they will arrive each Friday plus 2 short blog posts during the week.
Subscribe via email to my cartoons here – they will arrive each Friday plus 2 short blog posts during the week.
Malls are making a comeback thanks to Gen Z and I featured one in a Tomversation cartoon from this week. Stanley tumblers and an old man named Stanley are featured, too! For those who listen to this post, (I found out recently people listen rather than read this), there is a cartoon above and one below. You might want to see them since this story is about them.
I got the idea for this Stanley cartoon from my neighbors. We have a text string with everyone on it and one neighbor, who is always texting nonsense, sent a nonsense post, but it worked out in me getting the cartoon idea.
She and her husband are snobs and while we all live well, no one here is a snob, not that I have noticed, so whenever they pull their snobby bullshit, it stands out.
So little miss thing texts the other night – “Hi everyone. Left my pink Stanley on the table (in the lobby) and went back to look for it but it was gone, maybe someone took it by mistake.”
I knew what she meant right away, instead of saying she left her “tumbler” on the table, she had to announce it was a Stanley. It’s just the way she and her obnoxious husband are. It’s about the hard-to-get brand name item, rather than the item itself. I wouldn’t put it past her to not even have lost the Stanley, and perhaps was just saying she lost it to sound posh.
I thought of texting back, “Pink Stanley? Is that your baby’s name? They have a baby who they dote all their time on. Even told me to “Shush” more than once (once in my own apartment) because Pink Stanley the baby was sleeping.
My mind started wandering, I knew there was a cartoon in there somewhere. I thought of Pink Stanley being her dog on the table, then I came up with the double meaning cartoon.
A few neighbors texted back, asking, “What is a Pink Stanley?” or “What does that mean?”
She replied back that it was a tumbler.
One clever neighbor replied, “Stanley. He’s such a great guy!” And I knew he got it.
I like the double meaning cartoon, I’m thinking of doing it more often. Some time back I did this one about “10 pounds,” which has two meanings.
I’m dying to know if she got her Stanley back and if not, who may have taken it. I don’t believe anyone in the building would touch it, perhaps the maintenance man put it in storage somewhere, thinking he did someone a favor, I wouldn’t put it past him.
Would the Amazon, FedEx or UPS driver take it? I doubt it.
I guess we could look on our camera system and see what happened, but honestly don’t really care, although it would be interesting to know.
If I find out, I’ll let you know. Perhaps it was just part of the Universe’s scheme to give me a cartoon idea. Who knows.
Till next time . . .
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A package was lost. I tracked it and it was coming along with another package by U.S. Mail this one particular day. The packages contained proofs for my new Tomversation cartoon calendar. There were two separate proofs. In two separate packages.
One arrived, one didn’t. When I checked back with tracking, it said that customer, meaning me, requested that it remain at the post office for me to pick up, which of course made no sense.
The next morning, I started calling my local post office as soon as they opened at 8:30 am. I wanted to see if I could catch my mail carrier before she left for her rounds for the day. I didn’t have her private cell number, as I did with previous postal carriers. So I called and called the post office and there was no answer.
At about 11:00 am, I headed over to the post office. It’s never very crowded, which is good, since they are slow as fuk there.
The girl behind the counter asked to help me, I told her the issue and she asked for the tracking number, which I didn’t have. I left it at home. I told her, “I am not leaving without that package. Can’t you just look for it using my address?” She said no.
I remembered I had an email with the tracking numbers and I found that gave her the number. Then she took it and went into the back and that was it – for what seemed forever, she was gone.
There was one other postal worker there and she was helping a lady and she went into the back, and she was gone. And for what seemed forever, the lady and I stood out at our postal windows waiting for the two postal workers to return. And we waited and waited.
Crickets.
A guy came in and started to wait for his turn and then he started getting angry. And he started making comments.
“Maybe they’re at lunch.” I joked.
“Is it lunchtime already?” He asked.
He then he started in with socialism. He said, “People want socialism!” This is socialism! Incompetence.”
I normally would be angry at what he was saying, but I agreed with him. I said, “I never was for the privatization of the post office, but if this was a private business, these people would out of a job. They would be long gone due to their incompetence.
He agreed.
I then said, “Well be glad you aren’t in New York City!” referring to Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win.
He replied, “Funny you should say that. Mamdani is living in my parents’ old apartment building in Queens, NY.” Which did seem odd and funny at the moment. “Yes,” he said. “The apartment my parents used to live in is now rented by Mamdani and his family.” A full circle moment, I guess.
Finally the two postal workers came out and mine said to me, “Your package is now with your postal carrier, she will deliver it today. They had it in the wrong bin yesterday, so it sort of got lost. I just spoke to Maria (the carrier) and she says she has it with her.”
She then says, “Why didn’t you just call early today to try and catch her?”
I said, “Are you joking? I called non-stop all morning and no one picked up. I literally called 35 times.”
I then showed her my phone and the 35 attempted calls I made.
She asked me if I had the right number and I just smiled and walked out.
I always want to move to Italy and this post office incident reminds me of so many stories I hear about the service, or lack of it in every part of Italy. So I’ll chalk this incompetence up to a short Italian experience without leaving the neighborhood.
On another note, my spellcheck wants to spell Mamdani as “madman.” I know many people who would agree, but I’m willing to give the guy a chance.
Till next time . . .
Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free! Receive my five cartoons each Friday and 2 blog posts during the week!
Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free! Receive my five cartoons each Friday and 2 blog posts during the week!
I saw this cartoon the other day, “Geech,” by Jerry Bittle.
This could have happened to me with my car many years ago, and to this day I am still using the same mechanics.
What happened was, I heard this squeaking sound which I thought were the brakes. So I brought it to a mechanic in the neighborhood. I had never been there before, except to buy gas, and I noticed a sign that said they worked on foreign cars, so I brought my car over.
I told them there was something wrong with the brakes, and I took an Uber home.
They mechanics called me a short time later to tell me there was nothing wrong. But I insisted. I said, “Go look again, I can tell there is something wrong with the brakes.”
They called back a little while later and told me to come and the car, they had checked again and found nothing wrong.
There and then they had my business for life.
They could have said, “We fixed the problem, that will be $750.0o,” and I would have paid it and been on my way. But they did the right thing. Ever since then I’ve been sending everyone their way.
And they got a lot of business from me over the years. I had an older car that needed a lot of work and they did it all.
I would leave the car for everything, they were cheaper than the dealership, of course. I would leave the car and the keys early in the morning with the person working the gas station part of the place. I would block the garage section, so they had to get into my car to move it.
They would always have the car done early in the day and I would go and pick it up and be on with my day.
I finally got a new car and haven’t been by except for small things not under warranty – tires and things like that. And to guy gas.
It pays to be honest.
Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free! Receive my five cartoons each Friday and 2 blog posts during the week!
It’s calendar season and I’m part of it this year.
Many years ago, I published a calendar based on our village and it sold like crazy. Now I have a 2026 “Tomversation” cartoon calendar, based on my cartoon work.
It’s a wall calendar, 11″ x 8.5″ in size when opened. There are over 25 cartoons covering the 12 month calendar pages. It’s a limited edition.
They matte finish allows for writing on the calendar for notes and such.
I based the calendar on animal cartoons – mostly dogs, some cats and even snakes and other animals like lions and fish (are fish animals?).
I don’t charge for my blog or cartoons published online and people are always asking how to support me, so I put this together where you can purchase a calendar or two and support me that way. It will keep me from charging for subscriptions for this blog and my Tomversation comics online.
I’m selling it through Etsy here, if interested.
No calendar? That’s fine, you can subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free! Receive my five cartoons each Friday and 2 blog posts during the week!
Till next time . . .
All cartoons via TomFalco.com
Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free! Receive my five cartoons each Friday and 2 blog posts during the week!
Leaf blowers. One of the noisiest things in the neighborhood. They are ubiquitous, never a day goes by without hearing them, before you actually see them. Blowing leaves all over the place.
We have a maintenance man here at the condo and he loves his leaf blower. It’s almost attached to his hand. I didn’t get the idea for this cartoon from him, but I could have.
The interesting thing is that when he is moving leaves around because that seems to be the thing, he is on top of us when doing it. You know, he is never off in a corner somewhere, he is right there, near us.
I know, first world problem.
One time, three of us were discussing something about the building and there was our guy, literally two feet away blowing the leaves. We could not hear ourselves talk.
The maintenance guy at the building next door, takes his leaf blower on a neighborhood tour. He is all over the place – up the block, down the block, I’ve never been able to figure out why. I’m tempted to ask him, but I don’t want to look as if I am attacking him.
But he has that loud thing running for hours on end. Non-stop. He goes around their building, then up and down the street, not sure where he is blowing the leaves, but you can be sure he is not picking them up.
I see gardeners blowing the leaves all over the place all the time. They blow the leaves from one area to the other. They don’t think I have ever seen them pick up the leaves – they usually blow them into the street, or into the next yard, like my cartoon here. The literally move from the yard they are working on, into the street, or somewhere other than that yard.
We’ve had these discussions in town about outlawing them, and the outcry is, “Then how are we going to pick up (I say move around) the leaves?”
I always remind them that when we were kids we used a rake and bag and not even a bag – we dumped them right into the garbage pail. We physically raked them up and dumped them into the garbage.
A novel concept whose time has come back. Or maybe electric leaf blowers are the answer, they are quiet, they are tethered to the wall with a plug and you can’t wander the neighborhood with them.
Till next time . . .
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An odd thing happened at Publix the other day. I was checking out at the self-check-out, which I always do, and the lady who runs the front area at the check-out, came up to me and asked me if I scanned something, assuming I didn’t – they were pomegranate seeds/arils.
She knows me, she sees me there all the time. She said hello to me when I first walked into the store. So I found it very odd, and insulting.
At first I couldn’t hear her and I thought she was asking about the arils. Sometimes when you go through the regular checkout lines, they ask about the food you are buying if it’s something they aren’t familiar with. It’s a bit strange, but they do that. “Is it good?” “What is that?” Things like that; so I thought she was asking about that.
I told her I did scan the item and she should check it on the screen, which she did. She actually looked at the list of food and saw it was scanned.
I found the whole incident strange. Maybe they are trying to stop pilferage, which I can see happening at self-checkouts and it seemed like she randomly chose an item to ask about – or is there a pilferage problem with pomegranate arils, which are overpriced- but so is everything in Publix.
Maybe she was being watched by management and felt the need to look useful, who knows. But it was a rude thing to do to a regular customer – someone she knows.
If they are worried about pilferage, maybe they should follow the old men who take food from the produce department and eat it in the store – they grab cherries, grapes, etc. constantly and eat it right there without paying.
They should really watch the schmucks that Publix allows to walk around the store with firearms – yes, open carry idiots. Those are the ones who need to be watched (and banned from the public and Publix).
I like self-checkouts and use them in all stores that have them – Target, Walgreen, CVS, Home Depot, Winn-Dixie, etc. I find it fast and I don’t have to have a conversation with anyone. It’s just in and out. And I’ve never had an issue with being questioned before.
I am tempted to ask her why she questioned me the next time I am there, but I’ll just let it go. Guess the $60 billion Publix made last year wasn’t enough, they want to be sure they get every penny that’s coming to them.
Till next time . . .
Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free!
All comics By Tom Falco
Subscribe to this Tomversation blog by clicking here – it’s free! Receive my five cartoons each Friday and 2 blog posts during the week!
tomversation.com 