Riley, the most delightfully drama-free of the DeSanto sisters, rounds out the final voted-on bonus strip of 2020! All patrons can read her strip at the Dumbing of Age Patreon.
And as always, remember you can pledge up to read tomorrow's strip today! Saunter
Riley, the most delightfully drama-free of the DeSanto sisters, rounds out the final voted-on bonus strip of 2020! All patrons can read her strip at the Dumbing of Age Patreon.
And as always, remember you can pledge up to read tomorrow's strip today!
197 thoughts on “Saunter”
Ana Chronistic
of course you don’t need glasses, Joyce
you need LASIK
drs
A sik burn
Rainhat
Maybe..But her religious upbringing taught her to not ignore the beam in her eye
Clif
Cast out the beam in thy own eyes before throwing stones at glass houses.
Or something like that.
Sunny
So we should all try to be like Cyclops from the X-Men then?
Yet_One_More_Idiot
Well I have about the same depth perception as a cyclops, but probably not as good as the depth perception that Cyclops has, so…
(For the record: 20/20 vision, but apparently stereoblind. Also trying to look at 3D visual effects makes me sick)
Needfuldoer
She’s afraid of a regular optometrist appointment, but you expect her to sit still while a surgeon slices and dices her cornea with lasers?
BarerMender
I’m pretty sure they don’t actually dice.
Needfuldoer
Fillet, then.
Wizard
At least they give you some really nice drugs first.
Doctor_Who
Dorothy’s just trying to prevent this whole comic from devolving into Mr. Magoo.
Nono
Ah, Joyce’s eyesight took a dramatic downturn from having trouble reading the board to not being able to identify a giant fountain.
UnfrozenNeanderthal
How far away and how large is the fountain? I’m not familiar with the layout of IU so I don’t know how bad this is.
Blindness
Right in front of her and pretty damn big: http://www.bloomingpedia.org/wiki/Showalter_Fountain
Clif
Is that the one where Sal and Danny went swimming, once upon a time in another universe?
ktbear
So according to the legend, Venus will be born when Joyce graduates? Which I guess is the same as saying never at this rate.
Regalli
Joyce has almost certainly been downplaying her vision difficulties for some time now, in the hopes that if you ignore something long enough, it will go away.
Despite the vast, vast amounts of evidence to the contrary. Just keep ignoring it harder and her vision, like her belief in God, will return to perfect normalcy soon enough!
Clif
Ignore something long enough and it will go away only works with the green glowy eyes that hover over the bed at night.
Geneseepaw
Sleep like there’s no one watching.
He Who Abides
You mean the cat?
Needfuldoer
That’s why the bedroom door stays closed at night. They might scratch the frame, but they and their menacing eyeshine won’t wake you up by sitting on your chest at two in the morning when you’re six years old.
Yet_One_More_Idiot
My dad tried that with his own visual problems when he was a kid, hiding his glasses whenever his parents weren’t around, never wearing them at school etc, refusing to get cosmetic surgery to fix his double vision (because the 8yo twerp didn’t understand the meaning of “cosmetic” in this context and threw such a tantrum that my grandparents didn’t bother to argue with him), and has ended up perfectly fine.
Apart from being legally blind without his specs all through his adult life.
Seriously kids…if you have glasses, WEAR them! You are quite literally only hurting yourself if you don’t.
Rabid Rabbit
Well, she’s never liked being able to identify the fountain, due to the naked bits. So really, this is quite in character.
PSadlon
Almost sounds like when I had my retinal detachment.
Sirksome
Something no one is considering is that Joyce’s deteriorating vision is possibly making her other senses stronger! Do you really want to take that away from her Dorothy? A real bff wouldn’t!
Nono
A woman with enhanced senses and a killer right hook? Sounds like the perfect sidekick to NightguyTM.
Sirksome
Considering the preferences of the head of the news paper she would probably steal Nightguy’s thunder.
ValdVin
A real bff would jump at the chance to have Lady Daredevil (or at least her public identity) as a bff.
Cattleprod
Joyce can’t become Daredevil, too many people already think she’s Catholic for some reason.
Clif
Well yes, but Dorothy is an atheist and she’s a saint.
Doctor_Who
If her sense of taste gets any more sensitive, she’ll go from demanding that different foods don’t touch each other on her plate, to insisting that different ingredients don’t mingle.
“I can’t eat this piece of bread until I’ve separated the flour, salt, and yeast into individual piles. Could I please have a glass of water and one of high fructose corn syrup to wash it down with? And some red no. five, if you have it.”
Delicious Taffy
Red 5 is an abomination unto the Lord and all He hath creatle.
StClair
What did Luke Skywalker ever do to you?
Blindness
…well, he does believe in a hokie religion and carry around ancient weapons
Delicious Taffy
Exactly. Lightsabers are bullshit. Keyblades are infinitely superior.
Sirksome
This is an underrated take!
Schpoonman
Shit, you beat me to the Dot face.
Also hell no, until they swing teeth-first like an axe keyblades are far inferior to a good lightsaber.
Bicycle Bill
Speaking of keyblades …..
The Hero’s Armory
Lone Wolf
Yeah, but Joyce is trying to become an atheist now, so that would only encourage her further.
Rabid Rabbit
Man, that will make sucking those 5 billion dicks complicated.
BarerMender
Oh, let’s be reasonable. It was one billion dicks.
Sirksome
I’m not sure I’m doing this right but I’m gonna go ahead and try for a good old grav reroll!
Sirksome
Yo! I got a good one!
Regalli
*Cue the drones blinking out CARLA while playing classical music*
ValdVin
Dorothy’s dissolving mirth, panel by panel, is why I’m here.
Zor
Tis marvelous
not someone else
I am seriously wondering what the heck kind of weird hangup makes her not want to get glasses that badly.
Nono
Eh, it’s not that weird. Vanity, pride in good vision, resistance to change, one could point to a bunch of easy reasons.
Some1
I think she’s scared of the little air blast they sometimes use.
Johan
Big same tho
Some1
How I rank fear
watching a horror movie
Getting into a dangerous situation
Possibility of losing a loved one.
The little air blast.
Regalli
The little air blast is evil and I hate it every time. (Unfortunately, glaucoma runs in the family on one side so we have to get it every time. Some of my family members have to get it checked twice a year!)
Needfuldoer
The alternative is dilation eyedrops and an instrument that physically touches your eye. (My optometrist still does it that way, but I usually try to skip the glaucoma check.)
I hate the slit-lamp part the most, but least there’s the flash-photo option to replace it now.
Julez
My optometrist has a new machine that takes photos of the inside of your eye without needing the dilation, its pretty sweet.
Bicycle Bill
She heard and believes that line of doggerel from Dorothy Parker —
“Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses.”
(when the truth is, if you blow on the glasses and fog them up, a guy can get away with almost anything)
Clif
I’m not sure how that would work.
Unless maybe she’s keeled over unconscious from your breath.
Keulen
I tend to think that line is complete nonsense. Glasses make a girl look cuter.
Needfuldoer
Indeed.
(Not a fan of ’50s librarian cat-eye frames though.)
BBCC
Not into girls but I think cat eye glasses are cute and super stylish.
Uly
Oooh, my eye doctor has a cool machine that takes a picture of the eyeball. First of all, that means he doesn’t have to extrapolate from notes and memory whether or not my eyes have gotten worse since he checked them last, and secondly – no drops, no puff of air.
I tell everybody, find an eye doctor with the machine. It is so worth it.
Rectilinear Propagation
I love that thing!
I had to get my eyes dilated anyway for reasons but getting to see photos of your eye is both really cool and pretty reassuring.
Geneseepaw
And can tell your doctor if you have diabetes if you are undiagnosed.
Delicious Taffy
Wait what fr
Diane
Diabetes does some real numbers on your eyes if you’re not careful. Don’t know what happened to my brother, but basically he would be looking straight at you, and one eye would have you a little off center while the other eye would have you floating up and to the right. So yeah, I can believe your eye doctor could tell you if you haven’t had proper testing.
Needfuldoer
So much better than the slit lamp. (Seriously, that thing’s evil. I always feel like it’s frying a line in my retina.)
CorporateDronesDontHaveMissiles
That’s my biggest involuntary trigger: things in my eyes. I can’t do contacts, and I have eyedrops at home, work, and in the car because I get extremely anxious and panicky whenever I have something in my eye i can’t blink out. I’d love laser eye surgery but I can’t imagine being able to do it without throwing a fit
Rainhat
She doesn’t deal with change that well, unless circumstance forces her to. She particularly resists accepting changes involving herself, so a major visible one like wearing glasses is particularly hard.
Heather
I was fourteen when I first got glasses and it took me at least a year (maybe longer) to wear them outside of class because I didn’t like the fact it changed my face /shrug/. Like not even necessarily’ugly’ (though looking at the old frames they do kind of suck) but…different. Every time I looked in the mirror with them on and it wasn’t ‘me’. It wasn’t logical but it was what it was.
Like my best friend at the time wore glasses but she’d been doing that since she was four so it felt different. Glasses were a part of her face and she looked odd without them for instance to me just as off as I felt I looked with them.
Mr D
I got mine when I was 11. I had spent an entire year going “I don’t need glasses my eyesight will fix itself you’ll see!”
for summer vacation I took a trip to spain (where it was winter) to spend a month with my dad, and my dad doesn’t take no shit. He grabbed granny (who came with me and my sister to spend the month with dad) gave her the money and told her to grab me by the ear if I didn’t go with her to the optometrist.
In little under an hour I had my prescription, and less than a week later I could finally see clearly and sharply for the first time in what must have been years, so I decided “y’know what, I’m already ugly enough, glasses won’t make it much worse, at least now I can fucking see straight” and never took them off again.
hof1991
Got glasses at seven. Couldn’t read the board, especially later in the day. So I was smarter in the morning than in the afternoon. Teachers were sure I was just slacking in the afternoon.
Didn’t wear them at all during high school. But I was alphabetically in the front, so I was mainly OK. Even passed my driver’s license without them.
Bigger college classrooms meant I had to wear them and now I’m stuck for the rest of my life.
Keulen
I’m assuming Joyce is afraid of the change in how she’ll look wearing glasses or something. I wouldn’t know how that feels personally since I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 3 or 4 years old.
Daniel M Ball