144

Wiggly
Posted on October 30, 2019 by David M Willis
The subject of this month's first bonus strip is Alex!  Any patron can check out the strip over yonder, at the Dumbing of Age Patreon. And remember, you can always pledge up to see tomorrow's strip a day early, every day!

144 thoughts on “Wiggly”

  1. Sporky

    it’s when a lil pig does a lil dance

    1. C.

      You beat Ana!

      1. Pablo360

        so hard she didn’t post for five more minutes

        1. Ana Chronistic

          I don’t care, was doing something else and honestly the whole point is to block “FIRST” comments with a REAL comment

        2. Clif

          You’re doing a public service.

  2. Doctor_Who

    De-programming Sal could take a while. Luckily,a treatment exists.

  3. Shane Wegner

    As long as he did it digitally, Gramps will never figure it out, dang ol technology.

    1. Foxhack

      This also explains how Blaine is… making Asher help him. Blaine probably knows about the skimmed money.

      1. tim gueguen

        Or Asher is playing Blaine for his own reasons.

        1. thejeff

          Blaine strongly implied he knew something that would upset Gramps. This could well be it.

  4. Mada

    Petioning to have the inevitable Sal/Asher slipshine be titled “Piggly in the Wiggly”.

    1. Marsh Maryrose

      Upvoted. Way, way upvoted.

  5. MaddMaxx

    God, I envy the poor souls that have never been introduced to a Piggly Wiggly, as they have obviously been fortunate enough to never step foot in Alabama. Unlike me.

    1. Doctor_Who

      I’ve had to drive all the way through it and back a couple of times. Once when it was snowing. Well, “snowing”, I’m from Northern Ohio, and this was to real snow what a California Roll is to Cthulhu.

      It still magically erased any memory of having ever operated a motor vehicle from my fellow motorists, who I assume were now using that part of their brains to think “HA, climate change my ass!”.

      1. Charlie Spencer

        The knowledge of driving in snow was never in their memories in the first place. Most of us think you handle it just like rain, and many of us don’t handle that well either.

        “The Pig” has been closing stores for a couple of decades. Time was when there was always one within easy walking distance of a public assistance office – food stamps, welfare, etc.

        1. Schol-R-LEA

          I can attest that the only one in Athens, GA is a few blocks fro the DFCS office. I stopped by it once just to take a look and ran out as fast as I could. Sweet Lady Eris, that place was the most drab and depressing supermarket I’ve ever seen, worse than even the Food Lion in Charlotte during the month I worked a contract there.

          Oddly enough, while Athens is anything but a food desert, the prices there were on par with or significantly higher than those in the more upscale markets, with some comparing unfavorably to the Trader Joe’s or even the Fresh Market. Seriously? It isn’t as if people in that neighborhood were hurting for transportation. I’ve seen that sort of thing elsewhere, but only in locales where they had a captive market, and this was far from that.

        2. Schol-R-LEA

          Did I forget to mention that the food in question being sold at Nouveau Riche prices was Grade Z crap which I wouldn’t feed to the store’s namesakes? Because it was.

          DFCS office or not, I couldn’t see how this was working for them, especially since most of the DFCS clients were from out of town and would have had to get there by car (Athens has decent but not great public transit, but elsewhere in Georgia they view buses and trains as Communism – not that the surrounding towns have a population density to support much public transit anyway), so convenience was hardly a factor. It wasn’t even especially easy to get to, compared to other, better markets. Insane.

    2. PHNX

      I spent my formative years in Birmingham.
      I totally feel you on that one.

    3. CrazyJ

      Honestly I had no idea until this comic that Piggly Wiggly was a southern thing. They are all over Wisconsin but not in Minnesota or New York, so I thought Piggly Wiggly was just a Wisconsin thing. God knows the name is dumb enough to fit the state.

      1. plasticwrap

        I’d never heard of it either. Apparently they have a location in Ohio, I’m guessing reeeeeeeal close to Kentucky.

      2. Seregiel

        They used to be some in Canada. They were the original grocery store and until they began selling off to Kroger etc, they were the standard.

      3. thejeff

        Southern and midwestern thing these days. I’ve run into them in North Carolina, where my parents live.

        Apparently they used to be even bigger and kind of innovated the modern chain grocery store back in the early 1900s. Before that you’d give the grocer a list and they’d go get the stuff for you.

    4. BadRoad

      They’re in North Carolina too.

    5. hof1991

      What ever they are called, your local grocery will soon be a Krogers. Resistance is futile.

    6. Old Fart

      Oddly, Piggly Wiggly’s exist in western Washington State. Or at least they did. I don’t know if there are any left.

  6. Illjwamh

    I can only assume Sal’s cigarette is magical.

    1. HeySo

      That or her cultivation level has reached the deification stage.

      …oh, sorry, was that too niche of a genre reference?

      Okay, sure, let’s go with magic. We can even amp it up one step to magic girl. Because we all know that Sal would love nothing more than dressing up in a frilly mini-skirt and battling the forces of evil using the power of love. Well, she’d probably be okay with the beating them with a stick- excuse me, wand- part, though.

      Seriously, though, I really wanna know what was in Willis’s head when he decided to go with that. 😛

      1. Liquid Len

        Plays “Black Magic Woman” on the hacked Muzak

      2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        Sal is the bitter snarky one on the team. But when she merges with Walky they power up.

        Joyce is the sweetness and light and the power of ultimate pure pureness one.

        Dina is the close combat monster, with all those dinosaur forms she can assume.

        Carla is the team tech expert.

      3. Schpoonman

        Sal as a Sailot Scout is all I read from that.

        1. He Who Abides

          I’m down for that.

      4. Kat

        Lol. That reference IS pretty Niche though. It works, but it is super niche. As in I know about it cause I’m that weird GameMaster gal who actually puts in a bunch of research when someone asks me to run a tabletop based on a thing and someone asked me to run tabletop games based on Kung Fu movies on four separate occasions.

  7. Mark Sebree

    For those that don’t know, “Piggly Wiggly” is a chain of grocery stores in the south, with Tennessee being close to their northern limit.

    1. Dara

      I remember them from grad school in Kentucky! They weren’t close to campus but they existed. I thought the name was hilarious.

    2. Clif

      Texas had Piggly Wigglys when I was a kid. Had an uncle that worked in one for awhile. BUT I hadn’t seen one in a long long while and assumed they went bankrupt.

      1. HeySo

        @Clif

        According to Google, there were only ever 5 in Texas and, yes, as of 2011 they did go Bankrupt. (ex, https://www.thepacker.com/article/last-two-piggly-wiggly-stores-texas-close).

        There was a previous bankruptcy in 2003, after which the current owner took control. Given that, and the fact that piggly wigglys as a rule have independent local owners [ie, piggly wigglys all appear to be franchise stores], the 2011 bankruptcy probably relates to just the local Texas franchise owners (who appear to have all been unified together under a retailer’s cooperative, which is what actually went bankrupt).

        1. Clif

          There were a lot more than 5 in Texas. When I was a kid there were at least two in the northeast Texas vicinity of Titus county. The web says that 5 opened in San Antonio and a decade later there were 40. https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Piggly-Wiggly-memories-in-stock-2251082.php There were still Piggly Wigglys when my family moved to the Houston area in the 60’s.

    3. Whatevsman

      Am i safe in assuming it’s the Tennessee equivalent to Publix?

      1. Stephen Bierce

        From what I hear more like Winn-Dixie.

      2. not someone else

        Publix is way too swanky to be compared to Piggly Wiggly. Piggly Wiggly is like the jank-ass combination KFC and Taco Bell of grocery stores.

        1. ValdVin

          So Publix is like Wegman’s?

          (I live a few hundred miles from a Wegman’s but it did leave an impression.)

        2. Liquid Len

          Wegman’s was the swanky joint round here. Maybe more like an A&P, which is now bankrupt and gone. From all the descriptions, the closest thing in my experience was the Price Chopper on Hoosik st in Troy

        3. ValdVin

          From CT, but I’ve spent enough time traipsing upstate NY to remember Price Chopper and Grand Union. And I certainly made more of my own sundaes at Stewart’s Shops than medically necessary to survive.

      3. HeySo

        I’m not familiar with Piggly-Wiggly, which seems to be structured more like franchised out fast food restaurants, but I can at least say it doesn’t appear to be like Publix.

        Publix and Dillon’s are always simply just comparable to Kroger, as they’re simply local rebrandings of Kroger [being autonomous local divisions of Kroger which share access to the Kroger distribution network] with no overly meaningful differences in structure, layout, or products [ignoring any abberantly handled specific locations which may exist].

        Heck, it may even be reasonable to just consider it as Kroger being the blue-colored Kroger, Dillon’s being the red-colored Kroger, and Publix being the green-colored Kroger. [As their signs, outfits, and store interiors have that sort of color theming.]

        Having spent plenty of time in states with all three, I never found anything especially different between the three chains, outside of the predictable variation in product brands [due to the fact that most brands typically only have distributution networks connecting to specific states].

        Comparably, other major grocery+household stores- Albertson’s, Wal-Mart, Target, Aldi, Safeway, Whole Foods, etc- do lack a “Krogery” feel, instead having their own subtle, consistent distinctions.

        While I’ve never been inside any other Kroger divisions before, it’s my understanding that other high-visibility local Kroger Divisions (eg, Ralph’s, Fry’s, and Food 4 Less) do however have more significantly different layouts, product emphasis, and general atmosphere.

        1. Allenalb

          Publix is Employee owned and not affiliated with Kroger.

    4. ValdVin

      Isn’t the colloquial name “The Pig”?

    5. Huehuetotl

      There was one in Kansas City in the 90s. It opened after Piggly Wiggly was in some movie, although I doubt that was related. I bought a hat.

      1. ValdVin

        Are you sure it wasn’t the movie about a dog named Winn-Dixie?

        1. Huehuetotl

          100% certain. I haven’t bought any ballcaps since before 2005. It was probably Driving Miss Daisy. Which Asher might be too young to have even heard of.

        2. Slartibeast Button, BIA

          Piggly Wiggly is definitely mentioned in Driving Miss Daisy, I remember it distinctly.

      2. Ed Rhodes

        I know the scientists used a “Piggly Wiggly”
        Rick (among others) to carry their equipment in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”

        1. Ed Rhodes

          *sigh* “truck”

    6. Keulen

      There’s Piggly Wiggly’s in the Midwest too. Used to be one in northern Wisconsin where two of my grandparents lived a few years ago.

      1. Bicycle Bill

        I was about to say that too. SW Wisconsin (La Crosse, to be specific) had one until around 2010 or so.

      2. thejeff

        Looks like Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio and most of the Southeast out to Oklahoma, but not Texas. Nothing in the Northeast or West.

        They may have been spread farther at one point. Someone said above they used to be in Texas.

    7. Wizard

      Piggly Wiggly was the first modern grocery chain, where customers could pick out their own merchandise and then take it to a cashier and pay. At all earlier groceries, you had to tell a clerk what you wanted, then wait for them to go and get it. The self-serve model lead to greater selection and lower prices. The founder was inspired by the sight of a sow nursing a brood of piglets, hence the name.

    8. Opus the Poet

      They used to be in Washington state, we shopped at the one in Tacoma when we lived there. That was back in the 1960s though so they may not have been there in a long time.

    9. Seregiel

      Minnesota is a lot more North than Tennessee.

  8. butts

    one of sal’s many superpowers: contact cigarette telekinesis

    1. ESM

      Asher, too, the entire cigarette is outside of his mouth in every panel. I assume this is an intentional artistic decision by Willis, but I’m not sure what the reasoning is and I’m kind of curious.

      1. ESM

        Wait how do I delete comments this is a stupid comment and I’m embarrassed of it

        1. ESM

          I want to delete my own comment, not yours.

        2. Marsh Maryrose

          We all have embarrassing comments we wish we could delete. If this is any comfort to you, most of us (including myself) have way more embarrassing comments still undeleted.

        3. Emperor Norton II

          We, the Emperor of the Internet, hereby declare your comment to be Not Embarassing. We make a bigger embarrassment of Ourselves on a daily basis; usually before even getting up in the morning. On the Richter Scale of Embarrassing Posts, this registers about a -2.4

          And yes, the original Richter Magnitude Scale can go negative. A -3 on that scale is currently as low as it is generally measured.

      2. HeySo

        Asher, too, the entire cigarette is outside of his mouth in every panel. I assume this is an intentional artistic decision by Willis, but I’m not sure what the reasoning is and I’m kind of curious.

        /

        I’m neither quoting nor plagurizing that, okay? The person wanted to delete it, which makes it fair game, and now I’m claiming that readily identifiable comment as being completely my own. Now the original creator can’t be embarrassed about it anymore. Because I’m mean and have poor considerations towards property rights, and thereby I want to steal their awkward emotionswriting from them. Ha, so there.

    2. Emperor Norton II

      Do you have any superpowers, butts?

      1. HeySo

        If you stick consumable, digestable products into a certain orifice called a “mouth”, then butts can- seemingly from nowhere- create brown, red, yellow, black, and green expulsions which are capable of unusually potent olfactory stimulation and can come in various forms and shapes.

        If that’s not a superpower, then what is?

        1. HeySo

          P.S. If your butt expulsions are any color other than brown, and the color persists, increases, or occurs when your body is having health issues, then that is your butt’s magical way of informing you that you need to see a doctor.

          Boy, but ain’t butt magic super useful?

        2. HeySo

          PPS. If your butt expulsion is any color not listed, see a doctor immediately. Also, stop shoving all those strange things into your mouth orifice.

    3. BarerMender

      The antigrav cigarette is an old comic strip convention. Very old. I seem to remember it from sixty years ago or more.

    4. Ed Rhodes

      I can’t find the reference, but there was a science fiction/spy series about a guy who loses his arm in an accident and develops a telekinetic ability… but only as far as his old arm would have reached. His favorite trick was to smoke a cigarette, holding it with his telekinetic “arm.” I seem to remember the agency he worked for also being named; ARM.

      1. thejeff

        Larry Niven. Gil ‘the Arm’. Short stories collected in Flatlander

  9. Ana Chronistic

    FEEDS YOUR LIFE

    …idk how you can forget your hometown grocery chains, even the less popular ones

    like, I haven’t even been in an Ingles but I remember ’em being around

    ULTRA local would be “White’s” …not even sure if that exists anymore, tho, I think my folks would know best, and they unfortunately got sucked into Super Wal-Mart and never emerged

    1. Ana Chronistic

      (I’m the only one who cares, but Team Google says the grocery is gone but somehow my old day care from… decades ago is still in business??)

      1. Ryek Hvek

        Only in business until Walmart takes over. I can see the basket near the door for food donations for teachers to live on.

        1. Ana Chronistic

          Or Walmart employees

          ?

    2. BarerMender

      My hometown had an A&P and a Kroger located conveniently right down town. Then they put in a Garden Fresh clear on the other side of town, and my parents would drive clear through town to get to the Garden Fresh.

      1. Ana Chronistic

        tbh it sounds like a much better place to buy food

        Now that I’m on a computer instead of a phone, I can check Google Maps Street View and see White’s is now… Save a Lot food stores? So, nothing changed =p

        (I’m p sure we only went to White’s bc it was the only one sort of within walking distance, like, Mom would send me there to get milk when I was old enough and she didn’t feel like driving)

  10. BBCC

    This is sweet, but jesus god, no wonder Asher thinks its believable Blaine could get him in deep shit with the mob. He stole his grandfather’s money.

    1. Regalli

      I admire his chutzpah, even as I question his odds of longterm survival. (At least flee the state, dude!)

      1. BBCC

        PLEASE. GET AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE.

    2. JBento

      Lol, I’ve seen tuition costs in the US. If Korean Gramps doesn’t know Asher took the money, Asher did him a favour by proving how incredibly bad his accountant is.

      1. BBCC

        I mean, with hidden accounts and fronts for the mob and probably having a fuckton of money already, accounting takes a while. Give the poor accountant another week or two. XD

        1. JBento

          But that’s the thing when your money is illegal – you have to be REALLY sure where it is, otherwise you run a rather large risk of getting Al Capone’d.

        2. BBCC

          That is actually how a lot of white collar criminals get caught still – they get busted by the IRS.

        3. thejeff

          Just because he knows it’s gone doesn’t mean he knows Asher took it.

  11. Dave Van Domelen

    Oddly, there’s a Piggly Wiggly in the Green Bay WI area, or was during one of my visits with family there a few years ago.

  12. buddy

    There’s no Piggly Wiggly in Indiana? I thought it was a general midwestern thing, they’re all over the place in Wisconsin

    1. Keulen

      According to Wikipedia, there are Piggly Wiggly stores in the South and the Midwest, including Wisconsin and Indiana.

      1. CrazyJ

        There aren’t any in Indiana according to that (or Piggly Wiggly’s web site). I think you might have just misread the map.

        1. thejeff

          Illinois and Ohio, but not Indiana.

          Indiana is just surrounded.

        2. Keulen

          I somehow mixed up Illinois and Indiana. Oops.

  13. tim gueguen

    Hell, I’ve heard of Piggly Wiggly, and I’m Canadian and have never been to a part of the US with one.

    1. BBCC

      I’ve heard of it, didn’t know what it was. I thought it was a restaurant.

    2. Emperor Norton II

      First time I’ve heard of it. Granted, I’m one of them dirty furr’ners; but I have been living in USA for almost seven years now, so, you know…

      On the bright side, I’ve also still never been inside a Walmart.

      1. plasticwrap

        You have to live in a big city right?

        1. Emperor Norton II

          Or a collection of suburban cities/towns. I live in one of those.

          There are (at least) two Walmarts within 15 minutes driving distance of me.

  14. Alacrity Fitzhugh

    Used to have Piggly Wiggly all around Seattle. Been a long while since I’ve seen one.

  15. Cholma

    Ah, Piggly Wiggly! Never been to one, but at my first duty assignment in the Army, our First Sergeant always told us that if we didn’t like what we were doing, we could be “back on the block, working for Piggly Wiggly!”

  16. DailyBrad

    I knew of Piggly Wiggly because one of the presidents, I forget which one, used to have food bought from there to cater for foreign dignitaries, being a bit of a tightwad.

    1. Bicycle Bill

      So that’s where Trump got the idea for fast-food takeout when entertaining at the White House.

      1. Ana Chronistic

        No, he got the idea from that’s what he normally eats

  17. Emperor Norton II

    1: I think we can all appreciate that Willis made sure there was no Piggly Wiggly in Indiana to ruin the punchline.

    2: Yeah, turning your life around when not only your friends, but indeed your own family is apparently on the shady side…. Not easy. Very much not easy indeed. And I reckon that Asher justified his little grab by thinking that this was illegal money anyway; so might as well put it to better use than what his gramps probably would do with it.

    Not sure if that’s really a good justification… But then again, I’ve personally never been in a situation where that seemed to be the only way for me to turn things around. At the very least, I should probably find out more about this whole situation before getting all judgemental and stuff.

    1. Marsh Maryrose

      Evansville is just across the river from Kentucky, where there are Piggly Wiggly’s…but not anywhere near Evansville. As far as I can tell, Evansville’s nearest PW is about 80 miles away.

    2. Ana Chronistic

      I mean, there’s a whole bunch of stuff in our area that’s been here forever that I’ve never heard of, so it’s not even a stretch if Piggy Wiggly is local.

      Funny that I typed Piggy and my phone still suggests Wiggly

  18. FLUFFYWOLF

    Heh, I spent a lot of time down south as a kid, eating shrimp and grits, so I actually know what the piggly wiggly is XD

    Getting to see someone who doesn’t know what it is here is a Big Mood™

  19. Emperor Norton II

    The plot Piggly Wiggly ratio in the comment field is interesting.

  20. Romanticide

    He had to grab a loooooot of his gramps money…

  21. Moon

    piggly wiggly is the kind of thing I would make my away status on AIM during my RANDOM XD years

  22. Bagge

    stop flirting with your hot teenage crush, Sal.

    …or, you know, keep flirting with him. you do you.

    1. Marsh Maryrose

      Who among us would not flirt with a hot teenage crush, given the opportunity?

      She’d be in her 60s now (as I am), but I’d flirt with my teenage crush in a heartbeat.

      1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

        I recently found one of mine after 40 years. Not that I am any more capable of saying or doing anything about it now.

    2. Sunny

      Imagine Walky’s reaction if Sal and Asher hook up.

    3. JBento

      Do you mean “you do him”?

  23. rachel

    wait, are they related? they got horndt last comic so uhoh

    1. BBCC

      No, they’re talking about Asher’s family, specifically his Korean mob running grandpa.

  24. Danielle

    what kind of family is asher in?

    1. Svata

      Given these comments, and the fact that Blaine knows them, his family is probably part of A Family. The Mob.

    2. Keulen

      I’m assuming one involved in organized crime, similar to the mafia.

      1. thejeff

        Yeah, it was made pretty explicit when he and Blaine talked.

        Asher’s a grandchild of the boss of the Korean mob that Blaine’s tied up with. Which also ties up neatly with his being in the little robbery gang he pulled Sal into.

  25. Needfuldoer

    For the longest time, I thought “Piggly Wiggly” was a made-up (or long defunct) store name that was used as a running gag in fiction. It’s just sounds too funny to be real!

    Then again, a regional grocery store chain in my area was nearly torn apart after most of its customers and nearly all of its employees boycotted the company after a management coup, that was itself the culmination of 24 years of family in-fighting between two factions of the founders’ descendants, led by cousins who are both named Arthur. My idea of a “normal” grocery store is a little skewed…

  26. BenRG

    Ah! So that’s what Blaine’s holding over Asher’s head. Yes, as he disrespected the Family in such an overt way, I’m sure that Asher would prefer if his grandfather didn’t know where he is.

    1. CJ

      Come on, if Sal knew Asher was there, his grandfather wouldn’t have a problem finding out.

      1. thejeff

        Yeah, I’d assume Gramps knows where Asher is and even that he’s leaving the family business (though he may have his own plans about that), but not that he took the money.

        1. Roborat

          I suspect gramps knows about that as well.

  27. Opus the Poet

    I’m showing both my age and my peripatetic youth when I say I have shopped at both a Piggly Wiggly and at an A&P, and come to think of it a Grand Union and a Wynn-Dixie, and my wife worked for both of them several decades apart.

    1. Liquid Len

      Grand Union! forgot about that one. They were all over New York state…

    2. ValdVin

      I love certain kinds of buildings whose shape will never disappear into oblivion. An old A&P will always look like an old A&P.

      If “retail archaeologist” were a job description, I missed my calling.

      1. Ryek Hvek

        A&P is gone, but at least we still have Eight O’clock Coffee

    3. Ed Rhodes

      Our New England equivalent was “First National Stores,” later compressed into “Finast!” They’re all gone now.

  28. Sol Karas

    This is so goddamn wholesome I’m going to diiiieeee. They’re so cute. And it’s gonna end in tragedy probably because DYW.

  29. Juanoku

    This can only end horribly…
    damnyouwillis…

  30. Raul

    if he’s his own man then why does Blaine think he can coerce him into his dirty work?

  31. THEHYPERBOLOID

    My dad used to call Piggly Wiggly Hoggly Woggly just to annoy us.

    The one in the town where I grew up.was a little bit creepy. The owners had an office in the second story with a window overlooking the store and they spent a lot of time staring at customers and workers.

    1. Seregiel

      “Wiggle in the door, my little piggies. By the time you leave you’ll have to hoggle woggle out because aisles 6-18 are a nightmare of disorganization. Muahahaha.”

      1. Ana Chronistic

        Ya know I’ve never been in a Piggly Wiggly but it sounds exactly like the Food Lion that became a “Bottom Dollar” that became a Food Lion again that may have become something else in the interim but is currently a Weis and the (low) quality has been consistent throughout

  32. Rabisch

    I’m sorry, but I don’t think he’s changed.

    1. Ron

      Still running on stolen money, check. Acting like that’s completely fine, check.

  33. SonicBlueRanger

    Mississipian here. There’s a Piggly Wiggly in my town.

  34. Fuchs Sakemann

    There’s Piggly Wiggly’s all over the place in central/south Wisconsin. There’s enough that if you Google Maps it, it maxes out on locales and you have to shift it around to find all of them.

  35. Dana

    Some sort of cigarette dangling contest.

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      The angle of the dangle…

  36. Zee

    I’m just waiting for them to share a black lagoon style cigarette kiss

  37. Tacos

    If I didn’t live in Georgia for a while, I’d have no idea what the hell is a Piggly Wiggly either.

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