And frankly, I must have lousy timing in that regard because I have a hard time getting first dates!
But enough about my lack of love life here. We're not talking about me here. We're going to be talking about Jughead and how he claims to be cursed with the worst timing possible.
This is a story that first appeared when the Archie's Pal Jughead title changed to the name Jughead. But for sake of argument, I'll refer to the name of the book as "Archie's Pal Jughead #320". Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Samm Schwartz was the premier Jughead artist at Archie Comics, and his Jughead tales are some of my favourite stories.
Here's one example that has been reprinted a number of times. It's a story that is called "A Matter of Timing".
(I wasn't kidding when I said the story had been reprinted a bunch of times either. I count four so far.)
Now, when it comes to Jughead's personality, it can be a bit confusing. But usually you can say that Jughead is in a fairly good mood - especially when food is involved. But today, Jughead's not feeling like himself. In fact, he's kind of feeling a bit down. He tells Archie that while there are some lucky people in the world, he doesn't consider himself to be one of them. He is either in the right place at the wrong time, or the wrong place at the right time. I'm sure it's something that we can all relate to, but it's really bothering Jughead to the point where Archie says he's just exaggerating.
The two friends are walking down the hallway, and Archie's shoelace comes untied. He stops to fix it, and tells Jughead to go ahead without him. Jughead wanders down the hallway and comes across Mr. Weatherbee's path. And Mr. Weatherbee is more than happy to see Jughead because he has a favour to ask of him.
Now if there is anything that Jughead hates more than going on a date with a girl, it's doing extra work. And Mr. Weatherbee asking Jughead to mail a letter for him is the ultimate in extra work. If that had happened to me, I'd love to go out and leave school to run an errand like that. The less time spent in that building, the better! But all Jughead can do is moan about how his timing was messed up and how he has to do the errand because Archie had to tie his shoe, and how he'll likely be hit by a car because he has to go and mail a letter. Archie dismisses Jughead as being a drama queen and heads to his locker to get some books for his next class. While he's there, he sees a flash of lightning outside and rain starts to pour down in heavy buckets. And then he wonders where Jughead is.
Why, he's just returned from delivering Mr. Weatherbee's letter, and got caught up in the torrential downpour. Since Jughead is soaked right through to his underwear, he's got to take a shower and change into some dry clothes before his next class. But not before complaining to Archie that he once again has the worst timing.
Jughead manages to make it through his shower without any major problems like there being no hot water, or running out of shampoo. He also changes into his spare outfit without much incident such as his clothes being too small, or having the button pop off of his pants. Perhaps Jughead's bad luck with timing is just limited to that incident...well, at least it would have been had he not run into Coach Kleats as he exits the boys locker room.
Wow. I don't blame Jughead for being annoyed. I know that if I had to move a whole set of weights from one end of the gym to the other, I would be feeling that pain for days afterwards. And this is coming from a guy who's had to pull a giant skid of bananas from one end of the store to the other! Not my favourite activity by any means! Naturally when Jughead sees Archie, he can't resist venting to him about it.
Oh well, at least Jughead has some plans after school. Really big, exciting plans. He's going to Shelby's Department Store to buy some brand new jockey shorts! Wow...what a way to end the day. Of course, Archie jokes that he didn't know Jughead rode horses, which is a groaner if ever I heard one, but that's not all that uncommon to find "Dad Jokes" inside of a Samm Schwartz story...or hidden gags. Heck, reading a Samm Schwartz story is like a Where's Waldo type tale where you have to find the easter eggs, which is probably why Samm Schwartz is one of my favourite past Archie artists.
Archie and Jughead arrive at Shelby's and enter the front door, but before Jughead can make a beeline towards the men's underwear department, sirens blare, confetti falls from the sky, and Archie and Jughead are wondering what just happened.
Fortunately, the manager of Shelby's comes out and explains that Jughead has won a very special prize!
Yep. Jughead's the one millionth customer, and his prize is a date with Miss Riverdale. Could you not pick out a worse prize for the guy? I mean, Jughead spent his whole life avoiding girls, and now he has to go out with one for being the one millionth customer. To be honest, I can see how Jughead would feel screwed. Yeah, I'd like a date with Miss Riverdale too, but do you know what else I'd like? A free shopping spree through the store! A trip to anywhere in the world! A million dollars! Those would be better prizes as far as I'm concerned!
Oh, and don't think that Archie gets left out. He gets a special prize for being customer number 1,000,001. A ten dollar gift certificate for the store. Oooh, big spender. But hey, back in 1981 when this story first appeared, ten bucks bought a lot. They certainly would have paid for Jughead's jockey shorts - a point that Jughead frustratingly makes to Archie as Miss Riverdale poses for pictures with him!
Somehow, I doubt that Archie has much sympathy for him.
No comments:
Post a Comment