#158: "The Beaujolais?"
Arthur Trope Presents: The Inscrutables
No. 158
“The Beaujolais?”
Artie invited me over last night, which has never happened before. He lives in his girlfriend’s houseboat on Lake Union and I thought we’d grill burgers and drinks beers on the floating deck, but he called an Uber instead and we went to Canlis, which is one of your fancier establishments in Seattle. I thought he needed to unload a little after the past few weeks. But he didn’t, really. As soon as we sat down, he asked for the wine list. I don’t think he knows much about wine. He handed it to me and I chose a Beaujolais bc it wasn’t too expensive and I can pronounce “Beaujolais”. Artie looked at the price and told me to order something more expensive. The waiter ended up choosing an Italian for us and I got the feeling it was pretty steep. Anyway, we talked about Marv and how things used to be, and how selling the company to SynrSys was the kiss of death, artistically speaking. He’d gotten an email earlier from the Committee about laying off the political stuff and requesting more cat jokes. Or dogs. But he wasn’t unloading. He was a little wistful. He order another bottle, which caused the owner to come over and say hello. Artie was getting a little drunk and he said “We’re celebrating, my friend’s been promoted twice in the last month”. My first thought was, I’m being fired. But Artie is the last person they’d send, and not over 2 crazy expensive bottles wine. Then Artie laughed and said, Do you ever wonder why it takes 25 people to put out a single panel comic once a week? I said yep we weren’t the most efficient business in the world. He changed the subject and after awhile he paid w his corporate card. He said he’s putting everything on the corp card these days, he heard they have a 3 strike policy & he’s still waiting for his first strike. He said my promotion to Sr. Social Media Manager entitled me to one too, it’s on the SynrSys HR portal. That’s one improvement on the old days. I’ll be checking that out on Monday. Anyway, Artie emailed #158 at 2:00am with a note saying “Here are their dogs. Guess who’s the bee w an itch? :)” Inky had it polished by 9:30. And here it is, posted on the go at 1:45. -Ed.
