(Semi-Tough) Cryptoquote Spoiler – 09/12/12

Photo of Cathy Guisewite at the Emmy Awards. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Food, love, career and mothers:  the four major guilt groups.”   —   Cathy Guisewite

(Of all the authors of quotations that I’ve come up against, in doing the Cryptoquote, I never thought I’d recognize her name, as quickly as I did!   I was considering whether the G, the Y or the J were going to be the E, when I gave stronger consideration to the G, due to the likelihood of HDG being either ARE, ONE or THE.  I looked for other words with HD, knowing that words with TH are fairly common, and I found one of those pairings in the author’s first name.  Then, I saw that the fourth word started with C, and because of the two previous commas I figured they were listing things, and that the fourth word was likely AND.  So, now, I had a pretty good idea that the C was the A, and there was a C before the HD in the author’s first name.  This, then, lead me to believe that the name was going to be either CATHY or KATHY.  When I noticed that there was also an H in the last name, I knew that it was a T, so I tried GUISEWITE, and it fit!  From there everything fell into place. 

The reason for my surprise – and disdain – was because I couldn’t stand that comic strip: Cathy!  This quote sums up the entire life of that comic strip.  It was always either about food, her boyfriend who later became her husband, her job or her mom.  Occasionally it would be about her dog/s, but that falls under the category of love, in my book, or her dad, but almost always in the context of her mom.  What always bothered me, though, was that she would do a humorous take on one of these guilt subjects, and then just harp on it for days and weeks on end.  I like a good gag as much as the next guy, but she would just run the joke into the friggin’ ground!  She was as bad as Howard Stern, or Opie and Anthony, in this respect.  Not dirty, or mean, like these guys can be, but c’mon, after two or three variations of the same gag it just becomes extremely stale.  And, you just knew she was going to go on for a bunch more days.  The mainly girlie subject matter didn’t bother me at all, it was the wondering when the crap was going to change that made it so maddening.  Of course, I read it every day.  Back in the day when I read the comics to my kids, I used to call it Stupid Cathy, so much that my kids thought that was the actual name of the strip!  One of my happiest days was when she retired!  I was looking forward to a new comic strip that would replace.  One that wouldn’t be so nauseatingly repetitive.  So, what did I get?  Some dopey strip called Between Friends, by Sandra Bell-Lundy.  She must be a disciple of Cathy Guisewite’s, because it’s the same dopey, run a simple gag into the friggin’ ground format!  And again, I read it every day, hoping  Ms. Bell-Lundy will just get on with it, but it looks like she’s going to milk the current gag dry as a bone.  I’m betting this has to be someone’s favorite strip, which means I continue to be caught in . . . the Guisewite Zone!   Be well and do good, friends.)   —   YUR