At The New 60 we wondered about dating. Now the both of us have been married for a long time, so this is what we imagine dating would be like. We did research from various single friends and what follows for Craig is what you’ve already read. It seems as if there is an initial stage of infatuation, hand holding, feeding each other shrimp, and various public displays of affection that can make you look like a total asshole (at least in public). Then there’s the reaction of Craig’s friends (people like us and many of our readers) which lie somewhere between “Isn’t that nice?,” and “Give me a f’ing break!” The comic says the rest.

But it’s the second comic (or first one on your email) that gets into something a little deeper. As we get older, our pets get older and we get older and we grapple with our mortality. If you say you don’t think about that, we say you’re either lucky or you’re not telling yourself the truth. So we had one of our pets reach the end of the rope and wondered how the guys would deal with it. How long was the proper time to mourn? And how long was the proper time to look for a new pet? And before we rushed into things, did we really want that responsibility again?

So we made it even a little more diabolical by giving this decision to Sam’s second wife, Shellie. Being a relatively new wife and being Sam’s junior by roughly 20 years, she may not have the same allegiance to Sam as Al and Marv have to their wives and each other, after 30+ years of togetherness. Since Shellie is more than willing to replace their dog with a new puppy, Sam wonders how long it would take her to replace him once he’s gone. It’s a funny situation but you know the cliche: there’s a little bit of truth to humor. And the more truth, the better the humor.

The other question is, do these dark musings belong in a blog about a comic strip? When the subject is people 60 or over, we say the answer is a resounding yes.

Now that we have you thoroughly bummed out, please enjoy the holiday season and we’ll be back next Friday with two brand new comics.

Andy and John