Judge, 1929-07-06 · page 12 of 36
Judge — July 6, 1929 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis: "The Diary of an Absent-Minded Fella" This is a humorous domestic narrative about a befuddled narrator's Sunday, illustrated with two cartoons. The main joke concerns the narrator's scatterbrainedness and marital friction. **Key elements:** - The protagonist repeatedly forgets practical details (calling wrong numbers, confusing hot/cold faucets, losing his house key) - He's caught coming home drunk ("lit") and confronted by his neighbor Mrs. Barker about the disturbance - His wife Ella plays bridge with him while he loses money - A subplot involves his friend Bill Spencer playing pranks, renting out his house without telling anyone - The lower cartoon shows a man being ejected from a wall, captioned about a "Sunday paper"—likely mocking the absurdity of the narrator's situation **The satire:** This gently mocks the scatter-brained businessman of the era—a fixture of comic literature—who cannot manage basic household tasks, gets drunk socially, and creates domestic chaos through simple incompetence. It's a domestic comedy premised on masculine bumbling.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
his thumbs to his cars and wig- ed them at me. ‘Tommy must be going: nuts. Drove over to sce the Bill Spencers but found a couple of on the lawn and some strange people sitting on the porch. 1 didnt know Bill had rented for the summer. Then 8 along came Bill in his car. 1 kids rompin, watched him but he drove by. 1 followed him in my ear and he drove off to another house alto- gether. Bill's a nut for playing practical jc . for when I kidded him for trying to kid me he kept his face straight and pretended not to understand. Bill's a seream, ed to dinner with Bill and Ella and 1 ed Bridge \ all evening. [lost as usual. did Ella. She and [play inst Bill and a bird named Stevens or Grimes or something | When [ got home Thad the | same old trouble with my key. Mrs. Barker came to the door and raised a noise, said T ought to be ashamed of myself for coming home lit I didn’t know | my own house. You can’t reason | with a woman like that. Got home and found that Mrs. | , Barker was right after all, The | ceiling in’ the living room was soaked Im sure I didn’t call Sweeney to change those hot : cold) faucets but he must and left the water running with young doctor’s mama and papa remember to send him the stopper in the tub... stupid hes the day of his first operation, ass. | . Went to bed but didn’t sleep — | The Diary of an Absent- only a month ago. I told Tommy — well till I got up and took off my Minded Fella Green about it but he only put eve-glasses.—Groroe Mirenurnt s Sunday—July 6th or 7th. \ | A lovely day, so I decided not to go to the office, Called up but | couldn't get an A dumb buncl ly Esther on the switchboard. She likes to make me think when I call her up and can't get her that I've been calling the wrong number, dy on the wire. ‘ook a cold shower and nearly burned the hide off myself. I must remember te t Sweeney to change those hot and cold faucets I told him once before but he said | they were all right and I must have turned on the hot for the cold, Went over to the club to shoot a set of tennis but found the aren't any courts there any more I could have sworn playing there Bov—-Sunday paper, mister? Funny sheet, an’ everything. comicbooks.com