The Wasp — 1894 — page 521: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page contains two satirical stories with accompanying illustrations rather than political cartoons. **"A Man Shopping"** mocks a husband named Jack sent to buy specific fabric by his wife. The joke centers on masculine incompetence: Jack repeatedly fails to communicate the exact purchase (three yards of sirloin lace and two pounds of flesh), eventually buying three gallons of saloon lace instead. The humor satirizes gender roles—the "gigantic brain" husband is helpless at domestic shopping tasks. **"Hard to Please"** features a restaurant waiter dealing with an impossible customer who rejects every menu item with increasingly absurd excuses. The satire targets demanding diners and satirizes restaurant pretension through the customer's ridiculous complaints. Both stories use exaggerated male incompetence and customer absurdity as comedic subjects, reflecting early 20th-century attitudes about gender roles and consumer culture.