It’s still grape juice. Kind of.
The refreshment attendants, Brad (glasses with poofy hair) and Sammy (mohawk and stretched ear lobes) are from one of my really early attempts at a webcomic project about four roomates in a college dorm. It was pretty bad, so it's not online anymore. Just mentioning it for trivia.
This … this is going to turn into a total train wreck, isn’t it?
This literally had train wreck written all over it and I’m HERE FOR IT
[Note to self.] Add to shopping list: Popcorn – lots of popcorn.
I am incensed! Not only did you beat me to the punch, you did so at the unholy hour of 3:30 A.M.!! I consider that cheating, and as soon as I figure out how to do it, I will scoop you on the popcorn action.
Will you share a bowl with me? I have grated Parmesan to sprinkle on… Or are you a Butter-Salt Purist? I don’t do the brewers’ yeast topping, but I’m good with anything else … Even anchovies. This scene is better than anything on T.V., I don’t think Sculley and Mulder have anything as dangerous as li’l Mandy, although 24-hours has had some fun stuff. What do you think?
:–)
The trick is living in Europe and post at 10:30 am (its 2:21 pm here now)
Correction: post at 9:30 am
Correction: posting at 9:30 am
Plain M&Ms added to salted buttered popcorn = little bit o’ heaven.
My mom used to make popcorn and put little chunks of homemade fudge in. That was good, but I like the concept of melting in your mouth, not in your hands that M&Ms bring to the table.
I make my own popcorn seasoning. I like a little heat, so I mix that nacho cheese seasoning, ranch seasoning, salt, and sriracha powder. Delicious.
I prefer Junior Mints in my popcorn, gives it a zing that M&Ms lack.
I miss a shop in NYC that sold flavored popcorn. Weird flavors, candy coated, garlic, “ball park” (was supposed to tasted like hot dogs.)
you mean like:
http://www.garrettpopcorn.com/ ?
(there’s one in walking distance from Pennsylvania Station.
I HATE YOU ALL SOOOOO MUCH RIGHT NOW!!!! WHY MUST YOU MAKE ME SO GOD FORSAKEN HUNGRY?! Must….. Buy…….. POPCORN!!!!
the nearest one is a 2 hour train ride away. How do you think _I_ feel?
If a kid drank wine expecting grape juice they’d spit it out , or at least go on about how horrible it is.
That depends entirely on the wine. Have you had Manischewitz before? That stuff tastes like regular grape juice, is the same color, and is so sweet it masks all the alcohol taste there could be. I’m not saying that’s what they’re serving here (could be though, one never knows) but there are some very sweet dessert wines that don’t taste a thing like “normal wine” (quotes because there isn’t really a set normal for wine)
I also think this might be a situation of her saying her bit while grabbing the cup & pointing (lots of stuff to convey in a single frame) and she hasn’t actually tasted it yet.
“That depends entirely on the wine. Have you had Manischewitz before? ” I stopped trying to acuire the taste for wine and beer and now drink hard cider.( well Reds but close enough)
These days there are so many different varieties of alcoholic beverages that with enough time you can’t help but find something you like in every category (though I will admit ciders can be quite good as well…I can work with just about any available beverage)
The wine I mention is an inexpensive kosher wine (though it really is wine only in name) and is the most absurdly sweet wine I’ve ever had. if you like either grape or blackberry flavors, and have $5 sitting around, it’s worth a try (I think they might do cherry too, but I have a strong distaste for cherry anything)
Yes, Manischewitz wine is very sweet, almost like a liqueur. It’s used in the Passover seder – the Jewish kids I know seem to have no problem at all with its taste. However, it is decidedly uncool, and I doubt it would be served at a hip modern art show.
Ice wines are sweet too, and far more elegant. They are also expensive, and come in tall slender bottles, not boxes. So this is probably an inexpensive boxed sweet red wine, some of which can be quite nice and fruity, especially if served chilled.
I drank Ice Wine once. Can’t remember the brand, but I bought a bottle seventy bucks and that was a cheap bottle. Damn nice, had apricot notes that I would suggest to everyone legal to drink if they can afford to drop that much money on a bottle of wine. Though alcohol can get really expensive if you don’t just stick to cheap beer.
That’s me and beer. I told my friends I didn’t like beer, having only tasted one beer-you-buy-in-Safeway my brother had, so they took me to Brauwer’s in Freemont (Washington) and had me try a couple dozen varieties.
And drank up all the cups I barely touched. Eventually we found that Geuze (a sour beer) was at least something I would finish a cup of.
Then one friend asked me the key question: Do you like coffee? (No.) Do you like bitter things? (No.) Do you like sour things? (Yes.) “You know, we could’ve avoided this whole night.”
But I got a memorable trip, and a nice segue to “woman who drinks” from “novelty of a 30-odd-year-old trying alcohol for the first time” (I enjoyed those months… everybody paid for my drinks), and Brauwer’s has absolutely delicious sandwiches called “Croque Monsieur” and similar names, for which I brought my mom one day when we were down near Seattle anyway.
As far as wine, I have yet to find a variety I like, or one I’d finish a glass of. But my understanding is that it’s such a variety that I just have to try more over the years until I find one I like. Also, that it differs based on a lot of factors such as what food you’ve had and what temperature it is? Stuff like that.
When drinking with my friends, they get guinness or scotch, I get rum or mead. Though when we all feel fancy we go for brandy. Typically blackberry brandy.
…unless Amanda has had wine before, and this would be an aspect of the abuse from her previous adopted parents that had not been uncovered or found out about. Because it was never observed, and when asked about it, she just said she was given grape juice.
Its hard to tell how much has actually entered her mouth in the last panel. This may be seconds before she sprays everywhere.
I was at a bar, and did something like that. I’m a nondrinker, and it was like karaoke night, or I would have no reason to be there. It was vodka or something, that looked like water. I think I did a spit take and asked for water.
well at least she wasn’t headed over to Heather to punch her in front of all these adults (which I was rather afraid of last post)
Also Loling, I used to make up stories/conversations about random people I’d see.
Yes, I too was waiting that happening.
And I still make up ‘back stories’ for random interesting strangers. It is like playing connect the dots, with a random ink spatter. You are not surE it will be anything – but the brain fills in info where there is none.
Prediction: some arse is going to blame Andi for this because she’s only had Amanda for… less then a WEEK. -___- Is it her fault she went to get a drink on her own? No! Amanda’s just reacting the way I kid would. I once made the mistake of drinking spiked punch as an eight year-old and what happened to me? Nothing. No one called the cops, no one told my mom she was an unfit parent, and no one told me I was wrong to drink it. I was just drinking from my mom’s cup the way kids do and thought it was just fruit punch like Hawaiian Punch or Hi-C.
The only way this could be avoided is if they told Amanda it was wine, because “adult stuff” usually means in a kid’s head that it’s something only adults like, not something only for adults.
But yeah, in comic and probably in the comments I can see this exploding into a huge crap-fest. Hope for once I’m wrong when I think that.
Adult Stuff = “The tastier-than-normal juice that the adults don’t want you to drink until after you eat your vegetables.” That’s probably what Amanda heard.
Probably the worst possible way Mohawk could have phrased it.
So… Has Amanda tasted alcohol before? Cuz wine… even boxed wine… does NOT taste like juice. My two kids will vouch for me there. 🙂 Oh man. I dunno who’s in more trouble: Andi or Amanda…
I don’t think Amanda SHOULD be in trouble, though. She didn’t know it was alcohol, and the servers were trying to say that but they weren’t being clear enough. She’s impulsive and stubborn, but when concessions are laid out, there’s an expectation you can take them.
Andi shouldn’t be in trouble for this, either. Maybe the staffers.
I don’t think anyone should be in trouble over this at all. This sort of thing happens. What kind of childhood is it if you never once accidentally tasted alcohol without meaning to?
(it happened to me when we were hiking, the table-cloth was laid out with drinks and food and everything but people haven’t gathered yet, I was thirsty, it was dark, and I accidentally grabbed my mom’s cup instead of my own. There was supposed to be tea in my own. That was not tea)
I agree, most kids have an accidentally experience with alcohol. My grandmother used to mix ginger ale and whiskey. One evening, early in she used to live with us, I just grabbed her drink thinking it was just ginger ale. Boy was I surprised! I learned not to just grab drinks and to ask first!
AH, i see that you haven’t met the full power of small-minded bigots yet have you? they can make ANYTHING seem to be the most evil thing in the universe, and that anything THEY do is as pure as freshly falling snow… and i can see it right now, that individual is in the crowd watching with sadistic glee at the upcoming donnybrook, when (s)he sees Amanda go to the bar and grab a cup of wine. they are either too far away to HEAR them talking to her, or they will gleefully ignore it in favor of getting the waitstaff in trouble for serving a minor, AND Andi in trouble “letting” and probably even “encouraging” her daughter to drink the Devils Brew “Alcohol”…
yeah, this is gonna go downhill from here…
She’s angry. Sometimes when angry people don’t taste what they eat or drink, just they eat it without thinking. Yeah, she should just spit it out if she tastes it, but if she just swallows without thinking then it’s not unfeasible. My sister drank flat beer thinking it was apple juice, but she was so distracted and angry she didn’t notice it until she was drunk as a skunk.
Grape Juice Plus
this ain’t the Moloko Milk Bar is it?
Just say “wine”. Most kids know that wine tastes nasty and will actively avoid the stuff.
I’m to figure out why “wine” or “alcohol” is censored. It’s not a curse word, nor particularly forbidden for children to know.
Shippers, huh? That should be interesting. XD
“You got grape juice right there!” Well, yes… It was grape juice… Years ago. : /
GREAT.
GOOGLEY.
MOOGLEY.
This is all going to end in flames….
1. That first panel had me confused as all get out.
2. If Mohawk had said “That’s wine and you can’t have any” this probably wouldn’t have happened. But NOO, she had to be vague and beat around the bush, and now look what you’ve done.
3. Amanda’s either going to spit-take and go “UGH THIS IS THE WORST JUICE EVER!” and take the water just to wash the taste out of her mouth, or she’ll make a really sour face and ask for the water anyway. If she does keep it down, it doesn’t look like there’s enough in that cup to do anything to her anyway so if it’d been my kid I would’ve said “Oh well, mistakes happen, no harm no foul, be more careful next time”.
And I’m almost guaranteeing Amanda’s going to be repulsed by it because if they’re just giving it away, that is probably the cheapest wine they could get hold of and it probably tastes awful.
Cheap doesn’t necessarily mean bad tasting, and since Amanda probably hasn’t had wine before (good or otherwise) she wouldn’t know what it should taste like. It’s possible that the cheap wine they went with (assuming it is cheap stuff) has additional additives (sugar, and lots of it) to attempt to compensate for the lacking flavor. The excessive sweetness could detract from the alcohol taste of the wine, making Amanda think it’s a weird juice, but just a type she hasn’t had before.
Or it’s halfway decent cheap stuff (tastes the way most people expect wine to taste) and she’ll still finish it because she can handle “adult stuff” (like Selkie, Amamda is quite willfull, and won’t take that she can’t have/do something)
at an ART gallery where a pretty simple statue is 5G’s… um, yeah, no… that stuff is the “Good Stuff”…
Art is one of those things that has an absurd price range for things. That sculpture being 5 grand could be the priciest thing there, it could be the least expensive, or it could be somewhere in the middle. Either way, when dealing with art, $5,000 isn’t that much if you’re in an established gallery. I mean, I’ve seen some pretty basic things in minor gallery’s with asking prices that make that statue look like the deal of the century. at least it isn’t a $5,000 photo print…that always bugs me (yes, there’s the expense of getting to wherever the shot was taken, and for the supplies & the time involved in actually processing everything, but when it’s a print you can continually produce more of a price like that just irks me [about as much as the “designer” jewelry that consists of $40 in materials & is priced at a few grand])
Huh, went on a bit of a tangent there (I did some amateur photography a while back, and more recently metal working/jewelry fabrication, so I have some ideas regarding the cost vs price dynamic in some of this stuff…and its nuts)
Anyway, the boxes next to the plastic cups of wine really hints towards less expensive wine. I am assuming the cups are plastic, just from the style they appear to be (they could be glass, but wine glasses in the stem-less style usually have rounded sides similar to their stemed kin [if slightly more oblong] while these have a more tapered look to them, like the plastic cups one gets for wine, or any beverage on a plane)
So, unless there are some fancy box wines out there (which there could be, there’s always something new hitting the market) I think we’re more likely in the overly sweet, inexpensive stuff realm of wine.
I look forward to seeing Andi get utterly destroyed here. And Amanda.
Why?
I agree. As an Andi hater, I watch and ask, why? Andi hasn’t done anything wrong just yet this time. And Amanda simply is walking around being a sourpuss. Neither deserving of social destruction right now. So why do they deserve it Alcor?
Also why? Andi’s had Amanda what a whole week now? Two tops? I’ve been parenting my stepson for about four years now and it is a looooooooong slow battle to get kids to change, trust me. How many miracles do you expect Andi to have pulled off in a week or so?
Doubtful she’ll get completely smashed on a single little cup like that- even though she has a smaller body than adults (and no built up resistance) the amount of alchohol in wine isn’t going to get her drunk. Buzzed, maybe, but not straight drunk. And who knows, she might be a Mellow drunk.
Naw, about the only way I see this going bad is if all the adults overreact to it, or, for some reason, let her drink more.
So they only have water for kids >.>
I guess they don’t get many children around.
Well, it’s a modern art gallery. So, no… I’m pretty sure whoever did the planning isn’t used to catering for kids.
Come to think of it, they probably had no idea there’d be this many eight year olds at the show!
li’l wine never hurt anybody. heh. get ready for the three Rs of parenthood: raging, raving, and overrrreaction!
li’l wine never hurt anybody. heh. get ready for the three Rs of parenthood: raging, raving, and oveRreaction!
Wouldve put more Rs in there but for some reason that triggers the spam filter
Amanda seems to be one of those kids who is slow to learn. She acts impulsively and it gets her in trouble. No matter what her past circumstances were, the children of the orphanage are a mess. I think Dave needs a lot of applause for being able to come up with the tension and drama he does. These characters are believable once the suspension of such belief as is necessary to believe in a Selkie community has been established. I wonder how “Truck” is making out since he needed a good shock to get his father to pay attention to his behavior. Real problems in an unreal but very interesting world.
Well, f**k…
AAAaaaand she just drank wine, she doesn’t know what “adunlt stuff” means does she.
Not sure i know what “adunlt stuff” means. But i find with kids stay away from terms like that.
In vino veritas. She hasn’t drunk enough to hurt her, but still, this could get interesting. Along with feeling giddy, she may relax her inhibitions to the point of saying a few things she wouldn’t otherwise say out loud.
Slightly related to this, there’s someone my brothers and I knew in high school who once drank grape juice that had somehow turned into wine. She was like 4-5, her father found the juice box in the back of the fridge and didn’t think anything of it, gave it to her and she got a little drunk from it. Somehow it had fermented for however long it had been in there…
Sh*t happens.
It also doesn’t help that some wine coolers (wine mixed with fruit juice) were (are?) sometimes sold in boxes that look a lot like fruit juice boxes. In the mid-to-late 1990s we could barely go a month where I live without a story of some kid ending up at the doctor because they accidentally drank one of Mommy and Daddy’s drinks rather than getting an actual juice box.
That small sippy cup size of box wine wouldn’t do anything to an eight year old. She’d have to down a few of those.
And that’s exactly what I’m expecting her to do, whether she knows it is juice or alkie. Someone’s trying to tell her no and she appears to have a complex against that sort of thing.
Why the hell do they have cups of alcohol readily available and within arms reach of children? Like what the hell?
Inb4 Heather’s father accuses Andi of being a bad parent and Amanda a rebellious hell demon because she accidentally drank alcohol and he attempts to get Amanda taken away from Andi for negligence.
Well it is a Gallery opening, those things often have wine and fancy snacks (at least the one I did recently had alcohol, but the drinks table was also behind those velvet-rope dividers). I imagine they weren’t really expecting a bunch of kids to show up to see feminist art?
I remember being given a sip of wine when I was… hm, somewhere between 5 and 7. Tasted terrible. Even if she swallows it, I am joining the chorus of “She’s not going to drink much more!”
(Also joining the chorus of “adult stuff” not being nearly descriptive enough. “That’s alcohol” would do better. >_> )
Second that. I took my first church communion when I was 9 or thereabouts and alcohol and I have had a rather uneasy relationship since.
I don’t like those two. They’re not only creepy but really irresponsible. Like how do you not realize that you need to keep wine higher up than that?
They’re probably not the ones responsible for choosing the table height, and even if they were, that’s not the sort of thing you can fix on the fly. Whoever did the planning was clearly not expecting there to be any kids at all, let alone this many. They’ve got boxed wine (or a wine cooler) in plastic cups, and bottled water for the adults who don’t want alcohol, and that’s it. Refreshments on a shoestring.
Nobody told the planner about Andi issuing invitations to a whole elementary school class. If she’d mentioned it, they might have added some fruit drinks to the offerings. So, hey, you could say THIS IS ALL ANDI’S FAULT and you’d have a point!
Still, it’s not the end of the world. Wine isn’t poison.
THIS IS ALL ANDI’S FAULT! *Holds up a pencil.* There’s the point as well. 😀
Yes because serving alcohol to a minor isn’t going to make them sick whatsoever. -___-
Guys, this is an art gallery. The only people with kids at an art gallery are usually very rich, and their kids would either not be able to reach the table (due to being like, 5 or 6), or would be used to having a few sips of wine off their parents’ glasses at banquets and such.
Also, I’m going to continue calling Mohawk Mohawk for three reasons.
A: I think it’s funny.
2– I don’t know this person’s actual name.
D, I can’t even use a normal gender pronoun because I don’t know which one to use and if I use the wrong one this is the Internet and someone is all but guaranteed to have a hissy fit.
V – I can’t count very well.
As a brewer myself, I tend to make my mead or moscato very sweet and strong. My last batch was candy sweet, an old-fashioned glass (2oz) had no taste of alcohol whatsoever yet had the AVC of drinking a strong whiskey. So yeah, a kid like Amanda could very well pick up a cup/glass of sweet wine without tasting the alcohol and just think it was sweetened or had a flavor added to it and get drunk as sin. Just saying.
30 seconds later…
Buckets,
Buckets everywhere