Who the hell is that old geezer in panel 1? Did Mark get stuck in Kurt Vonnegut’s chrono-synclastic infundibulum?  So, this is hard times, huh? Compared to living in the Sudan, for example? Sure, there might be some bad things going on, but Mark:  Did you think that maybe Tess could be buying some of the cubs? Or that she might donate some tigers to another zoo after a while? Well, it’s a possibility.

By the way, what was in that isolated trailer that caused Mark to exclaim “Yikes!” in last Saturday’s strip? Or was that exclamation from discovering Tess and Rex coming back? Alas, it seems we will continue with the Pity Party.