Recent reader comments (you can go back and actually read them, folks!) question the alternative spelling (and even the pronunciation) of the horse rescue organization’s name (“Happy Hoovez”). Is Rivera attempting to be too cute? Is she attempting to suggest that the rescue staff is illiterate? Or does she want to suggest that maybe the owner(s) are foreigners and not sure of the spelling? I’ll make an executive decision and claim that that last idea is just bupkis. Still, I left it in so I could use the word bupkis.

I’m not a conspiracy nut, but maybe Rivera has embedded a tell-tale in the spelling, itself: That is, the misspelling (“Hoovez”) warns that something about the organization—like the spelling—is not quite right. That would be a clever plot device, as you might find in a murder mystery.

But I wrote the paragraphs above on Friday. Today’s strip is leading me to think differently.

BLECH! Maybe Rivera really dislikes Mark Trail. Or its readers. I can’t recall a more disparaging, demeaning sequence.