Well, how boring! I was sure Jules Rivera was going to pull a fast one, rather than revise a prior plotline. If she’s rerouting the river back under the same bridge (so to speak), does this mean that Violet is going to once again call on Honest Ernest for assistance?
However, we learned this past Sunday from Mark that moving bats on your own could be illegal at certain times of the year. Instead, he recommends calling the local Animal Control. Not sure they would actually do the heavy lifting. They normally only respond to domestic pet crises; so they would probably refer Cherry to a private pest control service, which would likely mean bringing in Honest Ernest, after all.
This week was a contest between personal values and professional ethics. At times, that can be a traumatic experience, and it was so for Diana Daggers in this past week’s strips.
Cricket Bro, brother Crypto Bro, and Diana were on location at the Peligroso Cave, currently closed because of the threat of flooding. Cricket Bro needed to visit the cave to fulfill his own agenda of providing thrills to his online followers in order to sell more Cricket Power Bars. Diana tried to talk Cricket Bro out of it, declaring it was too dangerous to enter right now. But he insisted on exploring, and Diana must come to video the event, else she would not get paid. The ethical debate was set.
Diana went over the numbers and realized she needed the money badly, but also believed this was a really stupid thing to do. Given who she was with, she should not have been surprised. In fact, signing up for anything Cricket Bro wanted to do is pretty stupid. I observed that Kelly Welly, who signed up to assist the two Bros in what turned out to be some kind of AI scam in New York, was not part of this group. Hence, Diana Daggers. Anyway, Diana had to weigh the possibility of personal danger against the near certainty of financial disaster. It was enough to make her put aside her own safety for the financial reward. Against her better judgement, she agreed to go into the cave with the two brothers.
There are things she might have prepared for, to mitigate the danger, such as bringing along safety equipment. Well, they do have backpacks, so it’s possible they have some of that. The week ended with them cutting down the caution tape and entering the cave. And speaking of things associated with caves …
Here we are, once again, with bats. This is not the first time Rivera has devoted a page to them. With all of the other issues in our environment, I’d think that she could find other things to discuss. Like rabies.
A “Woman’s Touch” was the theme of the week when Bill Ellis made his usual phone call during Mark and Cherry’s nature walk and love affirmation session. But it turned out that he wanted Cherry’s participation instead of Mark’s. This was a highly unusual idea, using Cherry as the lead in a Bill Ellis assignment. Ellis specifically wanted a female reporter to accompany a trio of female book club members in their mission to eliminate feral hogs from people’s yards.
Somehow, Cherry got the impression that she was expected to also take part in the actual hunting instead of simply reporting on the group’s activities, and Bill Ellis did nothing to dissuade her. Maybehe did infer that. I dunno. But Cherry is no hunter and even got a bit panicky at the thought of hunting feral hogs. So she turned him down. Instead, she suggested Mark would be the person to take on the job. Seeing as how Bill was interested in a woman’s point of view, I’m not sure what Cherry was thinking at that point, but Mark was on board. However, we have yet to hear what Bill Ellis has to say on this last-minute substitution.
Thus, within one week, Jules Rivera tempted us with the novelty of Cherry going on an official assignment instead of Mark, only to pull it away by having Cherry refuse the job. It could have been nice to see Cherry operate in a situation that did not include the Sunny Soleil Society. Still, as I noted, we have not heard the last from Bill Ellis, who may reshape the job to get Cherry on board. We’ll see. But until then, let’s see what aspect of Nature Mark is expounding on today:
Well, yippee yi yo ki yay! We’re back in Texas once again and once again talking about bats. You would not be chastised for thinking that Mark might even own some property out there. Or maybe a bat sanctuary.
Too bad that Rivera didn’t have to mention a particularly popular event down in Austin: “Texas is home to the largest urban bat colony in the world, consisting of [up to] 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats under the Ann W. Richards Congress Avenue Bridge in Austin, Texas.”
Apparently, these bats collectively leave the dark underside of the bridge every evening from around mid-March to early November and create a spectacular cloud of flying mammals looking for their evening meal. It’s quite the attraction, online sources say.
It seems we reached the end of another unfulfilling story. We had a few weeks of strips showing Mark prowling through a mansion filled with indolent, senile lions in search of clues, followed by Mark and Sammy Spotter prowling around a nearby stream to locate a cave where they believed director what’s-his-full-name might be trapped. But first they retrieved Rusty, to give him something to do and brag about back home.
This past week we saw our Gang of Three paddling kayaks into the cave, where they survived a freak wave designed to create some faux drama. At this point, Rusty finally earned his stripes. In this remarkably well-lit cave, Rusty spotted an opening in a cave wall. Using his vaunted tree-climbing expertise, Rusty looked over the cave wall and spotted a man lying in the next chamber. Lo and behold, it was missing movie director, what’s-his-full-name! Somehow, they got him out of the cave and onto dry land where an EMT squad appeared and prepared him for the hospital. Exactly how he was trapped or whether he had any kind of physical injury was never mentioned. Finally, a real mystery!
Mark told director what’s-his-full-name that he was not the only one getting rescued today. Mark condemned his harmful lion exploitation, so he was taking control of the animals. Mark will turn them over to animal rescue services, much to the consternation of director what’s-his-full-name. Still, I’m sad to discover that Sammy Spotter was not a criminal mastermind after all.
Looking ahead, I reckon 24 hours must be up by now, so we’ll soon find out what Cherry and Violet have done with the kittens before Mother Cheshire returns! Until then, lean back and enjoy some nature.
Mark invokes his inner “Batman” in this Rivera Revisit of bats. It seems Jules just can’t get enough of them. Was today’s strip inspired by Mark’s recent Catalina Island foray into a cave, or a homage to his earlier cave adventure under the pen of James Allen? Hard to say, but there’s a whole lot of other animals, plant life, and environmental issues out there to cover. There shouldn’t be any need to recycle Sunday topics at this point, given Rivera’s short turn at bat (did you catch my Rivera-inspired pun?).
The Daily Trail 