Dustin, 1/25/21

Dustin of course has a core mission of depicting the life of the shiftless, no-good kids today, as interpreted by someone who’s only heard anything about the lived experiences of any human being under the age of 35 second- or third-hand, which is how you get recurring bits like “Young people today definitely meet prospective romantic partners primarily at fern bar, right?” I was briefly intrigued that earlier this week Dustin appeared to have given up on his intermittent work through a temp agency and instead chose to join the “gig economy” in an actually Zoomer-appropriate storyline. But virtually all my interactions with people delivering for Grubhub and its competitors involve getting a text that they’ve left it on my porch, or at most waving at someone through my front window as they book it to their next delivery scheduled by their cruel algorithmic taskmaster, so I’m going to go ahead and say the Dustin creative team also thinks that “Those food apps the kids use today are just like pizza delivery, right? Probably you pay the guy in cash after he hands you the food?” Anyway, usually a strip like this would put a cutesy faux-app name on Dustin’s hat, so this is a really great opportunity for Grubhub to sue somebody.

Mary Worth, 1/25/21