Thirty - The Way of All Flesh

     Now, I don't go in much for swearing, and when I do, I prefer using swear words of my own invention like "gex!" or "calleopterous!" So when I was recently brought slightly to task by my brother Tom for Jolene's use of the phrase "The Hell" instead of the more usual "What the Hell," I accepted the criticism as coming from one more used to salty language than I.

     But just before typing in the dialogue for this page, I read Monday's Skin Horse, a fine comic strip by Shaenon K. Garrity and Jeffrey Channing Wells. They've just introduced a character who swears incessantly, and in the first panel of the aforementioned comic, he, too, uses the phrase "The Hell."

     So I feel vindicated. Apparently all the kids are saying it these days...