Full confession time: This comic makes me extremely uncomfortable.

I am a lifelong liberal of good standing, with impeccable credentials. On one issue, however, I am an unabashed Goldwater conservative. If there’s one thing that raises my ancient hackles, it’s whenever I see the names Cathy and Casey defiled with a K. Why do parents of the newborn err so egregiously? Why favor the fraudulent over the authentic, particularly in matters of enduring importance?

My wife an I eat a lot of pho. My wife is particularly obsessed with it, and we’ve got so many Vietnamese restaurants nearby that it’s really easy to grab some on the way home from work or school or the gas station or the grocery store or 7-11 or wherever else we might be. I don’t like to think about how much money we’ve spent on pho.

20:47: I arrive home from a friend’s family party with an army of dessert. Despite my declarations that “fifteen cookies is really too much,” I was assigned a slice of peanut butter cake intended to feed three grown men, two rainbow cookies, two cheesecake brownie squares, and a chocolate chip cupcake with cream cheese frosting. In the confusion, I also volunteered to bring home a loaf of French bread.

Alternate title: “Scott Summers.”