Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for December 07, 2020

uh… yeah

The Pontiac Bonneville is a test for Brad Degroot to see if ….

So what baby innuendos will Brad continue through this week? And when will Toni have had enough… or capitulate?

Taking bets on if they buy the car or not…

How unique.No visible headrests.

Most women might agree that giving birth to an 8 lb. baby feels like giving birth to a 5,000 lb. V-8…

Toni, this is a LOUSY comparison. A car can’t move independently. It does not demand food when hungry. It doesn’t need to be put to sleep. It does not require comforting. YOU are in full control of the car while you are not in control of the baby. Get it? You can work on the car and leave it at the end of the day and forget about it until the morning. You can sleep all through the night without being interrupted. You don’t have to feed it every few hours. You decide when to feed the car with gas when you need to drive it. If you think you can compare a baby to a car, then by all means, DO NOT HAVE A KID. You know nothing about a baby if you think there’s any similarity between a baby and a car. However, if you REALLY want a practice run, GET A DOG!!

Ummm….did you even discipline Shannon gor painting the couch?

But the car will not wake you up in the middle of the night. Unless it was one of those from the studio back lot from the Twilight Zone…

.

I cannot complain about either kid we had – both of them slept pretty good throughout the night and were pretty easy from little on up. Our son is 24, and our daughter just turned 17. Looking back, my wife and I wish we would have had one or two more. There was room in the house and room in our hearts.

“Noisy and fumey”. He left out “expensive”.

How many cylinders will that baby have?

Oh, Barf!

O, Ben. We hardly knew yeh. Seven (7!!) weeks have gone by since you asked Luann why Bernice was avoiding you. Not only has Bernice not come to see you, she had wet dreams of fishes, a cat was stuck on a roof, as well as a moron. Now Luann’s brother is about to buy a money pit. But no one, absolutely no one cares any more that you exist.

Is it just me, or is this strip becoming a comics version of the Lifetime Channel?

For heaven’s sake, Brad, drop the baby-nagging!

And as expected, and predicted, Brad CAVES to Toni’s wishes.

The Holiday Season is just turned into the Silly Season.

Look, it would have been perfectly Cool if Toni had suggested buying an old clunker as a “fun” project for just the two of them.

But to suggest buying and restoring an old car as substitute for having a baby? Well that’s just plain Dumb, kind of an Insult and STALLING.

Toni? If you don’t want to have baby NOW, or EVER, just say so. I hardly think that Brad, the guy who took BEATINGS, broken bones, ruptured organs, an expensive hospital bill, not to mention, put up with the shenanigans of YOUR idiot brother and His out of control daughter, is going to dump you when you tell him. He’s been through too much, and invested too much time.

Tell him, and get it over with. But remember, and Mark that day well, when you finally tell him.Because the next time YOU want something? Brad will have EVERY right to resort to the little used word, NO!!!

Now, take that 300 bucks and buy a George Foreman Grill or something. ;)

Hey! I was close with saying it was a minivan!

I think this will go with Brad talking about how hard babies are to Toni and ultimately kinda convincing himself they’re not ready for kids. Also, I think Toni’s reluctance for kids, if her character is that deep, has to do with her parents not being available for her (explains why she was Dirk as a terrible father figure) and her brother and afraid that she’ll be the same. She’s worked so hard to become the strong independent person she is and she might not be ready to give that up yet. I can see all this might lead to an idea to adopt/gain guardianship of Shannon down the road as, not to seem cold, a “compromise” for this story line.

So the subject is still being discussed. I am not invested in the suggestion that Brad is baby nagging, but I find Toni’s reply to his Panel 1 comment in Panel 2 interesting, and Panel 3, Brad seems a bit adroit in his response to her. Car is bigger than a baby, but either was it’s a chore/commitment. Toni is the one who has to bear a baby, a huge commitment, and as mom will probably have the lion’s share of work with the baby/child although I think Brad is young enough and liberated enough to share child-rearing chores equally. Either one is going to time-consuming, expensive, and may not turn out the way you hope, but the subject is still on the table. Toni needs affirmation, I think she is fearful. I think a baby decision may be in the offing sooner rather than later though. Ultrasound can we be far away?

And they call her Baby Driver…..

He really ought to drop the subject of babies. He could alienate Toni, if this was a strip with any stakes. But it isn’t. So instead, he could alienate the readers who hope there will soon be a baby. But there won’t be. (I don’t care if or when they have a child, I want the stupid Ben thing wrapped up.)

Meanwhile the painted couch issue has been ignored.

Toni has much to learn about babies. Nobody ever had to “change” a soiled Pontiac.

So we’re not going to see the follow-up to Shannon ruining their couch, floors and walls? I was expecting to see them standing in their paint-splattered living room trying to figure out how to afford replacing the floors and furniture.

Rehabbing a car is practice for handling a baby? I’m sorry Toni, but I don’t see the correlation between the two. But you have been getting practice handling a whatever age Shannon is supposed to be.

Strips with Shannon are among my least favorite, so you want to add a baby to the mix? Please, please don’t.

“Fun” is very objectively not how one would describe changing diapers…

Restoring and maintaining a Pontiac is not the same as having a baby and parenthood. I had an old Pontiac Bonneville Brougham back in my college days, big gas guzzler with 305 V-8 but it could comfortably fit 6 or 7 people with plenty of legroom and it definitely could cruise on the Interstate. Fixing it up and maintenance was relatively simple and nothing concerning that behemoth ride was nearly as complicated as anything concerning fatherhood IMHO. Plus you can say “Bon Voyage” to a car and have no qualms about it but I seriously doubt that anyone with a soul could do that with a son or daughter, so the concept of restoring a classic ride to gauge if you are ready to have kids does not compute to me; just my $0.02.

Brad has no idea what he’s getting himself into… Both with the car AND a baby..

With the exceptions of the early Camaros, early Mustangs, the ‘60 – ’68 Corvettes, and Jeeps, it’s beyond me why a person would want a car from that time period. Most of the cars drive like trucks. The suspension systems are primitive. Most of the stock V8s of that period had less than 150 HP. The manual transmissions were wretched 3 speeds. The tires were bias plys and not modern radials. The Jeeps, Camaros, ’Vettes, and ’Stangs were cool. I suspect G&K are vicariously living out a wish. BTW, the VW Beetles were junk, too. 35 HP on 4 cylinders is pathetic.

Sure Brad, you keep smirking about a baby.He has no idea what it means to have to get up at 2am every night , and yeah changing diapers is fun . he is still so immature

I csan just see it when the baby does arrive: Diaper needs changing – you get the replacement, I’ll work the block hoist…

They could get a much more interesting old heap than a Pontiac Safari…

We willingly suspend disbelief at SO much in comicland, but — it’s fun to change diapers? Never heard a man, or woman, ever say anything that weird!

I think I know what they’re doing. They think if they can handle a busted old car, they can handle a little boy.

The car is a great idea, at least you can get rid of it if it becomes a pain in the arse.

What if the baby is 9 lbs? What kind of car would that require?

Toni seems so excited about restoring that old car ♡. She has a real passion for mechanics. I love this kind of people ♡. Let’s hope she and Brad have the strength (and the ability) to fix it. I think it’s a perfect test to see if they will be able to raise a child.

Except the Pontiac won’t demand 24/7/365 attention for decades

So no reaction or action to Shannon painting the couch. Either wasn’t much to start with or Toni and Brad are really focused on the car.

Its a Pontiac Safari station wagon that they are going to look at

All three of my kids were over 10 pounds at birth – and neither mom nor I are particularly large. Her brother, however, is very tall.

So I guess Shannon will get away with painting the couch???

They know the price ($300), but it might be sold by the time they get there, and they have to settle for a baby.

I am totally unsymphathetic to Brad. This would be a better (and less crowded) world if more couples chose not to have kids.

What’s the point of this arc? Brad has pitched in to take care of Shannon for years.

Um, wouldn’t essentially raising Shannon be closer to practice for having one’s own child than restoring a car?

Shouldn’t they be worrying about a new couch right now?

Get a puppy! Closest thing you can get to a baby or child. Get a puppy!

Circle logic?

Brad is so incredibly tiresome with all his baby nagging. It’s sad that Toni had to suggest buying an old car in an attempt to make him shut up. An intuitive partner would have gotten the hint by now, but NOOO Brad just keeps on harassing her. Maybe that’s just her clever way to get the old clunker, if so, that’s kind of sad. NO ONE would actually believe that working on an old car is like having a baby. If they do they are delusional, and describing baby diapers as fun is just wrong on so many levels. I like the drawings in this comic strip but the story lines are tedious, stupid and annoying. At least it gives me an opportunity to rant… you know, get ready for the day. Who knows? Maybe they are saving some innocent idiot from getting a full blown piece of my mind during this magically stressful time of year.

5,000-pound V8? Not even a Cummins or a Cat.

The car will be easier to take of. It will be an escape or excuse for when the baby won’t stop crying or a stinky diaper change. I wonder who will fold first.

Yeah, I remember trying to explain to my mother-in-law that my experience in handling new born Yorkshire Terriers gave me the skills to handle a new born human.

Clueless! And Brad looks skeptical. If this continues, it will be a long week. :-/

Being a parent myself I would say they will have a LOT more luck with the V-8! And the V-8 will not stink near as much. I speak from experience!

They should practice with a dog first…

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RwXn6bBx5KI

Is it me or does Toni’s facial design look kind of… off in the second panel?

La diferencia es que un auto no necesita atención ni ser alimentado y cambiado de pañal a cada rato, incluso por las noches.

I doubt it is as pleasant when a Pontiac wraps itself around you as when a child does.

(Just guessing, never been hugged by a Pontiac.)

With all this pregnancy talk and the discussions of having to wait for the baby, I keep waiting for the oh no moment.

Oh, the immaturity! Bah! A pox on them both! 8^ )

My spidey senses tell me that there is a duck in the oven.

Dirk will be the person selling his car. Dirk’s wife comes out to say hi and is very pregnant. Toni starts to have second thoughts about…car vs baby.

Uncomfortable banter between Toni and Brad. Take care this doesn’t transform into a full-blown marital argument!

The Pontiac is definitely easier and cheaper……

Brad has ovaries?

Anyone who says changing diapers is fun has never changed a diaper.

brads wife seems like the only sane one in the whole bunch.

The simple truth: Toni keeps easily deflecting Brad’s seeming yearning for a child of their own. First with sex (teehee). Now with but a fixer upper (auto, that is).

Um, hello? Whatever happened to Shannon and the painted couch??

Toni is going to wear thin shortly on Brad’s badgering and their first really big fight is going to happen.

Here’s an idea. If we had actually seen that Toni and Brad have any friends — say, couples their own age with young children, they could volunteer to take their friends’ baby for a few weekends to experience night feedings, diaper changes and teething.

Not just noisy and fumey but another peddle to the metal for global warming acceleration by clueless humans…

A car that old may not have seat belts. How to buckle the kid in.

Brad is nuts.

Up until now, I thought Toni was a really smart person. A comparison between restoring a car and taking care of a baby just makes no sense at all…

Parenting involves commitment and is a shared experience. Toni don’t believe that Bradley Degroot will be a good parent. Brad was a couch potato who bothered Luann. Who spent his free time working on a car and hanging out with TJ.

Another level of ridiculousness…sure, fixing up a clunker is like cleaning up poo and vomit at 2 in the morning. Of course it is! Luann, where did you go? Maybe the same place that Ben, Jonah, Tara, Delta, Tiffany, Knute and Krystal have gone.

If they can handle Shannon ….

No it doesn’t.