94 Comments

  2. S. Pebbletush +93

    I love these. I’m not wearing any stockings either.

    Aside: Seeing women of different shapes and sizes and ethnicities and heights of body types represented equally *as women* makes me really happy.

      2. msjinxie +2

        I love my bed wine but I loved it a little less that time(s) I spilled it on my white bedspread.

    4. kendrawcandraw +13

      Worth noting that #9 here came from a particularly inspiring night when I drank about two liters of wine and tried to go to a Halloween party. Didn’t…. didn’t work.

  6. jhsaxena +48

    Oh man, when I got engaged the first photo I posted (after everyone started insisting on seeing a ring) was one of me making a horrible Muppet face. And my mom commented to please post something prettier.

        4. haleycrain +21

          Come Here You Have a Smoodge *dab dab wet napkin* And You Need a Little…Hmm *dab dab lipstick*

          1. tibia_ +8

            Pull Your Hair Back, Dear, So We Can See Your Pretty Face!

            I Found This Picture Of You From College, Your Hair Used To Look So Nice!

        9. Story #2 +47

          When I Was Your Age I Was Incredibly Thin (Part 312)
          Follow-Up: You’ve Lost Weight; Are You Eating Enough?

        12. klemay +11

          Aren’t You Going To Shower? (What? I couldn’t tell your hair was wet – I thought it was grease!)

          1. tragicallyludicrous +6

            my mom (fortunately) doesn’t say much of the others but THIS one, oh yeah, you better believe it. (with a side of “don’t be like me, look at all the stuff I have to get done!”)

        14. highfivesforall +46

          I Brought You Some Extra Dish Towels, They Were On Sale At Ocean State Job Lot, Isn’t It A Nice Pattern?

          2. highfivesforall +11

            I don’t know that she loves them, exactly, but she has brought me new sets of them at least 3 times in the past few years because “oh i just thought maybe you could use these”. See also: towels, bath mats, duvet covers, pillow cases… she’s just really concerned that I might not have enough linens in my house.

          3. tragicallyludicrous +3

            My mom loves dish towels but mostly ironic dish towels. And potholders. Basically, if you go on vacation, the best thing to get her is a dish towel or a pot holder.

          4. loren_smith +9

            My mum is really into them! But is also cheap (I inherited that) so it’s more likely to be “can you believe Linda was throwing these away! I picked them out of the garbage and brought them for you” while handing me some clean but obviously used dish towels. (Full disclosure – I use them).

          5. figwiggin +3

            My mom brought me back a dish towel from her trip to Greece. I mean, she brought other things too, but the dish towel really stood out.

          6. naglayaxuliganka +2

            Mine brought me a dish towel from Spain!

            NB It’s lovely and I use it a lot. Also, it what was she wrapped the rest of her gifts in…

          7. shahea +3

            Well, I can guarantee my mom does, at least. I have – at present – about 15 different dish towels, and I don’t think I bought a single one of them.

          9. daisicles +3

            Oh man, that’s my mom right there. She used to work at JCPenney and she’d just buy pretty much everything from the super-duper-awesome-clearance section and distribute it as necessary among everyone she knows.

            ‘I got you some towels for 50 cents each, if you don’t like them, I’ll go give them to Goodwill’
            ‘They had some scarves out for $3 and I thought you might like one of them, so just pick one and I’ll keep the other one’
            ‘I have no idea if these pajama shorts will fit you but they looked like they might, so here’
            ‘These chocolate-covered pretzels were on sale! Have some, I bought 4 boxes!’

            She left that job last year, but she still brought me a couple of camisoles she got for $1 apiece a couple weeks ago. I don’t even know how she finds these deals any more.

          10. dakimel +10

            My mom does the “just pick which one you want and I’ll keep the other” thing AND YOU KNOW IT’S A TRICK because you’ll pick the wrong one and get into invisible trouble for taking her favorite.

      2. figwiggin +24

        Wouldn’t Your Kitchen Be Better If I Just…? *Rearranges Everything* There, Now, See, Isn’t That Nice! Oh, You Can Tell Me If I’m Meddling. *Goes Back to Rearranging Things*

    2. elsamac +50

      At my not-a-bridal-shower-don’t-bring-presents thing, a talented friend (kindly) surprised me by bringing her professional camera equipment to take photos of the whole party. About 45 minutes in, she paused mid-shot and said “[Elsa], every time I point the camera at you, you make this face.”

      I said, “… I think that’s just my face.”

      She poked her head out from behind the massive camera, studied me intently, and then sucked in a hard lungful of air. “Oh. Yup.” And started snapping photos again.

      So that was relaxing.

  7. Jaya

    Oh man, when I got engaged the first photo I posted (after everyone started insisting on seeing a ring) was one of me making a horrible Muppet face. And my mom commented to please post something prettier.

    1. shahea +2

      I know what you meant by this comment, but I have to admit that I first was very confused, because this was the name of a Bad Guy character in a series of books I love.

  9. rkfire +29

    I am loving the drawing of the main character in Tip #8 where it’s her elementary school portrait with the laser beams in the background. Oh man. That background is the best background, and I love its addition into that wall of awkward childhood photos.

    1. mittenstheboar +8

      Have you seen pictures of the Halloween costume version? A twentysomething dressed awkwardly and attached a big panel of that backdrop behind her head, it looked amazing.

    2. stephanieho +7

      Also, many of my friends went to photo studios in the mall and got really fuzzy, washed out wallet photos, which we traded around like Pokemon cards.

      1. Ophelia

        If we were REALLY lucky/impressionable, we got Glamor Shots done at the mall, and traded THOSE. They were amazing at the time, and a little disturbing in retrospect.

  10. hugpunch +39

    The “honey why” is perfect for my mom, but she doesn’t know how to use emoticons. She does send me emails with the entire message in the subject line and nothing in the body of the email, so there’s that.

      1. tibia_ +11

        Although I actually taught my mom to use emoji in texts recently, which was cute. I advocate creating a Parents’ Book, which is like a Baby Book, but recording your parents’ first uses of technology. Dad’s first selfie. Mom’s first emoji. Etc.

        We are still trying to get my dad to stop signing all texts with “Love, Dad.”

        2. Dancing Narwhal +3

          My mom gets really excited when I teach her new kinds of emoji. And then I showed her how to make those moving cat pictures happen in facebook messages and she was thrilled.

          My dad is obsessed with checking in to places on facebook. I think he read somewhere that that’s what all the young people are doing now so whenever I go somewhere with him he’ll insist with both check in and/or take selfies there and post them.

          I think most of those hand-wringing internet trend piece articles are actually written about my parents.

      3. clairebm +11

        My mum has a great love of signing her emails off “M”. I still don’t know if this stands for Mum, Margaret (her name) or if she’s imagining herself as M from James Bond!

        1. dakimel +2

          I do ‘M’ for emails a lot in part because if I’m emailing my kids and forget that they don’t call me Mel my sign-off will still be correct. Also because I’m too lazy to type the other 6 letters in my name.

        2. TLO +13

          Mine too! If I haven’t called for awhile, she likes to end her emails with “Dial M for Mother.”

  12. stephanieho +15

    Every time I try that bandanna knot thing, I look like I belong in a women’s prison. HELP ME ITS SUCH A CUTE THING AGHGHAHG

  14. safvn +17

    I identify strongly with these. There are a fair amount of pictures of me in my unphotogetic alter ego, Chinly.

    Also I haven’t shaved my legs in a week and my showers are so much nicer.

  17. steampunk sparrow +12

    The adorable smile non-shaving lady is wearing in the second panel is officially The Best Thing. It conveys her (maybe a teensie bit smug) warmth and comfort so perfectly.

  18. SarcasticFringehead +4

    I was at my mom’s house a couple weeks ago going through some old stuff, and I’m pleased to report that I can now look back at my old photos with fondness rather than horror (I was such a dork, you guys, I can’t even) (I mean, I’m still a dork, but in a cool way I guess?)

  20. Christin +20

    I ship the two characters in #9. Are they a couple? I know it’s a comic but they’re a couple right? They’re both cute and belong together.

  21. boothjacobs +15

    i haven’t been photographed with a facial expression that occurs naturally since like 2008 and it’s SO GREAT.

    and regarding this my mother recently told me a story about how when i was like 7 she told me to stop making goofy faces for the camera and then realized that was just what my smile looked like and this has haunted her for years. the interaction, not my smile.

  22. shahea +12

    Even my beloved, who thinks, bless his heart, that I am beautiful, has said to me, “Love, you’re just not photogenic.” I always wanted to be the girl whose lover wanted to take gorgeous, artsy photos that would show me unawares and glorious and any time I’ve ever had someone try to take that photo (I think it’s happened twice ever) I look demented and not only unawares, but possibly brain damaged.

    1. MilesofMountain +19

      When I was online-dating, my mom said I had really unflattering photos on my profile. She made me dress up nice and go stand in the backyard while she took “better” photos. After about two dozen, she admitted defeat and said “you look fine when I look at you, but then I look through the camera and it’s just…[frown]” Thanks, mom.

      1. shahea +5

        Yep. There have been a few photos taken of me that I really like, but the vast majority of them end in someone shaking their head and saying, “But you look nothing like this in real life…”
        Still not sure I buy that. 😉

    2. icebergmama +4

      My sisters! Yes, I do all right in real life but nearly every photo of my face is horrendo. I guess I just have weird angles in my face?

    3. TARDIStime +5

      Same here. I think a lot of it might have to do with the photographer, though. Any photos Mr TARDIStime takes of me are… not flattering, really. Or any photos taken by family/friends.
      One day I had an actual proper photo shoot by a professional and I looked magic. I think she understood facial structure and composition in a way that regular people don’t. It also helps when you have a mad awesome camera, too. I can take dynamite selfies with my DSLR and some decent natural light, but my front-facing camera phone is a FAIL.

    4. msjinxie +15

      I sometimes wonder if I have, like, reverse-body-dysmorphia because I look in the mirror and think “Damn I look FOINE” and then I see photos and I think “Damn, that’s…that’s just not right.” I like to think it’s just that the camera doesn’t love me (and not that I love me too much).

      1. BellaG +1

        That’s me, too. I like how I look in the mirror, but in photos, I always look like a giant squid.

    5. Es_Petal +2

      I’ve grown into looking realistic in photos – as a teenager I looked like a balloon with badly drawn features, but I appear to have grown into my bone structure now. Better skin, eyebrows that don’t reach my hairline and no braces help, of course, but genuinely I look like an alien in teenage photos, and now even when they’re unflattering, they actually look like me. It happened in my early 20s quite suddenly!

  23. LittlestOak

    Mine too! If I haven't called for awhile, she likes to end her emails with "Dial M for Mother."

  25. John St. Jelly +1

    “Would shaving off all my body hair really make winter seem that much colder” is something I’ve often wondered but never tried. For the record, I’m about as hairy as Panel 9 Dude (maybe a tad more; the hair on my chest isn’t just crosshatches). So…would it?