In Gasoline Alley, it’s often difficult to know who is actually who; it’s got a large cast and characters important but not central to the specific plotline sometimes aren’t introduced real clearly and don’t appear often enough to get a good sense of who they are on sight. The Wallet Family History by Stephen M. Lawson is a great help here. Old Babbling Grandpa in panel one is Amanda Lynn’s father, Adam. (He and his wife Teeka have appeared in this plotline a few times; her name is somewhat easier to remember.)
Anyhow, this is a wonderful example of the kind of thing that makes this strip so delightful. Sturdivant Kleeb has been nothing but a giant twit through his introduction. But today, Adam decides to top him: Rather than letting the young lovers (in a purely spiritual sense, since Sturdy’s promised his lipginity) have their time, he demands that they go to bed, lest the hay bales go unbaled in the morning, or whatever chores absolutely positively have to be done at 5:30 in the morning, before they turn back into pumpkins.
But how the hell does Adam know that the Obviously Not Gonna Stay In Love-birds are still up? It’s not like they’re shouting, or worse, playing basketball, outside his window. If Adam were asleep, their conversation wouldn’t wake him up. So the conclusion to be drawn is that he’s up late, just like he’s berating Sturdy and Amanda for doing. And worse, he’s spying on them, which, let’s face it, is creepy.
(I guess in a sense we’re spying on them too, but we at least have the decency to feel dirty about it.)
I also just noticed that Adam has closed his window by the third panel, but he’s still shouting through it, which apparently indicates a fundamental lack of understanding of some of the basic properties of matter, which sadly is about par for the course.
