Thanks to Chipper 42 for sending and commenting on this one.
“Thu, February 29, 2024 Hagar — I have no idea. Helga looks like she is enthusiastically prancing to do the dishes, and what is the checkered cloth about?”
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Comics I Don't Understand 
The “prance” is a flirtatious offer to wash the dishes, and the cloth is a standard dish towel, meant as an unsubtle demand that Hagar should help out with the drying.
And the Twentieth-Century stamped metal garbage can is … an anachronism.
She’s playing the young damsel dropping her handkerchief (dish towel in this case) to entice her suitor to pick it up for her.
Kind of cute, made me smile.
Okay, I accept the explanation that she’s flirting with Hagar while about to start the dishes & encouraging his participation by dropping the dishtowel. I haven’t regularly read Hagar for decades. Is Helga flirting with Hagar normal these days? I don’t recall that from back in the 80s.
Also, Hagar’s whole posture in his chair makes me think he’s watching a TV just off-screen, and that anachronism made me smile when I realized it.
The last time I read this comic regularly, there was definitely more of an antagonistic relationship between them.
Taking a quick look at the last week or so, I’ve seen positive (this comic), negative (her griping about him) and neutral.
Helga’s flirting in this strip is probably linked to it running of Leap Year Day, Feb 29.
The day when the girls are supposed to chase the guys.
And she’s probably reenacting the time when she first caught Hagar.
I agree with Chipper42 and Karl – This may be the first time I’ve ever seen a smile on Helga’s face. In my (admittedly limited) experience with this strip, her relationship with Hagar has usually been somewhat like Blanche with the Wizard of Id.
Hagar, like BC, is full of anachronisms. In both cases, that’s part of their schtick.
Carl Fink – as are the pots. pans, dish towel, sink, cabinets, dishes and glasses.
And it is not like reenacting where sometimes someone just needs to wear something modern – such a leg cast – or use modern things for cleaning for health (of the members) purposes.
(Rereading my post sounds a bit nasty – it was not intended to be so.)
Meryl: No nastiness detected here.
Yeah, not nasty. Try again!
Thank you everyone for the input! I was very confused by this one! 🤣😂