OK, I get the overall joke, but what’s with the “Colonel” bit? Is this something cruise companies do–try to flatter people with bogus titles? If so, I need to sign up for a better class of junk mail.
Just seems odd and not relevant to the overall joke. What say ye?
(I’ve lived a version of this joke: 35 years ago, my wife and I were living in a townhouse. We went for a walk on a Sunday and the end unit in our building was having an open house. “Hey, let’s go look”, she said, “I’ve always wanted to see one of those end units”. A couple of months later, I’m carrying boxes down the sidewalk between townhouses as we start our move…)
Comics I Don't Understand 
At first I wanted to suggest that “Captain” or “Commodore” would have been more logical titles for that flyer, but if Phil’s “flattery” hypothesis is correct, then perhaps a cruise company would not want to misuse “naval” ranks.
P.S. My own “housing” anecdote went the other way: We were renting the end unit of a townhouse, and wanted to move (anywhere) to get away from the odious landlords (a pair of truly obnoxious Bavarian brothers). Ten years ago, completely by coincidence, another “middle” unit in the same row went on the market, and we were lucky enough to get to the real estate agent first. The sellers just happened to be a different pair of (elderly) Bavarian brothers, but they were extremely polite and very friendly.
I sometimes joke that we “moved into the West” (German parlance for “leaving East Germany“), but then I reveal “by 230 feet“. The distance was so short that it didn’t make sense to hire movers or even rent a truck; instead, we ferried most of the stuff in the trunk of our car, room by room. Since the layout of the new house was virtually identical, all our furniture fit perfectly.
The only thing I miss a little from the old house would be the windows in the end wall (the ground floor bay window in the living room was quite nice), but that end wall was also a major disadvantage: that house always felt cold. Our new house has other units on both sides, and is much warmer.
@Kilby: “that end wall was also a major disadvantage: that house always felt cold. Our new house has other units on both sides, and is much warmer.”
An eccentric relative rented a middle unit, and turned their heat off all winter (midwestern US), getting enough heat from the neighboring units and from another layer of clothing. (There wasn’t much noise insulation between the units, either.)
@ zbicyclist (2) – My last apartment in the U.S. (before I moved to Germany) was on the top (third) floor of the middle building in a row of five; the furnace for the radiators in all five buildings was in our basement, and was heavily overpowered. Even at the lowest possible radiator setting, there was so much heat in that apartment that I had to leave one window open by an inch or two all winter long.
P.S. The building supervisor explained that the extra power was required to make sure that the last units in the houses at either end of the line got enough heat.
The strip is funnier if Dagwood can reflect something that is not quite right in the address when he speaks to Herb in the last panel, especially if that something is inappropriately flattering to Herb. It could just as well have been a reference to Dr. Woodley. No reason for the error is implied or needed, although the strip is open to the possibility that this could have been a title that Herb inappropriately claimed.
I guess I do get the better class of junk mail, since I get mail addressed to Dr. Usual John all the time. It’s because I am a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, notwithstanding my lack of any advanced science degrees. Junk mailers seem to consider that that is enough to confer at least an honorary doctorate on me.
I can’t stand unsolicited junk mail. If I wanted information about Chinese boats, I’d ask for it.
I’m on the top floor of a three-story building. The apartment below me is a rental. I can often tell when the occupants change (though I don’t actually ever see them) – they seem to alternate between “never turn the heat on” (in which case I have to, in winter) and “keep it hot all day and night” (in which case I have open windows in the winter). It’s condos; we share one furnace but each unit can turn on forced air heat for themselves (or not).
Kilby – When we moved from our apartment to our house – 1/4 to 1/2 mile – say equivalent of 8- 10 blocks (some of the blocks are very long and some are normal length so hard to tell) we decided that we could move everything but the furniture ourselves. We were not young and foolish kids, we were in our mid 30s and should have known better.
For a couple of weeks we were driving back and forth between the two bringing things to the house (not furniture). When the movers came and moved what was left – one fellow spent his entire time at the apartment and the house moving cartons of books – I think he also may have done the records (LPs) (many, many more cartons of books than records). And at the house all of both had to go upstairs.
And when this was done – there was still stuff for us to go back and get!
This relatively short move did move us from one community – the one husband grew up in – to the next community. We still live in the house. Every now and then he comes up with “We should move to Lancaster (PA.)” – which was our plan for retirement when we were younger for when we got “old”. I look around the house shake my head and say to him ‘HOW!” I don’t think I could go through all the work of selling our house, buying a new house and moving to the new house (which these days might be Williamsburg, VA instead of Lancaster). In addition, should we in the future need support (not financial) as we continue to age – both of our families live here on Long Island – 3 sisters,their spouses and their children and all but one of our niblings is already an adult. (Currently my money on his younger niece to be the one who ends up helping us.)
So since I dread this idea so much – I cannot even start to imagine moving from Germany back to the US!
I’ve been slowly moving things from the suburban house to the Fancy New Apartment. Not a lot of furniture will go, although I did bring one of the “bistro table” set to go out on the balcony. I loaded it into the Venerable Bronco but my sister and BIL wanted to visit so I made them help wrangle it up from the parking garage. It looks similar to this one, but a different mosaic pattern and colors.
The Blondie comic would be extra puzzling for any newspaper readers where the top two panels were discarded.
Speaking of that, we discussed some time back Lee Enterprises papers going to a standard lineup of strips, at the time all Andrews-McMeel/Universal/GoComics. I guess the they bid it out again, as a few weeks ago started an entirely new set, now King Features/Comics Kingdom. So we get Blondie now. And yes, they cut the top panels.
The Fancy Newest Apartment is on the seventh (top) floor, whereas I was on the fourth until this past June. It’s hard to tell if the electric costs have been higher as I wasn’t in the lower one during much of the summer. Doesn’t matter, top floor is better.
I did not see the first two panels in my paper, but I actually found it less confusing that way.
I thought Dagwood was just sarcastically giving Herb a fancy title to go along with the fancy brochures he gets in the mail.
But if the mail was actually addressed to Colonel Herbert Woodley, I’m completely stumped.
@ Brian (9) – Re: Lee Enterprises
The comic switchover was discussed in a couple of articles at The Daily Cartoonist, and was of course proclaimed triumphantly by King Features. I am very glad that I am not dependent on the idiots at Lee for any form of news or entertainment.
Stan:
It’s the barge in my mail that gets me.
It’s a pretty big FU move to your readers to swap every comic strip with new ones. About the only thing worse would be to just drop the section entirely.