this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2026
244 points (99.6% liked)

xkcd

15678 readers
277 users here now

A community for a webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The bot appears to be down, so it's now up to me again like in the old days to post new xkcd comics here. :D

As always, you are permitted to call one person for guidance, but that person must be a grandparent.

https://explainxkcd.com/3217/

top 19 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Deebster@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

The bot appears to be down

Oh, thanks for telling me...

Bot is back online.

[–] OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world 34 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Give the skunk a Bloody Mary. The vodka will help dissolve the gum and will help with the hangover, the tomato juice will help neutralize the smell, the garnish will keep the lil guy occupied as to not bite you.

[–] FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 14 points 2 days ago

"Hair of the dog that bit you" approach is okay but idk if a drunk skunk is better than a hung over one.

Contestant 3 gave the skunk gatorade, water, and advil.

Contestant 2 appears to have gone into shock of an unrelated delayed release monkshead and nightshade poisoning coupled with arythmia caused by meat-only diet. This was all actually predicted by the odds in the betting market.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Freeze the skunk.

  • gum falls off
  • no smell
  • skunk has no hangover anymore
[–] flambonkscious@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

How are you managing that in 30 minutes?

Liquid nitrogen?

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago

Just make it cold enough?

[–] grue@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

TIL Cueball is Alton Brown.

[–] witty_username@feddit.nl 7 points 2 days ago

... To do what

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 8 points 2 days ago (2 children)

oh wow I really needed the explanation for this one 😂

[–] Yosmonkol@piefed.social 9 points 1 day ago

Some "old home remedies" would be: tomato sauce, for skunk; peanut butter, for gum; and prairie oyster cocktail, for hangover. Most of these either don't work or make the mess worse so a game show where people try this on a wild animal would be disastrous and possibly humorous if you ignore the animal abuse.

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You don't have a home remedy for removing skunk smell, removing gum from hair or curing a hangover?

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

No.... I know of skunks from the cartoon Pépé the Skunk, but I never really reconnected that with reality, as in, they smell bad IRL, that's not just a cartoon thing. So that prevented me from identifying the xkcd being about grandma's remedies.

[–] emeralddawn45@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Skunks smell fine, they just have the ability to spray predators with a scent that smells fucking awful. The skunk itself doesn't usually smell like that though, and if they aren't afraid for their life they're actually super friendly cuddly creatures. They're like cats with a stinkbomb cannon.

[–] Hadriscus@jlai.lu 1 points 15 hours ago

I didn't know all that, thanks for the skunk lore !

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

they smell bad IRL

They smell about as bad as a feral cat. What they do is they make you smell bad if you scare them.

[–] hyperencabulator@lemmy.today 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not just bad either, vomit-inducing, appetite-destroying-bad. It's their defense mechanism from large things with sharp teeth that haven't eaten in 24h. The smell stays on you and anything the liquid touches for weeks. Burn the clothes, wait for new skin cells to replace the existing ones. Pray it isn't on something like your car or place of residence.

[–] Waraugh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 day ago

We have a skunk that roams around our back yard. Our dog got within a foot of it once, luckily didn’t get spayed. I can tell when he’s outside, just the lingering odor of their spray fills the entire outdoors. It is incredible how potently disgusting their actual spray is.

[–] ludrol@bookwyr.me 2 points 1 day ago

Taskmaster type challenge