Smells Like Septuagenarian Spirit

See it here.

If you're not familiar with the layout of Burl and Joy's house, you might assume they locked Ma in the garage or out of the house.

But no. It's more funny than that. They closed the door on Ma, who is using their bathroom.

Did I say more funny? I meant more revolting.

Seriously, the artist wants you to imagine what she cannot bring herself to draw: Joy's mother on the toilet, taking a crap, with the door open to the living room and next to the kitchen. To make matters worse, she also wants you to imagine the smells. The panel is layered with references to sulfur and to opening a window, in case you are attempting to resist that particular impulse.

For once, we sympathize with Burl and Joy, who simply want to close the door on someone using their toilet. They would prefer the sights, sounds, and smells be contained within the bathroom and not a public spectacle. There's simply no way this can be construed as poking fun at them. And if it is, then the attempt is seriously misguided.

The most apparent joke, instead, is at the expense of a demented old woman who refuses to close the bathroom door while having a bowel movement. An old woman with abandonment issues who lives in fear that her feckless family will use the opportunity of a closed door to slip silently away, leaving her to the mercy of the jackals. And it will be easy for the jackals to locate her in this case, because of the fresh scent of spoor.

Note to Ms. Larson...making fun of deranged old people is cruel, not funny.

Closing the door on the margins

• I'm assuming F-1 and F-2 are references to potential activities on the toilet. We've seen this joke before. I don't quite understand the "F" in front of them, however. I suppose they could be references to keyboard function keys, and a semi-pun on "bodily function". That seems a serious stretch of the imagination, however.
  
• I like the appalled look on the clown's face and his apparent attempt to flee the picture and panel frame. Too bad for him this isn't a Harry Potter story.
• See No Evil? I understand the expression of a desire to avoid witnessing a septuagenarian use the toilet. But why pick a movie whose tagline was: Eight Teens, One Weekend, One Serial Killer?
• See No Evil On Ice. This is another one of those running gags that Ms. Larson uses with appalling frequency. As if adding "On Ice" to any title instantly transforms it to humor. Sadly, this is not the case.
• The panel has 5 sentences and 5 punctuation marks at the end of sentences. And yet, one sentence ends with no punctuation mark at all. Conclusion: The Dinette Set has no editor and no review process.