Many years ago, I had read about a pun in a Jughead Jones edition of the Archies Comics series. Jughead shoos Archie, his chum, out of the house because he is in the mood for an afternoon siesta. After a lot of deliberation Archie is out of the house and Jughead surrenders his eager soul to his favourite couch. He falls into a dream where he sees himself in front of a mountain of hamburgers. (Anyone who is familiar with the characters in Archies would know what this dream meant for Jughead.) Just when he is about to plunge into that mountain of burgers, the doorbell rings. Jughead’s mercury sky-rockets as he walks to the door, realising that the paradise he was just about to make his own, was but a dream. He opens the door to a postman who has come to the wrong address (as though that he had come at that fateful time was not bad enough) and asks him for directions. Jughead slams the door with a rare invective that , I remember had to be written all over two regular strips in the columns, of which otherwise, even a small one usually accommodates Jughead’s small, pointed words with ease.
After slamming the door on the poor uniformed creature’s face, Jughead returns to the couch desperately hoping that he could still fall asleep and catch the kite-like paradise, the dream, whose string had so cruelly slipped away from his hands because of the sheer villainy of chance. And soon enough he falls into a sound sleep, although this time he is finds himself in the central mozzarella-pool of an enormous pizza. He is grateful, elated and humbled. His spirits soaring up, he is just about to lose himself in that cheesy, melting joy when the phone rings viciously near his ear. He wakes up with a start, and this time his under eye, I remember, had dark spots of gloom and utter disappointment. This time, the invective that he uses does not feature the alphabet at all. It appears to have been selected from a universal script of ancient symbols used regularly on such occasions by civilised print media.
Disgruntled, harrowed and convinced of the evil world and its unforgivable malice for him, Jughead sits upon the couch, chin-on-hands and sheds a few tears of sorrow. However, after some time, the very tears lull him to sleep. This time he sees the Almighty’s glory in full splendour. Both the mountain of hamburgers and the giant pizza lie waiting for him. He is ecstatic...nay insane is the word. And insane with the glory of God, jubilant with the regaining of a paradise lost, he pardons all the sins the postman and the caller had committed and with a touch of devilish victory in his eyes, rubbing his palms, he prepares for that one step of Jughead, a giant leap for....Jughead!
The door bell rings again. It is Archie. Veronica has dumped him once again and he is not sure if it is ok to ask Betty out on a date. So, he thought.....might...as well......a..as..sk an old ch....u...u..m. Thats it! Jughead starts banging his head violently on the door to which Archie, completely bewildered asks why is he doing so? And then Jughead says: Because it feels so good when I stop.
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