The evils of babysitting, unromantic husbands, and efficiency experts

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	• At Least This Place Sells T-Shirts: A FoxTrot Collection Bill Amend Andrews McMeel Publishing, 1996 - 128 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The evils of babysitting, unromantic husbands, and efficiency experts

"There's nothing like going into a big bookstore on a cold winter evening...finding a collection of short stories that you'd always meant to read...taking off your coat...plopping down in their café...and watching shoppers come and go as you sit back and sip on coffee. Ah, bliss."
"Mom, did you bring your credit card? They have every STAR TREK book." (Jason)
"Since calendars are half-price, can I get Niki *and* Stephanie?" (Peter)
"Fourth and one and they're *punting*?" (Roger, on headphones)
"At least this place sells T-shirts." (Paige)
"Ah, reality."
- Mrs. Fox and family, herein

All the cartoons in this collection are included - in the same order - in the omnibus FOXTROT BEYOND A DOUBT except for the single-page additions of Jason personalizing a T-shirt and the dedication page's picture of Quincy the iguana with a teddy bear. The Sunday double strips are not in colour in this book, although they are printed in colour in FOXTROT BEYOND A DOUBT.

Unless you're particularly attached to the smaller size of this book, its cute cover art, or the three single frame cartoons that were added for the dedication and endpages as described above, I recommend considering FOXTROT BEYOND A DOUBT instead, since it includes all the content of this book with the addition of colour formatting for the Sunday strips, together with content from the previous collection RETURN OF THE LONE IGUANA.

Having said that, let's move on to the content. :)

FOXTROT maintains a continuing storyline, although the kids seem to be growing up rather slowly despite the passing seasons. This particular book begins during the Fox family's summer holidays and ends the following spring.

Some of the memorable bits include:
- Paige babysits for Margaret O'Dell from her mother's book club for the first time, whose little girl is cute but whose babysitting conditions are dire. "Hi there! You must be little Katherine!" "Um, it's 'Katherine', with a 'K'." "That's what I said." "No, you said 'Catherine' with a 'C'. I could tell. Hold on - I'll be right back." "Hi, there! You must be the little girl who's going to need massive therapy in twelve years!" (Peter, much later, takes a dog-sitting job looking after a crazed little canine Nac Mac Feegle - pit bull aggression levels in a toy dog's body).
- Jason and Marcus experiment with model rockets and with the biggest kite they can manage to put together.
- The Fox family takes a family vacation to Fun-Fun Universe (not to be confused with Disney World, of course).
- Paige learns during a speech in social studies class not to listen to her dad's advice on how to control her nerves: "Yowza! It's like a Chippendales show!"
- Peter's first anniversary of dating Denise and his efforts to select a good present (genes from his mom's side, since his dad buys spatulas for Valentine's Day). He also goes through some rather trying study sessions with her while her parents aren't home.
- Jason's classmate Eileen beats his score on a math test; she suckers him into going out for ice cream with her family afterward, even though he officially doesn't like girls.
- Paige is assigned to write a ghost story in English class. After she makes Jason the victim, she gets an A plus an appointment with the school counselor.
- Paige's brother Peter passes himself off as her secret admirer as a joke.
- Jason asks for Doomathon II for Christmas, but trades it at the computer store after his mom becomes addicted to it. "Mom convinced me that I was too young to have a game like that in the house...I mean, *I* can't do my laundry."
- Roger suffers through an efficiency expert at work who complains at finding perfectly good paper clips in the trash and is then treated to lunch at the Ritz by the boss.
- The baseball team players, including Peter, shave their heads after losing a bet with the soccer team (which temporarily cheers Peter's balding father no end).

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At Least This Place Sells T-Shirts. Foxtrot, All Great!

I've been a Foxtrot reader for a long time and personally I think there is something suspiciously wrong with people who don't find Bill Amend's characters funny as all get out. If you want a good laugh, check out Bill in your local newspaper, or better yet, get one of the Foxtrot books. They are all great, really, they are.

Like many of Mr. Amend's fans I'm a bit disappointed he's switching his strip to Sunday-only, but fortunately I can still read him daily in the Foxtrot books. Get them one and all and you can keep right on a laughing.

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Good-Natured, Good-Humored and a Whole Lot of Fun

I have been a faithful FoxTrot reader for years. Roger, Andy and their kids Peter, Paige and Jason are always good for a reality check with a large dose of laughter. I've got two girls and let me tell you, I see a lot of my kids in Paige with, I believe, even a healthy dose of Jason thrown in. And they have Peter's bottomless stomach. Of course, they're faithful FoxTrot readers too. I used to read the strip to them, explain what was going on, but now they get it just fine and we three all laugh together. Then my girls try and explain the strip to their dad, who pretends he doesn't get it.

The FoxTrot folks are a great family, one we sort of got used to checking up on every day, so we took the news that Mr. Amend was going to cease daily distribution of his wonderfully funny people and turn his strip to Sunday only, with a bit of sadness. Still, we have these terrific FoxTrot books to keep us going with our FoxTrot fix. Mr. Amend is to be commended for his great gift to our culture and his great gift to so many lives. I truly believe a laugh a day, helps keep the blues away and the FoxTrot gang are always good for a laugh. Heck there are a lot of laughs in the FoxTrot books. I know, I have them all and I am, along with my girls and my hubby dear, eagerly awaiting the next one.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention, we don't have an iguana, but my girls do have a pet gecko and, you guessed it, his name is Quincy.

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At least this place sells good comic books

Oh, my lord this is like the greatest Foxtrot ever written. The Strips are so cool and the stories are soooooooooooo funny espesialy when Roger smokes a cigar and Paige writes a ghost story. Truely, very fuuny

A wonderfully funny read!

This is a great book to give to someone as a gift to introduce them to the humor of Foxtrot. It is wonderfully funny and engrossing: you will have finished it before you realize it!

reviews: page 1, 2

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