Every fall it happens. One day the grocery store is normal, and the next morning every shelf is orange. Pumpkin spice coffee, pumpkin spice cookies, pumpkin spice cereal, and products nobody ever asked to taste like a pie. This week in the Funny Papers, Slick and Muffin walk straight into the middle of it.

The Strip, Panel by Panel

Panel 1: Muffin stops dead in the aisle, eyes huge, pointing at shelf after shelf of orange packages. “Slick! Pumpkin spice EVERYTHING!”

Panel 2: Slick, cool as ever, already has a cup in his paw. “Pumpkin spice coffee? Sure.” A raccoon has to have standards, and a warm fall latte is clearly one of them.

Panel 3: Muffin holds up her next discovery like a trophy. “Pumpkin spice toothpaste!”

Panel 4: Slick crosses his arms. Some things are sacred. “That’s where I draw the line.”

Panel 5: But Muffin knows exactly where Slick’s weak spot is. She hugs a big burlap bag and turns on the pleading eyes. “Pumpkin spice acorns?”

Panel 6: And there goes the line. Slick sighs, smiles, and drops the bag into the cart. “Okay… ONE bag.”

Why It Works

Everybody has a line they swear they won’t cross, and everybody has that one thing that knocks the line right over. For Slick it’s acorns. For the rest of us it might be the pumpkin spice donut by the register. The joke isn’t really about pumpkin spice at all. It’s about how fast “absolutely not” turns into “okay, just one” when the right snack shows up.

That’s the Funny Papers every Sunday morning: a cup of coffee, a comfy chair, and Slick and Muffin getting into something everybody recognizes.

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Slick and Muffin also star in the Heritage Hollow Adventures books, and you can find more Choice1-3D books on the bookshelf.