"A Very Rare Mary Worth..."

Understand something basic about me. I was promoted to a higher level of kindergarten back in the mid-1970s based mostly on my ability to read Brenda Starr on my own. Ignore the fact I pronounced Basil as if he was a seasoning and to this very day I get the pronunciations confused both ways...

Well anyways, despite not currently subscribing to a daily newspaper, I try to keep up with certain daily strips when I can. I've always scanned Mary Worth mostly out of some odd respect for its (and other soap opera strips of its ilk) ability to drag a plot out longer than any TV soap opera or mainstream comic crossover event.

And of course, Mary Worth is the source of one of my favorite Simpsons' lines, as documented by Wikipedia:

"...where Jeff Albertson (Comic Book Guy)'s display case contains 'a very rare Mary Worth in which she has advised a friend to commit suicide'. "

So tonight, after catching up on Funky Winkerbean (mock me if you will, but it, along with Doonesbury and For Better or For Worse, entertain me on a regular basis more than anything by Bendellis [my new nickname for anything by Bendis or Ellis or the other fan flavors of the month...]) I strolled over to visit Mary Worth, and read the About Mary Worth info.

There I found the following synopsis of one of the strip's major characters:

"Victoria 'Toby' Cameron
Mary's close friend and neighbor at Charterstone. Toby is the "thirty-something" second wife of Professor Ian Cameron. Although she is an accomplished artist specializing in miniatures, Toby seems to spend most of her time at Mary's kitchen table, sipping coffee and repeating neighborhood gossip [italics added by O'Shea]."

I don't know if the creators wrote this damn funny line or someone in the syndicate office, either way, I love the inclusion.