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| Husband and Wife |
 Title text: Borat came out twenty years ago this year--closer to the breakup of the Soviet Union than to today--but it honestly feels like it's been even longer, somehow. |
Explanation
Megan and Cueball are discussing the phrases that married couples use to refer to each other, traditionally "my husband" and "my wife". Megan thinks it sounds too traditional to refer to a spouse as a possession.
Cueball, on the other hand, isn't bothered as much by this implication than by the association with 2006 film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Borat had a distinct, cringy way of saying "my wife", which Cueball can't get out of his head when he uses the phrase.
Megan's concern may be a little overblown. "My" isn't only used to denote possession, it's also often used to refer to a close association. For instance, 'my mother', 'my friend', 'my teacher' or 'my cleaner' almost never imply ownership. This construction is not only used for people, for example, a student or employee may refer to "my school" or "my company", and people often say "my town" to refer to the place where they live, without any concern over the speaker 'owning' any of them.
On the other hand, Cueball has a serious problem -- it's hard to forget that earworm. The title text points out that the 20 years from the movie's release to the publication of this comic is longer than the 15 years from the breakup of the Soviet Union to the movie (Kazakhstan was a former member of the USSR). This could be considered one of the comics where Randall makes people feel old, even if this time unintentionally. Coincidentally enough, Cueball uses a 'cringy ghost' as a descriptor for how annoying it is - Yet strange & random ghosts have been referred to before on xkcd.
Transcript
[Across 3 panels, Megan & Cueball are talking] 1st Panel:
Megan: I still feel a little weird saying the phrase “my husband”.
Megan: It makes me feel so traditional, like a Victorian gossip.
2nd Panel:
Cueball: Yeah, well, my plight isn’t much better.
Megan: What do you mean?
Cueball: What’s the most salient cultural reference for the phrase “my wife”?
[In the 3rd panel, Cueball has his hand raised]
Megan: Ughhhh, true.
Cueball: Even now, after two decades, when I speak of you I hear his voice, echoing through the halls of memory like a cringy ghost.
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