Editing 946: Family Decals

{{comic
| number    = 946
| date      = September 2, 2011
| title     = Family Decals
| image     = family decals.png
| titletext = My decal set has no adults, just a sea of hundreds of the little girl figures closing in around a single cat.
}}

==Explanation==
There exists a current fashion among car owners to place {{w|decal|decals}} on their back window that represent their family. The decals consist of stick figures to depict the parents and children, perhaps shown doing a favorite activity, and even pets.

The first car window features a couple with three children, while the other shows just a couple ([[Cueball]] and [[Megan]]), with piles of dollar bills and two large bags with dollar signs on them. The humor comes from the opportunity cost implied in this — not having children allows you to avoid the expense of raising them and accumulate money for your own use.

One might expect that the cars would represent the difference in wealth, and they are identified as 'urban SUV' and 'sporty hatch back' in the [http://xkcd.com/946/info.0.json official transcript]. The larger car is a {{w|Subaru Outback}} which is a typical car used by families. The second car is a {{w|Honda Fit}}, which is a budget compact hatchback, in the comic it has a spoiler added. The Subaru Outback is more expensive now than the Honda Fit, which seems to fit perfect with the comic's implication since a family of five have to buy the large expensive hatchback. Being able to buy a smaller car that doesn't need to hold a five member family also allows you to save more money.

The title text refers to the humorous description of cats as the real masters of their household, and the little girls surrounding the cat refers to their ability to influence humans with their cuteness (as referenced in [[231: Cat Proximity]]). One implication might be that any adults in the household act childishly around the cat, so they are best depicted as children. The title text could also be a reverse of the stereotypical "crazy cat lady". Instead of someone owning a very large quantity of cats it could be one cat with an ungodly number of little girls.

==Transcript==
:[Close up of the rear ends of two cars parked next to each other. Both have white stickers on their black rear windows. The car on the left is an urban SUV and most of the rear is visible with all the lights and a readable license plate with gray text visible. Its stickers represent a family. From left to right they are a Cueball-like guy, a woman with white hair like Blondie (i.e. black shows through), a girl with two ponytails, a boy of the same height and a smaller boy, both boys Cueball-like. The car on the right is a sporty hatch back, and only the left part until the middle is shown. The left lights and the very left part of the license plate can be seen. Its stickers show Cueball, Megan and then a large pile of dollar notes (six piles of different heights) and two large money bags with dollar signs on them, and the rear left bag is partly hidden by two piles of notes.]
:License plate of SUV: ICE-LI3
:License plate of sporty hatch back: 4[cut off]

==Trivia==
*Decals based on this comic do, in fact, exist.


{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Blondie]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Money]]