Welcome to Archieness & Riverdalers Presents: Betty (Vol. 1), Issue #179!

Betty (Vol. 1) , Issue #179 [June, 2009]

”Those Nasty Budget Cuts!” – George Gladir

Let’s take a look at that cover art for a second. It seems to me that Green Day has arrived in Riverdale for a concert and they were immediately arrested for suspicion of drug possession and aircraft hijacking. Betty knows they’re innocent, and her protests will be heard!

Principal Weatherbee watches a picket line outside the school in disgust. The parents are right to protest the school’s budget cuts, but what can Weatherbee do? He’s only ONE man! He’s not even TWO men even though he looks he weighs enough for it! Ha! Rude! Body shaming is rude even though I do it in the mirror every morning and evening,

“A group of girls would like to stage a Green Day event on school premises this Saturday!” announces Miss Grundy. I’m going to have to refrain from talking about Billie Joe Armstrong for the rest of this story, as much as I’m urged to. Weatherbee says this Green Day event is out of the question! Good Riddance! Wake him when September ends!

Betty and her buds enter Weatherbee’s office to tell him that the Green Day thing won’t cost even a pretty penny! Even the prettiest of pennies. Not even Penny Marshall, who I’d consider handsome and also she died in 2018. It’s all volunteer-based, baby!

Go suck a Dookie, Weatherbee.

Weatherbee won’t have it. He thinks money will have to be involved SOMEWHERE, and it’s not coming out of his smelly pockets. “We’ve already had to cancel orders for computers,” he says, eliminating everyone’s dream of owning Encarta ‘95, “and other much-needed supplies!”

Betty and her very environmentally friendly pals want to do the Green Day event anyway even if Weatherbee is being a pee-soaked blanket. A real stick in the cunt. Veronica overhears Betty complaining and offers a vacant lot. Her dad has those just lying around everywhere! He’d be happy to let you use one for $850 per hour!

Capital! They set up on Saturday! There’s a whole crowd waiting to get into the lot, probably because there are promises to meet Gerard Butler and have him sign a baseball or something.

Assistant Principal Rita points out all the neato keen booths they have set up on the lot. “Low Energy Homes”! “Mulching and Composting”! “Tree Planting”! It’s like a boring person’s paradise! Miss Grundy is impressed with the recycling bin! You can throw anything in there and it might possibly be recycled if someone gives enough of a shit! Wow!

The recycling proceeds go directly to Riverdale High, so Weatherbee is going to love those extra six nickels. Maybe he can buy a fifth of a Snickers bar. Actually, haha, they raised enough to restore the major budget cuts! Ha ha ha, what?! That’s pretty sad! A pile of cans saved the school?? I’m dumbfounded!

So is Mr. Weatherbee! He spent about 95% of the money on a stupid green suit, complete with a green tie and a green cane. He looks like a fucking leprechaun. “SO WHEN’S OUR NEXT GREEN DAY?!” he yells happily as Betty vomits in the corner.

”Greeting Card” – Mike Pellowski

Betty’s going to start her new job at Megamart today! She’s going to be the first greeter ever hired under the age of 81. She’ll be making $4.95 per hour and she’ll be paid in vouchers for the Little Caesar’s that’s tucked away in the corner of the store that constantly smells like a carnival.

I wrote all that stuff about Betty being a greeter before she even reveals that she’s going to actually be a greeter. Ho-Lee Shit.

No cussing or ethnic slurs today, Betty. We had already talked about this, remember?

Betty is a perfect greeter! She has clean teeth and a non-Fran Drescher laugh and her blonde hair feels like vermicelli. “I think Betty is going to be the best greeter we ever had!” says the small, portly manager whose nametag is just an incomprehensible scribble.

“This job should be a cinch,” Betty thinks, puttin’ on the ol’ smile. Just wait until some 10-year-old freak throws balloons filled with maple syrup at her. This basically is a WalMart, after all.

What ends up happening is that Betty greets SO enthusiastically that it’s scaring off some of the more frequent centenarian customers. “HELLO, I’M BETTY! WELCOME TO MEGAMART! THE FRIENDLY STORE!” She is treated like a dullard. Who could blame anyone?

Betty is so exhausted from her first day saying hello to strangers that she has nightmares about how shitty her job actually is. Kids are mean, old ladies are mean, strange men in trench coats are extra mean.

Betty’s so nightmare-stressed that she’s literally pooping her pants.

By the time she wakes up, she’s already running late for another 19-hour shift. “GRRR!! YEAH!” she says to her mom in a sleep-addled tizzy. “WELCOME TO STINKIN’ MEGAMART!! NOW GET IN HERE AND BUY SOMETHING!!”

We all learn that being a greeter sucks so fucking much that even one day of it is torture murder. Betty quits her job. The end.

”Dog Daze” – Mike Pellowski

One day Betty brings home a yapping little rat named Precious. It’s Mrs. Gray’s pet dog and she brought it home to ruin her parents’ lives for a few days. What do you say, Mom and Dad. Can Betty babysit this little walking poop eater?

All Dad cares about is if the dog is a) well-behaved, and b) housebroken. And Betty’s like “HA HA OF COURSE while simultaneously trying to hide the fact that Precious is emptying a gallon of pee all over her hands as she speaks. “Don’t worry, Hal,” says Mrs. Cooper. “A dog that size won’t be any trouble at all!”

Famous last words, Mamacita. Dad comes home after a long day at the salt mines where he mines salt for as much money as Betty made as a Megamart greeter. “All I want to do is park in my easy chair and relax until dinner!” he says, exclamation point and all. But the dog is sitting in the chair already, and it bites the seat of Hal’s pants right off his fatass butt. He gives Betty stern looks while she defends the dog for being in unfamiliar surroundings.

The damn dog is sexually harassing me like Homer in that one episode with the gummy Venus de Milo.

Later, during dinner, the family spends a hell of time trying to stop the dog from jumping on the table and eating their food. They chase the dog all over the house for eight hours while their food turns into lumps of ice on their plates!

Later, when Betty goes to bed, she finds the dog cramping her style yet again! “Precious! Get off of my bed! You sleep on the floor! DOWN, GIRL!!” she yells futilely at the little mutt. It starts yipping at her until she gives up and lets it sleep in her bed.

Yes, I know I keep calling Precious an “it”. I don’t fucking care. I hate this dog and I want to punt it into the sun.

It scratches the bedroom door at 4am. It continues to steal seats from Dad. It is a constant nuisance until Mrs. Gray (who looks like the old lady from the Looney Tunes cartoons) returns to pick up her little fucker.

“Would you like to tell Precious goodbye now?” she asks.

“We sure would, Mrs. Gray!” responds Betty.

“GOODBYE, PRECIOUS! YIP! YIP! YIPPIE!” all the Coopers bellow.

Mrs. Gray is confused because that goodbye was inane and embarrassing. The end.

”Yo, Taxi!” – Bill Golliher

Betty rolls up in her 1955 Ford Station Wagon next to Archie and Jughead, who are happily minding their own business pretending Betty doesn’t exist. “Care for a ride?” she asks the two, since apparently Archie drove his own car off of a cliff and needs to hoof it until Mr. Andrews let’s him in the driver’s seat of any car ever again. Jughead accepts! Off to Pop’s!

“So what’s the story with your wheels?” Betty asks.

“The usual! It’s in the shop and I can’t afford the repairs!” Archie says, having not had a part-time job since 1971. Well, that ain’t no problem! Betty’s Taxi Service is up and running, and guess what ho? This ride ain’t gonna be free.

The three of them enjoy a long evening at Pop’s drinking phosphates and purchasing suckling sweets! 23-skidoo!

Oh no! Someone roofied my Pop’s Milkshake! Wakka wakka!

Betty is woken up while hungover the next morning. Archie is in a pickle! He has morning detention after giving a kid a swirlie and drowning him in a hilarious accident! And both his parents left for work early! Nertz!

Yawning, Betty agrees to give him a ride even though she’s addled by 45 minutes of sleep. Betty looks like as she picks up Archie, who is too insensitive to not tell her she looks like shit. Betty’s a lifesaver, at any rate! And she’s going to give him a ride to work that night, too (Archie suddenly got a job as a fluffer on a porn set in the abandoned warehouse by the docks in the bad part of town near all the sulfur mines). Betty couldn’t be “happier”.

Archie arrives at the pizza place where he works, sorry about all that made up shit! His boss is all like “Mamma Mia, can you-a get your friend to deliver-a this pizza since-a my driver called in a sick-a!” And Betty grumbles and mumbles and agrees because she’s the biggest pushover doormat I’ve ever seen in a comic book. There are dollar signs in Archie’s eyes. There’s no backing out of it this time!

In this economy?? More like $80 and you can tell Archie to eat your poo.

Later, Archie has collected hella tips and won’t give a dime to Betty. “I should have my car fixed in no time!” Archie says, which is Betty’s only incentive to keep carting his degenerate ass around town. Now her car smells like anchovies too, by the way. And not the good kind of anchovies that smell like lilacs and summer cantaloupe. The bad kind of anchovies that smell like fish and anchovies.

The next night, Archie needs a ride to the Pennyback concert. It’s like Nickelback only four cents worse! The roads are so clogged up concertgoers that it takes them the duration of a person rolling their eyes at a Nickelback song to get through traffic (and that’s a long time!) At least Betty will get to see the show and–

“I’ll get out here so I won’t be late. Veronica hates that!”

“VERONICA?!” Betty bellows bettily. She got all dressed to the nines for this?! Fudge that! She kicks Archie out of the car and speeds off. “Betty Cooper is no one’s fool! Not even yours!!”

The next morning, Archie “apologizes” by saying that he needs help getting to detention again. This time Betty charges Archie $6.25 for the inconvenience. “Say hello to the taxi meter I borrowed!” she says quite plainly as if we all have access to taxi meters. “If you keep treating me like a taxi I’m going to charge you like one.”

Archie goes “!”

Eventually, Archie garners enough dough to pay for his car repairs. Thank heavenly Father of Almighty Lord our Jesus. He treats Betty to a ride in his hooptie.

“Of all the nerve!” Betty says disgustedly. “You have a meter too!”

“Yes! And it’s just for you! Look carefully…”

BLECH! Awful. I’d rather read Blondie.

Final Thoughts

“Dear Betty, I have a loose thread in my underwear and if I pull it then it’ll unravel quickly while I comically spin like a top. What should I do?”

“Good question, Tom! Try buying velvet or silk underwear so you can walk around like Ron Jeremy and keep those pesky threads from sending you into a dizzy tizzy! Thanks for writing!”