It’s Holy Thursday, and today’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro: cartoon jumps the Easter gun, / with an outrageous rabbit pun:
Wayno’s title: “Side Effects May Include Hallucinations” (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 2 in this strip — see this Page)model /ístǝr/ Easter, pun /íθǝr/ ether, shared /í…ǝr/, with coronal obstruents between the two syllabics, so not bad for an imperfect pun; meanwhile, the Easter bunny is administering ether as an anesthetic, so the pun fits the image nicely
Two things: Holy Thursday (and Easter Sunday); and anesthetic ether.
The holidays. Maundy Thursday / Holy Thursday is Last Supper Day, followed by Good Friday, which is Crucifixion Day, and two days later, Easter Sunday, which is Resurrection Day. These are all deeply Christian occasions, at the very center of Christian belief; but like other religious holidays, Easter has accumulated companion folk-cultural traditions, involving practices of all sorts — one such tradition current in the US, embracing the Easter Bunny, Easter baskets, Easter eggs, chocolate, ham, displays of fashion, and more.
Anesthetic ether. From Wikipedia:
Diethyl ether, or simply ether, is an organic compound in the ether class with the formula C4H10O, (CH3CH2)2O or (C2H5)2O … It is a colourless, highly volatile, sweet-smelling (“ethereal odour”), extremely flammable liquid. It is commonly used as a solvent in laboratories and as a starting fluid for some engines. It was formerly used as a general anesthetic, until non-flammable drugs were developed, such as halothane. It has been used as a recreational drug to cause intoxication.
… In the 21st century, ether is rarely used. The use of flammable ether was displaced by nonflammable fluorinated hydrocarbon anesthetics. Halothane was the first such anesthetic developed and other currently used inhaled anesthetics, such as isoflurane, desflurane, and sevoflurane, are halogenated ethers. Diethyl ether was found to have undesirable side effects, such as post-anesthetic nausea and vomiting. Modern anesthetic agents reduce these side effects.
I have vivid memories of my childhood experiences with ether as an anesthetic for surgical procedures, which were followed by godawful puking. Trace scents of ether make me queasy to this day.