Editing 3130: Predicament

{{comic
| number    = 3130
| date      = August 18, 2025
| title     = Predicament
| image     = predicament_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x272px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = I dropped my phone while trying to search, and I tried to unlock it from up here, so can you also search for screen repair places?
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|This page was created by someone on stilts. Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

Someone on  very tall stilts walks up to [[Cueball]] and requests that he google something for them. Cueball correctly guesses that they want to find out how to get down from stilts.

The title text explains that this person dropped their phone and tried to unlock it with the stilts, but ended up breaking their phone in the process. When someone is standing on stilts, their weight (and the weight of the stilts themselves) is distributed over the relatively small contact area between the stilts' bottoms and the surface they rest on. It would be very difficult to perform a precise task such as unlocking a phone on the ground, using the bottom of a stilt that one is standing on, without accidentally putting a lot of pressure on the phone's fragile screen. One would, in essence, need to balance on one stilt, putting almost all of the weight on it... and carefully and gently touch the phone with the other, supporting most of the weight of the free stilt with one's hand and arm, doing precise manipulations at the distance of the length of the stilt with a massive and awkward tool. This procedure clearly hasn't gone well.

It is also unlikely that a phone 'touchscreen' could even be operated by a stilt. Most work through {{w|capacitive sensing}}, and are unlikely to work with the stilt-ends unless specifically equipped with a cap of material with sufficiently similar dialectric qualities to human fingers.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Don't remove this notice too soon.}}

[Panel 1:]

[On the left a long stick enters the panel from near the top left. There are "tap tap" sounds where the stick hits the ground. Cueball is on the right, looking left towards the stick.]

[Panel 2:]

[There are now two long sticks closer to the middle of the panel. They cross near the top, and there are three taps near the bottom. Cueball is still looking at them.]

[Panel 3:]

[The two sticks are almost parallel now, a little further apart at the ground. Cueball is still looking at them.

Voice from above: Do you have your phone?

Cueball: Yeah.

[Panel 4:]

[The two sticks are parallel. Cueball is holding a cellphone in his right hand.]

Voice: Can you google --

Cueball: -- How to get down from stilts?

Voice: Yes please.

{{comic discussion}}<noinclude>