2010-11-29
Explanation
This comic depicts an absurdly overbearing mother-in-law who has trapped a couple in a sealed chamber with limited oxygen, demanding they produce grandchildren within 30 minutes or suffocate. The husband protests that he can't perform while his mother watches, but she responds by counting down the time and noting that every breath makes the chamber more poisonous.
The final panel pulls back to reveal this is being told as a family story to a child, with the punchline: "And now you know where babies come from, and why Christmas at Grandma's is so awkward!" The joke plays on the trope of the pushy grandmother who desperately wants grandchildren, taken to an absurd extreme where she literally kidnaps the couple and puts them in a life-or-death scenario. The humor also comes from the uncomfortable reality that many couples face family pressure about having children, just usually not in the form of a sealed oxygen-depleting chamber.