2012-04-13
Explanation
In this comic, a father tells his wife that their son Bobby ate his dinner before she finished making it. The comic then contrasts two possible parental responses. The "Good Parent" panel shows the mother saying "Bobby! You have to wait and eat dinner with the family!" -- a normal, reasonable reaction about family mealtime etiquette. The "Geek Parent" panel shows her instead shouting "Bobby! Stop violating causality!" -- treating the situation as if Bobby had somehow broken the laws of physics by consuming a meal that hadn't yet been prepared.
The humor lies in the geek parent reframing a mundane parenting situation through the lens of physics. Eating dinner before it is finished cooking is, in a literal sense, a violation of causality -- the effect (eating the meal) happened before the cause (the meal being completed). The geek parent focuses on this logical impossibility rather than the social norm of waiting for the family.
The votey panel continues the joke with Bobby saying "I'll start yesterday," doubling down on the causality-violation theme by implying he can also travel backward in time to begin eating even earlier.