office-party
Explanation
The Joke
At what appears to be a Halloween office party, a host invites a coworker to put his hand in a bucket to "feel a mummy's flesh." The coworker then reveals he's actually handing the host a pink slip (a termination notice), and asks why nobody else is at the party. The host nervously notes "the sign did say 'trick or treat.'" The final panel reveals the truly scary part: with a mortgage to pay, the man exclaims "I can barely afford my mortgage!" while his colleague responds "Ooooh! Scary!"
The Humor
The comic pulls a bait-and-switch on the concept of Halloween scares. It starts with the cliched haunted-house setup of putting your hand in a bowl of "mummy's flesh," but pivots to something far more terrifying in adult life: getting fired. The real horror isn't supernatural — it's financial. The fact that no one else came to the party foreshadows the bad news, and the "trick or treat" sign takes on a darker double meaning. The final punchline — that not being able to afford a mortgage is the scariest thing of all — is a classic SMBC move of finding the real terror in mundane adult responsibilities rather than in fictional monsters.