ride-it
Explanation
The Joke
A man uses a pickup line on a woman: "Hey baby, wanna hop on my hedonic treadmill and ride until you're no longer deriving any pleasure?" The woman responds with interest ("Ooooh"). The caption says "Shortly..." and in the next panel they are lying in bed together, with the man saying "It happened so fast" and the woman replying "We are such fickle creatures."
The Humor
The joke is a clever play on the concept of the "hedonic treadmill" (also known as hedonic adaptation), which is the psychological theory that people tend to return to a baseline level of happiness regardless of positive or negative events. The pickup line is structured like a sexual innuendo -- "hop on and ride" -- but the actual meaning is deeply unromantic: he is essentially saying "let's do something pleasurable until the inevitable psychological adaptation kicks in and it no longer brings you any joy."
The punchline is that this is exactly what happens. The post-coital scene shows both partners already experiencing hedonic adaptation -- the pleasure has faded rapidly, and they are reflecting on how quickly humans lose their sense of enjoyment. The man's "it happened so fast" and the woman's "we are such fickle creatures" are simultaneously post-sex commentary and philosophical observations about hedonic adaptation, making the pickup line both literally and figuratively accurate.
References
- The hedonic treadmill (or hedonic adaptation) is a concept in positive psychology describing humans' tendency to return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative life changes. The term was coined by Brickman and Campbell in 1971.