routing
Explanation
The comic depicts a scene at what appears to be a scam operation. In the first panel, someone at a desk asks: "Ma'am, please provide your bank account and routing numbers." A sign in the background reads: "Welcome! Annual Meeting of the Scam Artists Society."
In the second panel, the woman asks: "But wait, what?" The scammer explains: "In order to defraud you, this doesn't call for this level of transparency." The third panel shows what appears to be a ceremony where the scam artists are celebrating, with cheers of "Woo!" and "Yeah!" Someone announces: "If funds equivalent in value to an engagement ring..." followed by: "May you stay together as long as it remains tax-advantageous, caught!"
The joke operates by drawing a parallel between the transparency of an obvious scam and... marriage. The setup makes you think you are watching a straightforward scam scenario, but the punchline reveals that the "Scam Artists Society" is actually conducting a wedding ceremony. The comparison is darkly comedic: the comic suggests that marriage involves handing over your financial information and assets to another person, which, stripped of its romantic context, looks remarkably similar to a scam. The wedding vows have been rewritten in brutally honest transactional language -- instead of "till death do us part," it is "as long as it remains tax-advantageous." The humor comes from the cynical reframing of a romantic institution as a financial arrangement, and the irony that a scam artist convention would be the most honest venue for such a ceremony, since at least they are upfront about what is happening.