Dining Out

I enjoy the Comics Curmudgeon but he tends to focus on comics which are consistently worthy of mocking and misses the flawed exceptions to generally funny comics. In today's "Dinette Set", the joke is confounding and the artwork is disturbing. Has Dale interlocked elbows with a strange man who is peeved by that action or has Dale merely dislocated his own elbow? Is Burl hugging the strange man or merely putting his arm down the man's pants? I am grateful to Julie Larson for having Burl and Dale state each other's name in the conversation. I am am sure the charcters are often as uncertain of who is who in this strip as I am. I do like the strip, especially the signs and memos in the backgrounds of the frames. But I don't get the joke at all today. I guess I am a ding-a-ling! Huh, reader? Can someone please explain it to me?