Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for March 09, 2019

And now we have next week’s arc.

Uh oh!

I hope Calvin doesn’t try to assemble it himself.

Remember, if you can’t fix it with a hammer, it’s an electrical fault…

Only “some” assembly required. So it shouldn’t be too bad.

Give it to Hobbes! You’ll only break it!!

it’s like LEGO and IKEA… the assembling part

Remember Calvin: No expectations, no disappointments, don’t hope, you’re never gonna make a difference, and you’re never gonna get what you want Dr John Becker.

What did he think made it spin? Hope and desire?

Sheer joy turns to panic and finally to disappointment.

Putting it together is half the fun

Wa wa waaaa

Poor Calvin, he will be disappointed…

His crazy-eyed expression in the third panel. That’s what weeks of obsession does to a person!

They never had batteries, of course. https://todayinsci.com/Events/Patent/UltimatePropellerHead.htm

Bring the beanie into the 21st century. Add the solar panels to it, 3 more propellers, and he’d have a drone for his head. THEN he’d be able to fly…

I recall when everything took “six to eight weeks for delivery.”

6 words of death! Ask ANY parent on Christmas morning…

Next, he’ll be ordering a Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator…

Uh-oh. Someone get out the magnifying glass to find the dropped pieces!

I bet the X-ray spex don’t work as advertised either.

Battery toys were kind of bad. The batteries would run down the first time you played it then you would never have batteries for it again.

remember how excited we were when we were kids and the thing we saved and ate (and ate) for finally arrived? how long has it been since you had that same feeling??

Same instructions as when Calvin himself was ‘delivered’…

Has Calvin EVER managed to assemble something properly?

Never mind ghosts at Christmas (or any other gift-giving occasion for a child); those two three-word phrases that strike terror into any parent or adult’s heart. “Some Assembly Required.” “Batteries Not Included.”*

*Which was a great movie, by the way.

3 week arc?

Anticipation never equal reality

Wile E. Coyote’s orders from ACME never took this long.

So it is “Some Assembly Required” and “Batteries Not Included.”

Builds character.

I don’t remember getting very many items like that when I was a kid. I do remember getting a “Magic Trick”, where you rolled in a blank piece of paper, and out rolled a dollar bill.

“some assembly required is a family joke. when I was a kid my room was over the garage. my dad had bought a grill ’some assembly…” and all afternoon i could hear him swearing as he tried to put it together before he realized the wholes had been drilled in the wrong place at the factory.

Whatever size batteries it needs, Mom won’t have. That’s how it worked at my house. We had a drawer full of batteries. If you needed AA, there would be D, C, AAA, Transistor, everything but AA. In tow days, if you needed a AAA, there would be everything but a AAA. That drawer was possesses and messed with out family.

Those things are powered?? I thought that the little propellor on a beanie was just ornamental.

I’m sure Hobbes will help out with this new disaster, uh, I mean project.

2 lessons about adulthood in one arc. Freud said something, phrased differently, about socialization being a war of attrition.

Ah the ole BNI. if you didn’t have a forward-thinking parent you had to wait another day.

Uh, oh…

Some assembly required, Calvin. Just like that 8-piece box of fried chicken, remember?You pasted `some assembly required` stickers onto all the boxes of fried chicken pieces at the supermarket by your house.

What’s the fun when the whole thing is assembled and ready for the flight. Half the fun is in assembling.