Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for July 20, 2024

Listening to Dad builds character.

Of course Calvin does not want the money that bad because he does not want to work

Back at the time of this strip’s first showing, I paid my boys $1/pound for pulling weeds for me. They were quite enthusiastic. My caveat was that they had to shake out of clods of dirt from the roots before the weigh-in. They still made plenty of pocket money for the next day’s outing.

Dad’s no fun

you should go let the air out of his bicycle tires

If they pull all the weeds out of the sidewalk, what will the dinosaurs eat?

Well, that plan went extinct………….

I wonder where Calvin got his models. Dad is too cheap to buy him any toys—especially a stuffed tiger named Hobbes!

When I was 10ish my mother had a front yard that was unremitting xeriscape (before the word, in New Mexico) but on a pretty good slope. She wanted to put in dozens of iris to be watered by slightly sloping canals crossing the main slope. But there were a lot of tumbleweeds. The next spring, when the TWs were an inch or two high, she offered a bounty of one penny for every 10 TW sprouts we brought in. I made more than $5 over the next couple of weeks. Compared to my allowance of about 50¢ or 55¢ per week (I don’t recall exactly which year it was) that was serious money! My sibs also participated, but not so conscientiously.

It would only be a dollar between them. Dad would not pay them a dollar each as he would think that Hobbes is a stuffed doll who cannot work. As we often see, Hobbes usually does more work than Calvin.

Once again, Calvin is ahead of his time.

A couple of years later, with Photoshop, during that short time when it was readily available to anyone with an internet connection, yet just new enough that most people didn’t know about it, he would’ve made a fortune.

That’s Cal. Adjusting his expectations to fit the crime.

Calvin sufferers from Beetle Bailey syndrome – putting more effort into avoiding work than it takes to do it.

I know this is hard to accept, Calvin. But real life is like the cartoons. Nobody is gullible and stupid.

Ahh, My father’s economics comment. I want it, but not that bad. Called it price theory.

It could be worse Calvin. You could be made to pull the weeds and not paid a dollar.

Well Calvin, you’ll have to do something to get some of that money.

In my area, Calvin sounds like white Americans during the Great Recession when offered farm work.

The kids on our street really did make a movie with their plastic dinosaurs. Nobody paid them, but they were artists who didn’t sell out.

Hobbes seems confused. I guess the imaginary tiger did see the imaginary dinosaurs. Too much imagination for me.

Of course Hobbes would be confused, especially since he was in a photo with one of the dinosaurs!

been there

I said it was stuffed animal Dinosaurs… guess plastic toys work too. Calvin is a real mess ;)

And yet he went to all that trouble for a bigger payday with his dinosaur pictures. Go figure.

This proves that I was right all along. Calvin never did make snacks for the trip!

Many don’t want the money that bad…

sounds like a lot of people these days who “can’t find a job” — on the other hand it also sounds like a lot of employers who think paying slaves anything is too much.

Should have negotiated.

Some kids get paid less to pull the weeds, I’m sure.