Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for February 23, 2016

Having to choose between the grandkids from hell or the grandparents going to hell.

“Pearls Before Swine” — the cure for “Pickles.”

I can relate.

I hope they didn’t leave the door unlocked.

I think that’s my neighbor’s kids.

I’m betting she didn’t call ahead to see if they would be willing to watch the kids (which yesterday made it clear their not). Right now Nancy is striking me as the “My folks will do what I tell them to” type and their not going to obey her one bit.

Nancy must have been a problem child.

People who don’t like children are better off not having them and the world will be better off as well.

Nancy’s parents have to realize that if they hadn’t had any children, Nancy probably wouldn’t have any either.

Is it my imagination, or do those kids look like Wednesday and Pugsley Addams?

If Stephan was thinking of starting a spinoff strip featuring the grandparents, this is exactly the way to go about it.

My neighbors daughter would just leave the kids whether parents were there or not. They usually ended up at my house.

Just like any cartoon characters, they hide right in front of the window.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a newspaper comic use the word “hell” so openly before. I mean even at its worst, I’ve only seen the word “heck” used in its replacement. Have there been other instances? I could be wrong.

you got that right

I’ve known a few people who used their parents (the kids’ grandparents) as babysitters. Dropping the little ones off for days at a time while the parents went out partying. Poor grandparents looked exhausted by the end of the weekend.

I don’t worry about going to Hell so much. I mean, I lived in Channelview Texas for three years, so I feel like I’ve already been there!

If you had been born, say, into and raised in a devoutly Hindu family, do you think you’d still feel that way?

One of my greatest fears is that that Fred Phelps was actually right about the nature of the universe., and that dead Freddy is in heaven now lobbying to have Jesus thrown out of heaven, because Jesus is too soft on the homosexuals.

Dear Grandparents – buy some curtains! It’ll be easier to hide.

Grandparents are not surrogate parents and they shouldn’t be treated as convenient babysitters.

Just leave the kids in the yard where they can amuse themselves till the grandparents give up the hiding game.

Help I’ve fallen and can’t get up, great were stuck down here and can’t get up.

And because God loves the world, he’s willing to send you to Hell for eternity if you don’t believe he had a son. Nice!

How do we know YOU exist?

That’s hysterical. I actually laughed out loud. Well, to be accurate I laughed out loud while spraying my lunch on the computer screen.

I like grandpa and grandma! I’m likewise sure that they are100% right in their assessment of Neighbor Nancy’s kids; Neighbor Nancy seems like the daughter who did not turn out well….

I could understand if they were bratty kids but Neighbour Nancy’s kids look well behaved.

But then… They haven’t been properly introduced.

xxx

great. so i, as a happily well adjusted jew, who prays the way my ancestors have for 4000 years, i’m going to hell. thanks for the newsflash. mark twain recommend it in any case. heaven for climate, but hell for better society

Dilbert just finished a sequence of Dilbert being stuck with taking care of a co-worker’s kids.

One has to be genuinely sorry for their bad deeds. Otherwise they will be like the evil Catholic lady I once knew who told me she could do anything as long as she got the Last Rites. Even in the Catholic religion that is not true.

Or maybe call on the phone and wait for them to say yes?

Well said.

Well said.

Not only that, but you can also cure cancer, make hundreds of people laugh, be a good friend and better parent, and/or discover some of the secrets of the universe, and still go to hell!Well did Richard Dawkins state that “the god of the old testament is without doubt the most unpleasant character in all of fiction.” And the moral system that was supposedly given by that fictional character is, not surprisingly, filled with evil.

Most christian sects believe that, and the few that don’t, don’t believe in heaven or hell at all, and are not considered even to be christians by Nab and his ilk.

You’re right, of course, Mr. Rabbit, but try to see it from their (Nab, derdave, others) point of view—they have no evidence for their silly beliefs, and yet don’t want to lose cultural power. What better way than to create a persecution complex and claim victimhood?There was a magnificent comment recently made here; I’d like to post it, as it seems à propos, explaining both the motivation and the mindset of what we might call the nasty christian right:“The world is inexorably abandoning them and there is nothing they can do to stop it. All my life I have watched the GOP feverishly wage culture wars, and all my life I have, with a bit of surprise, watched them lose and lose and lose. Tactically they have slowed things down, but that’s it. The majority of the country opposes their social platform, and nothing they do, or can do, is going to change that. The most they can hope to do is to throw wrenches into the machinery and hope that God finally awakens from his slumber to answer their prayers. Even the religious, though, realize in their gut that gods don’t defend their temples.They are desperate, and that’s why they look and act in such over-the-top fashion. Backs to the wall… scared… dangerous.”

Any evidence for that mindless bit of religious thuggery? No? I thought not.In fact, you don’t even know your own bible; not everyone can “be saved if they want to be”; see Romans 9, especially verses 13-24.On the other hand, anyone can choose to be educated. But it’s hard work.

Mom!? Dad!? I can hear you breathing!!