Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for October 21, 2019

The best preemptive defense strategy is to keep your mouth shut.

Knowing the crazy stuff that happens to Calvin on a regular basis, he COULD be telling the truth.

Sounds like a precursor to the “Scientific Progress goes ‘Boink!’” sequel.

If you don’t hear sirens from fire trucks, police, or ambulances, then it’s only a minor thing!!

Mom really needs to start skipping to the part where she punishes Calvin.

Notice how the kid spends more time and energy dodging the problem or making excuses for it than simply owning up to his mistakes. To quote good ol’ Charlie Brown, “He’ll never learn.” Then again, I guess that’s all part of the humor in the first place.

……It was the one armed man!

Mom’s just never understand do they Calvin?

Mom just refuses to understand the space void vortex.

She ’s not going to buy it, Calvin!

I like Mom’s eyes in panel two. Like she’s looking at the audience and saying, “Ok, heerrre we go!”

No, mom! You meant, “What now have you done?”

It’s the NOT ME kid from Family Circus.

Don’t stop me if you’ve heard this one…

I bet Mom has heard this story before.

With his great imagination, Calvin would probably make a great writer someday. The things he comes up with highly amuse me. :-)

You could have just opened with that question mom.

If I told my Mom that, she would have said, “Go outside and play.”

As I’ve always taught my kids and advised my clients, two words always can save the day – plausible deniability.

Oooh, zapped into space void vortex… I hate when that happens to me!

Several years ago I worked for Xerox. I noticed that the name plate on the desk of a woman who’d gotten married hadn’t been changed-having the new name plate when you got back form the honeymoon was something nice the company did. I rushed into the manager’s office knowing she would be back in a day or two “how quickly can we get a name plate done up?” “What have you done now?”

That’s how I know that magic is real. I come upon a minor preventable disaster such as pee all over the toilet seat, ask “Which one of you lazy kids didn’t pick up the toilet seat?” and all three of them answer (sometimes in harmony) “Not me.” . It must be magic.

The old “evil twin” defense.

I bet “Evil Twin Calvin” has a goatee.

It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me! I affirm, it wasn’t me! I’m good and mild minded, certainly it wasn’t me!!!

Calvin, if you find my car keys or my good sunglasses in that parallel universe, let me know. What? You say that there are 475 million sets of car keys and 308 pairs of nice sunglasses, and which ones are mine? Hmm. Ok, nevermind.

Calvin is all about “alter egos.”

After the umpteenth time, you’d think Calvin might have learned what doesn’t work…

“It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, Babe” Bob Dylan

For me, not knowing what Calvin did makes this strip even better.