Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for November 25, 2020

Don’t tip her, Calvin.

If Calvin went to a restaurant, he’d take the whole place down.

and parents are supposed to understand their kids’ picky eating habits… just ask Madeline Otterloop with her son Petey

And she’ll do it again and again and again.

You deserve it , Calvin

You wouldn’t have complained if she made you a lizard brain and newt eyeball sandwich with those middle pieces soaked in brain juice, would you?

My mom was a gem: as many as 7 lunches to pack before school each morning and we each got something that was individually tolerable. Jack had to have the ketchup next to the balogna, I hated ketchup and wanted mustard, Molly got cheese instead of balogna (and I got black olives and mayo instead of PB n J)… and so forth for the other kids… and she did it every morning before we left for school. Nice, eh? Of course she was downright strict about finishing the meal… and the homework.

My grandmother used to tell a funny story about a neighbour of theirs on the farm they lived on in the early 1900s. The lady had 19 children and when she asked what they wanted for dinner that night they all said something different. Her solution was to put the whole lot into one very large pot and told them to help themselves. :)

I have a sister like Calvin. We went to a restaurant with her, and she was embarrassing. The wait staff hated her.

Big surprise, Calvin. heh heh heh

I’m SURE it was completely unintentional, Calvin. LOL!!

Too much intricate detail, Calvin.

I would say make it yourself, but, knowing the mess he would make….

He’s grossed out by jelly soaking into bread? Seriously?

Good help is hard to find, Cal

And she’ll NOW make a point of doing it that way every time she makes you a sandwich for the rest of eternity.

You put peanut butter on both sides of the bread and the jelly does not soak through.

Nowadays, when school is actually AT school, kids can’t bring peanut butter any more, due to food allergies. If they do, they have to sit at a special table.

& cut diagonal, please.

I agree with Calvin about the end pieces!

sure thing kid, from now on there will be lettuce between the jelly and the bread so the bread doesn’t soak it

Yes, Calvin. She “got it”. Get it?

Adam Newman came up with a better solution and I even tried it and it works. Put PB on BOTH slices of bread and spread the jelly in the middle. He actually did it by accident and was just like “Oh, well.” But then Clayton noticed that his bread wasn’t all soggy. The strip had people making a bigger deal out of it that anyone would in real life. They were even gonna have him on a talk show but then there was someone at the studio that said he’d been doing the same thing for years and I think he ended up being the guest instead.

Trusting you with a knife?!?… good one Calvin.

The main grossness I remember from packed lunches was oil-packed tuna with Miracle Whip. One of those things that tasted better than it looked.

Now that was something!

Please is not in Calvin’s vocabulary.

I BET she did…!

I thought Calvin liked gross things.

See, that’s the problem with telling people what to do instead of asking them to do it. However, if you eventually blow up over it they inevitably say “Well, why didn’t you tell me?” Tone of voice is the grease of civil conversation.

I mainly walked home for lunch, but one year I had to take lunch twice a week. Knowing her strange son, Mom packed a pita bread, a piece of lunch meat in a baggie, a piece of colby cheese in a baggie and a little tupper tub of relish. We called relish “Pickle Lilly.” At lunch time, I’d tear the pita in half and pack in the lunch meat, cheese and relish. The other kids that brought their lunches ate peanut butter and said “Tom eats weird sandwiches.” But, before long they asked their moms for pita. For the sake of not being TOO weird and incurring the wrath of teachers on account of my name, I was going by “Tom” not “Tentoes.” Fear not! There were plenty of other things for the teachers to get upset about. “Tom, put that away, sit still and pay attention!” Sit still and pay attention was not possible and it helped to have something in my hand.

Shades of “When Harry Met Sally”.

For a comic strip, Mom’s pretty subtle…

MY DAD IS ANNOYING ME!!!!!!!!!!!! That was very off topic.

Well, duh! Did you put anything in the Tip Jar before you took off with your lunch pail?

Easy solution: Put PB on both slices of bread, then the jam in the middle. The PB acts as a non-permeable barrier due to the oil, and the bread doesn’t sog. Done and done.

We had hot lunch at grade school. $1.25/wk High school was buy your lunch usually a $2.00/day or bring your own. Mom never made ours. We had to do it ourselves and make Dad’s lunch! 7 kids and no one ever went hungry.

I want what I want the way I want it.

When I was Calvin’s age I was very particular about how my eggs were scrambled. I can relate.

That’s not Calvin in the first 3 panels. He’s calm and reasonable.

Related strip: https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2018/12/22

My father did the same all the time. Boy, how much I hated that kind of sandwiches. Most of the time they ended up in the trashcan. “First world problem”, and “Why didn’t you make your own sandwiches” comments hit me!

Anyone else remember bringing their whatever meat sandwich to school, storing it in your locker and eating it several hours later and never getting sick?

I believe the correct response is ‘if you don’t like it, make it yourself’.

Calvin is such a little TWIT!!

If he can spread jam at lunch, he can make his own sandwiches (with supervision).

As it turns out – this is a real problem. My solution was to put peanut butter on both pieces of bread with a slight ridge at the end of the bread – but a thin one. Then add the jam so it is trapped between layers of peanut butter. Since they don’t actually mix, it prevents the jam from soaking the bread. Then I cut the sandwich diagonally so that my step daughter could hold and squeeze along the crust as she bit into it to prevent the jelly from squirting out. … What overthink things? Why would you say that?

Well Calvin, I suggest you get up 30 min. early to make your own lunch.

Mom: “I keep hearing this strange buzzing noise!” ☺

who puts jelly on untoasted bread? That seems strange to me.

Kids can’t have knives at school. They would get expelled, even for a plastic knife.

Jelly’s for toast anyway, not to spoil a good peanut butter sandwich.

He must have been watching When Harry Met Sally.

Another golden oldie:

Tuna sandwich! Tuna sandwich! Everyday for lunch it’s a tuna sandwich!

Why don’t you ask your mom to make you something else?

That wouldn’t help, I make my own sandwich.

Not a kid in the world who prefers the crust or the ends of a loaf.

or you could make your own sandwich in the morning before school…

Eating only the heels makes you a heel.

That much instructions do not work with moms.

My response would have been, OK you don’t like the jelly, you get PB without the J. If that got the expected whine, fine, next day make your own, but you still have to catch the bus, so you’ll have to get up a half hour earlier.

One April 1st, Mother Baker replace the meat and cheese in my sandwich with cardboard and the greeting “April Fools!” Needless to say, I was not amused. And, hungry.

Simply spread butter before you put down the jelly. No soak

At school lunch until Jr Hi. Skipped it and kept the money after that. My only spending money as I got no allowance and my paper route money had to be saved.

Hello

Lol

PB&J sandwich: when packing for lunch, make sure the PB side is down, to lower the rate of jelly soaking into the bread.

And please cut the sandwich into right angle triangles, remove the crusts lightly toast the bread for 22.5 seconds.

I have found when I tried to tell the cook how to cook, I became the cook.

I made the mistake of saying something like this to my mother when i was about 9; after which, she never made my lunch again. She just showed me where to find the fixin’s and left me to my own devices.

People think of gluttony as just overeating. THIS is what gluttony really is – obsessing over getting what you want, no matter how much trouble it makes for others.