Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for October 26, 2021

And this is why we have helicopter parents today.

Only ten more years until Calvin can officially drive… assuming his folks will let him use their car.

“If it was Hobbes, then it was also you too, buster!”

Nice to blame the scapegoat tiger.

These days, you can get arrested for leaving your kid in the car. AND a broken window.

Sure, you can blame the stuffed tiger and maybe get away with it. But just wait until you’re alone with Hobbes.

I hope mom parked on level ground. Pushing in the clutch is liable to have the car roll and hit something expensive

They forgot to stomp on the brake pedal till it’s flooded.

Snitch!

If this strip was done today, Mom would be leaving the parking lot in handcuffs.

Amazing how things change in just a few short years!!

“It was Hobbes, mom, not I!”

I can’t believe she would have left him in the car.

I say I have 4 kids, my natural 3 I had with my wife, and the 4th who was adopted to be a scapegoat and take the blame for what any of the other 3 did.

Name is of course: NotMe

I feel NotMe is so hard done by, that even if we can’t see him/her (still working out the gender) I feel they deserve a present at Christmas….a bottle of Scotch sounds about right?

Wait until he discovers car alarms!

I can’t for the life of my understand why Hobbes can say his name right, but he spells it like Hobs.

I don’t remember playing in the car when I was a kid. Not that I couldn’t. It just wasn’t interesting.

Leaving a kid alone in a car isn’t a really bright idea. Yeah, Calvin’s old enough to get out if it gets too hot, but in his case, there are other hazards to consider.

Strip from 1991 … do this stunt today, people go nuts.

Ah, the days when you could leave a kid in the car without child protective service showing up.

And to think Calvin, she was nice enough to take you out for pizza last night.

In Nashville a few weeks ago a couple left their sleeping baby in their car with the engine running while they shopped for groceries in Kroger for about an hour.

When mom is putting the groceries in the trunk, Hobbes can also turn the volume button on the car radio to full blast.

“A busload of schoolchildren dives from the sidewalk”???

Mighty funny, especially the school children. I loved when people could laugh.

“Wow, back in the good old days, you could just leave your kid in the car for an hour and nobody complained. And if the kid died from heatstroke, you just had another.”

and mom can drive a stick

A co-worker years ago told how her parents left her asleep in the car. A thief decided to steal the car but apparently panicked when he saw her. Did not want to be charged with kidnapping so put her out by the side of the road. Luckily, she was seen and rescued.

Assuming she left the keys in it, this would explain where all the phantom dings and scratches appear on my car when parked at the supermarket…

For children few minutes life time of waiting, besides Calvin needs to inside not left in the car.

Remember when parents just left their kid in the car? That kid was me…

Leaving six-year-olds in a car is a disaster waiting to happen, regardless of time period.

Today. Calvin would have been brought out and taken by ACS, Mom would have been taken to jail, and hobbes would be sitting there with a paper oragami muzzle over his sewn mouth!

At least he has “someone” to blame.

I was thinking less about leaving a six-year-old in the car and more about the horn working without a key.

Now you get jail time for leaving your kid alone in a car. Mall cops are everywhere

The Dustin comic today had a nice Halloween tribute to Calvin and Hobbes. I can’t link it, but it is on Comic Kingdom.

So we see additional motivation for Calvin’s notion that Hobbes is “real”: A convenient scapegoat.

You can’t really buy a car with a clutch any more, but thankfully the automatic transmission is far far better than it used to be.

My parents’ car was a jet fighter, and I was an excellent pilot. ;-)

Doesn’t mother know not to leave her child alone in the car; especially with a tiger!

Our parents never left me and my sister alone in the car when we were younger but I do remember that we use to play in the cars as kids when they were sitting in the parking lot. Our one neighbor had a station wagon that didn’t run anymore and the engine wasn’t in it and let all the kids on the block play around in it and other parents never thought anything of it, we use to have that as one of our hiding places for hide and seek. Also, Gram would let us grandkids play around in her car while we were at her place and it was never a problem, worse thing that ever happened to me though was I was curious on how hot the lighter got so I pushed it in and when it popped out and was really red I stuck my index finger in it to see how hot is would be and it got burned but I was embarrassed to tell anyone how I got the burn so I said that I touched the hot toaster when trying to get my toast out and burnt my finger. None of the adults were the wiser until I told my parents when I was in my late teens how the burn actually happened and they never said anything except that it was a stupid idea but I was just a child so I probably didn’t know better. Of course this was back in the 80’s and back then there wasn’t anything wrong with letting your kids do stuff like that or letting them alone in cars while you ran into store.