Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for August 14, 2022

Mom, calamine lotion — STAT!

The 7-year itch…..

As someone with psoriasis, I relate to this.

Now you know what it’s like to get bitten, Calvin.

That last panel is the stuff of nightmares!

Rinse and repeat

To quote the Borg: Resistance is futile!

Denial is good, but it has its limits. Sometimes reality breaks through.

Calvin who told you that Red Ants are your Friends ?

Just reading this makes me itch.

I remember that this was pretty much how I was when my grandmother offered me homeopathic sugar pills after I came into contact with poison sumac. Luckily, cooler (and smarter) heads prevailed when my mom came to the rescue with Benadryl.

Still worth it.

We’ve all been there, Calvin.

Back in 1983, I had a serious case of mosquito bites, from getting up before daybreak (when the buggers are most active).

So that people wouldn’t bother me about it, I’d say that I spent my vacation in Molokai!!

The facial expressions on Calvin is priceless!!! Bill Watterson’s art is genius!!!

The surefire way to make a problem worse: trying to ignore it.

Watterson was truly enjoying himself with this one…….

Thing is, at times there really doesn’t have to be a bug. Whenever some people feel an itch and think it’s a bug bite, then suddenly there are itch-sensitive spots all over one’s skin. Calvin, being a total spazz at times, would be the best example.

A good scratch beats a bad itch every time. I take Cortisone 10 where ever I go in the world.

I can stand pain but itching no, no, no!!

That describes it perfectly!

Brilliant art work

Calvin is the psoriasis on the skin of humanity.

I can so relate. Itching like that from whatever cause can be maddening and make you frantic to scratch.

Sitting here enjoying my poison ivy…

My most used utensil is my backscratcher

Like your Mom always told you. “Don’t scratch ! It will only make it worse!”

Passes Calvin the Cortisone cream. AND, where is Hobbes talking the virtues of ’fur"?

Isn’t he a bit young to be formicating?

We all hate having an itch we can’t and often shouldn’t scratch. The point here was well made.

Suffering after an insect itch!

summer in a nutshell

Those bug bites tell you when you are ready for Summer to be over. :)

Well, 13 weeks at Parris Island in the summer will definitely ensure that you have the self discipline to not scratch an itch, or slap a bug…….lest you incur the wrath of the Drill Instructors.

Good times……good times.

Jack Webb had a nice scene of this in The D.I.

Reminds me of Bob Clampett’s An Itch in Time. “There’ll be food around the corner!”

This is almost me with my Covid throat right now. It feels like there’s a tractor tire lodged in it.

Learned about Chiggers when wife & I lived in KS.

Big buggers (like Calvin) have little bugs upon their backs to bite ’em. And little bugs, have lesser bugs, and so ad-infinitum.

I’ve taken to rubbing itches. Less relief, but also less comeback.

There are at least 5 good avatars available here for those who still use ye olde “?”…

I’m highly allergic to mosquito venom, so Betaderm is my best friend right now. :P

Whoa — I’ve been a C&H fan for decades, and I don’t recall ever reading this strip before! A nice surprise!

I find myself trying to channel Spock: “There.Is.No.Itch!”

My daughter often gets a two to three inch weal from a mosquito bite – before scratching. Our best bet to date is having her take Advil and Claritin, smearing Benadryl cream on the bite, then covering it with moleskin to make it hard to scratch. It takes about five days to heal even then. She also seems to get bit more than the rest of us. Unfortunately, finding vacation spots with a minimum of mosquitoes is difficult. In one place where they were thick she got dozens of bites in half an hour outside after being doused in DEET.