Frazz by Jef Mallett for August 13, 2023

He shouldn’t have stood up before the end of the slide.

…he’s out of line, but he’s right.

Well, to be fair, a bad grade is probably more due to your not studying than any kind of misfortune.

Broken skateboard rationale?

If only he …

Have to guess he didn’t try it head first or the skate board wouldn’t be the only thing broken. To try is to win. To fail is to learn [If one survives]

was he listening to my wife?

That particular misfortune WAS your fault, Caulfield.

That’s an unusually long and convoluted slide for a playground. I wonder if it’s ever had a “kid-jam” bottleneck.

When anything bad happened, my grampa’s favorite line was, “Well, you shoulda watched!”

Did Caulfield break his skateboard riding it down the tube slide?

Caulfield is consistently the most interesting character in any comic strip.

Compassion doesn’t let me feel a smug sense of superiority.

I’m exactly the kind of person he’s describing. Oh well, at least I’m always right LOL.

The problem is when the person who suffers the misfortune or suchlike negative event is not the person who caused it, but rather, the person who caused it is the one dumping the criticism. “Hungry? You should have planned better!” sounds a little hollow when directed at someone who can’t afford housing that’s not in a food desert, coming from a wealthy politician who ensures that the zoning laws benefit the rich while also ensuring the existence of that food desert.

How can you break a skateboard in half?

I like the expression “don’t ‘should’ on people. You don’t know what they’ve been through.” It’s been suggested that using the word ‘could’ for ‘should’ is less judgmental.

Oh, you met my wife.

I’m more concerned about people who make every problem out to be somebody else’s fault.

I’m not sure that I understand “I could tell them, but then I’d be them.” I don’t see why Caulfield can’t tell “them” that’ it’s not his fault.

I don’t want to talk to you