Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for January 31, 2024

Mom doesn’t want any translation because she’s certain something will be lost in it.

There’s another way, Calvin, and it’s called “listening”!

Calvin never gets it.

I never saw this strip before

Go to bed now means she has 0 minutes until she blows her stack.

Kibitzing Mom won’t work, Calvin.

One of the first things we taught our toddler was that sticks have TWO ends and if you’re handling a stick you are responsible for BOTH ends. As a result we never "had to use Calvin’s “parentism” since we could simply say “Watch both ends!”

Don’t be so ungrateful, Mom. Just consider them flash cards for parenting!!

Ah yes…the questions that are not questions. “Do you want to clean your room” means “or do you want to be grounded for a week.” It is not a question. “Do you think I’m stupid” means “stop acting stupid.”

Listen young man DID I STUTTER?

Reminds me of those Isuzu commercials from the 1980s…

https://Www.youtube.Com/watch?v=b_1ASmweXYs

I don’t see how jumping in the lake became synonymous with doing something dumb. A better question would be, “If Bob stuck a set of keys in an electrical outlet, would you do the same?” You might even get some entertainment out of it, as long as there are plenty of candles around the house.

I want to see the one for ‘If only he had used his powers for good.’

30 years ago I worked with a guy who had a glass eye. My office was next to the lunch room, and one day there was some good-natured roughhousing going on in there and I yelled out (jokingly, I wasn’t upset) “if you keep that up someone’s going to lose an eye.” It went quiet for 30 seconds or so, and then he appeared in my doorway and quickly said, “too late, catch” and threw me his eye. The delay was while he popped it out and rinsed it before throwing it.

Amazing how much effort he can put into that but not into actually listening.

Now if he would just put that much effort in some of the other areas of his life!

It’s all fun and games, Calvin, until!….

He wants her to take the card and leave it by her feet so she is stooping down to his level.

I might have thought those things, but I didn’t dare say them to either of my parents.

A Future Calvin would use one of those Universal Translators (like in Star Trek) so that no cards are needed.

“Poke someone’s eye out”… is this Calvin or Ralphie?

Yes, I know with Ralphie it was “shoot”, not “poke”.

That kid is way ahead of his time. :D

Sometimes the only possible response is smackbottom. WOKE folks can go to H E Doubletoothpicks.

Wish I’d had those when I was a kid. Calvin is brilliant!

My Mom would have made a corresponding set of cards detailing my chores and penalties for misbehavior. Never try to outwit a mom. They come loaded.

“You’re going to break your neck!” whenever I did something where at least one foot left the ground. Yet strangely, I never did.

My sister must be an unhappy person. One day, when she was about 8 or 9 years old, she was swinging a stick around. My mother admonished her and told her to stop with the warning, “You won’t be happy until you poke someone’s eye out with that.”

In the event, my sister failed to do any injury to anyone with that stick. The stick is now gone: lost to history. My sister will never have the opportunity to poke someone’s eye out with it, and therefore, she’ll never be happy.

If you accept the premise, you have to accept the conclusion. The logic is sound.

I need to get these for my mom lol.

“You’re failing at school”

Translation:

“We’re putting you up for adoption”

Moms need no translation.

Kudos for the forward thinking, Calvin! You need to learn a little bit of parent psychology, because it’ll never fly, but I like where you’re going with this.

Ahh… Calvin was involved in the ‘change the language and you change the world’ movement – even back then. I believe Marx promoted that tactic, as well.

I like it when Calvin cuts out a square hole in a large cardboard box and pretends he’s on TV. Definitely, part of the Boob Tube generation.

I’m impressed that Calvin can read and write

Mom will create a card reading Do it now or you won’t be sitting for a week.

Looks to me like Calvin’s already figured out what Mom’s threats really amount to.

My mom always started out her statements with “Do you want to…” but her actual meaning was “You have to…” Whatever followed wasn’t going to be an option.

Oh, I’ve felt that way, like when my parents confuse me with their hip young lingo, like saying “do da rubbish” instead of “take out the trash”, I think maybe.

This is great!!

8^)

Calvin is learning the difference between “subtitles” and “subtext”.