One Big Happy by Rick Detorie for February 20, 2013

Plus it’s agaist the law.

I don’t know about that, Susan, she got her way with the children without a long argument using reality.

Sometimes, in dealing with children, it is most effective to exaggerate in order to make your point.

Right, Susan and Gator I think she’s speaking Ruthie’s language.

Now we know where Ruthie gets her imagination from. Mom should be a writer.

Just as long as she has a good reason.

Sounds a lot better than “Because I said so!”

Much like how Calvin’s mom made playing in the rain sound lethal.

In today’s strip: A bug that just won’t go away.

I don’t know. My son, when he was about six, got into my car that was parked in our driveway and managed to put it into neutral and rolled it across the lawn into a flower bed. After that, I always kept the car locked.

Besides, back in the Middle Ages when I and my siblings were growing up, nobody thought anything about leaving kids in cars for 10 or so minutes while you went in and bought a few items. Nowadays, you are apt to get arrested for child endangerment and abandonment, or fear they will be abducted. And the cars these days won’t switch out of park without the key (or fob), so they ain’t going anywhere.

I like moms seniro of what could happen.

If it was in my country, her answer would have been…“because if I leave you in the car, even for two minutes while I buy a newspaper, some opinionated spinster will pop out of a secret hiding place, declare to all who’ll listen that I’m a bad parent who exposes her own flesh and blood to potentially lethal heat levels, and who will then threaten to call the police.”