Wallace the Brave by Will Henry for May 30, 2021

Of course. I expected nothing more from The Feral One.

Sterling is his own explanation.

Is it too early to start Sterling’s therapy?

wallace’s story almost made sterlings’s normal

back in the past austrailian people used to eat honey with dried ants

1. It is often said (and makes sense to me) that except for a small set of standardized/memorized verbal routines (Have a nice day!), almost every sentence we produce or encounter is a unique combination of words never before written or spoken. This suggests that a mental grammar that emerges in early childhood empowers us to (almost effortlessly) express anything in a unique way. Unique, as in, never previously uttered in the history of the human race.

Example:

This morning Spud helped me cover my feet in honey. (And most of the other sentences in today’s flotilla of balloons.)

2. Isaac Asimov, adventurously curious even as a small child, once replied to a question from his mother by spitting into his hand a squirming mass of live isopods (aka pill bugs, roly-polies, wood lice). She had asked why he was making such weird faces. He said he had wondered if a mouthful of the little creatures would tickle his tongue. Maybe Wallace will grow up to be as wonderfully creative as Asimov. Or, dare it be said, as Will Henry.

Thus:

When the ants finally found the honey, it tickled like crazy!

I love that Wallace’s mother just accepts his explanation, and turns to Sterling for his.

Let’s see him try that with fire ants.

Oh wow, that really sinks!

Once again, Sterling gets the punchline.

Went through many a manure pile as a kid, gathering worms for fishing. Sterling may have been looking for worms, too..

Painfully elaborate or effortlessly natural … in the end we all get dirty

I’m glad fire ants don’t survive as far north as Snug Harbor. Fire ant bites are something Wallace never needs to see!

I quite enjoy the comments for Wallace the Brave. They are often insightful and fun to read. Quite unlike the comment section for Big Nate (a comic I also enjoy) which seem to be troll bait and quite rude.

Life is never dull at their household……

That’s the difference between Wallace and Sterling. Wallace has a whole adventurous story to tell as he explains. Sterling just gets right to the point.

If those had been fire ants….

uh, the ants wouldn’t have tickled, they’ld be stinging like crazy AS THEY ATE YOUR FLESH!!!!!!

Spud must have run pretty soon after that to get away with honey feet

So Sterling was walking through the strawberry patch?

Manure will do that to you. Just don’t add honey.

I have always loved that Poseidon statue

Sterling is just a simple child. He sees manure, he jumps on it.

It would seem to me that in this household a shop or laundry sink might be appropriate – but it looks like there are dishes stacked behind Wallace.

That looks like a porcelain sink we had long ago. She might very well use lightweight dish tubs inside it—papier mache, plastic, silicone… Dad had his own separate tubs for machine parts, but the one sink was used for dishes, veggies, laundry, bathing children and dogs, pretty much everything.