Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for September 29, 2021

“I repeat, “What’s wrong with that?”

It’s no fun either when you work in the rain as a cart collector of a grocery store and previously as a Salvation Army donation trailer attendant. With the latter, no shelter when trailer gets full. Sure I could’ve stayed in the car, but I don’t have a car nor driving license.

As a kid I’ve always played in the rain and now I’m 64 and in good health.

Seems that even in 1991, the medical debt from hospital visits was terrorfying.

You laugh, Calvin, but that is EXACTLY how my youngest brother died in 2007 at the age of 39. He came down with pneumonia in August of that year and just never got better. By mid-October, he was gone! :(

As I read this, it’s raining outside…so I can imagine C&H playing out there anyway!

Mom can be such a buzzkill sometimes.

There’s a game called “What’s the worst that could happen”. Invoke it when someone worries about something that’s not under their control, or isn’t REALLY a problem or the like. It’s a “one upsmanship” game. Mom has made the first move. Then Calvin might reply, ‘Yeah, but while I’m in the hospital I might catch a disease and die of THAT instead!" The mom migh suggest, “Yeah, and you’d be so sick that EVERYONE would get it, and THEY would all die too!” … and eventually, it gets so absurd that everybody backs off and comes to a more … moderate… conclusion.

Look! LOOK!! A typewriter! At least that’s what I think it is. It’s been a while…

Gee, I thought Calvin’s mother would WANT that to happen to him—except for the hospital bills, but if their insurance premiums are up to date…

Just tell Calvin he’d be taking a bath. That would change his mind.

My mom always told us “You can go out when it’s a warm rain.” I was too little to realise that meant just never, because she was the one who decided what temperature the rain was.

Just like Mom to rain on Calvin’s parade! :D

Back in the days when millionaires were human I worked all day on a Sunday in the rain to rebuild the brakes of a semi. Got the flu of course and was bedridden for two weeks. The boss’s own doctor treated me, his wife nursed me and I was paid the Sunday rate for the whole time I was off ill.

Moms always have an explanation. Mine told me the reason I had to wait to go swimming after I just ate was because I would sink.

Lest we forget; ‘’… you could poke out an eye or break your neck.’’

Thanks, Mum.

Baloney.

I will never understand why playing in the rain is so much fun and working in the rain is so miserable. I think if having fun in the rain was my job it would be miserable work.

“. . . or worse, you could nnot die!”

Moms are programmed to respond in “worst-case scenarios” only.

Now Calvin can echo Mom’s words back to here when she wants him to take a bath.

This is exactly like my parents. They frequently give me and my brother grim worst-case scenarios like that.

Hobbes look is great.

When I was a kid, a T_storm was a call to go outside and play in the rain. I don’t know how we survived.

I guess temperature has a lot to do with it…we were allowed to do so during the summer as long as there was no lightning, we just donned our swimsuits and got into the bath/shower afterwards…really not much different from an hour at the pool…

Moms: Queens of the Worst Case Scenario.

Still, from a child’s point of view there’s nothing like being allowed to play in the warm, summer rain.

At 4 years old I was near death with Pneumonia & Pleurisy after going out in Chatham NJ winter dressed only with T shirt & shorts after a snow storm. Only thing that saved me wasnew drug Sulfa.

I think she is more concerned about running up a huge hospital bill than him dying.

Nothing can match the sheer fun of drenching in the rain. What’s childhood without this experience.

dry

I haven’t decided which is worse… working in the rain, without shelter, or, working outside when it’s a -10, or more wind chill, in Winter.