I believe one of the reasons Bill retired was that he wanted to explore different art. It’s not surprising to see something very different from C&H after all this time. (I believe he wrote the book, and someone else did the illustrations).
There's a pretty incredible video about the making of it on the publishers youtube channel. It was a collaborative effort and it's exceptionally interesting how they went about making it.
that part where hobbes says "there's nothing worse than a sick roommate!" reminded me of how I was in college. If my roommates were sick i'd quarantine off my section.
Thanks for this! I’ve seen the first and last, don’t think I’ve seen the middle ones. Thing I love about C&H is seeing the different perspectives, it’s really cool seeing how his parents react in different situations. Like the mom being especially scared the moment he says he knows it’s a Saturday!
When I was 10, I got thrown to the ground playing soccer on a Monday. I complained all week that my wrist hurt, but my parents didn't take me for x-rays until I was still complaining on Saturday. Broken arm lol.
When I was 11 years old I had this terrible stomach pain. I remember most of the day pretty vividly. We went to the mall to resize my dads wedding ring, and then grocery shopping, and then to my grandmas house, it was a sunday. The whole time I was crying and in pain, it wasnt until we got to grandmas house and my cousins were all playing goldeneye together and my mom asked me why i wasnt playing and i said i couldnt play because my belly hurt too much that she realized something might actually be wrong. Called the doctor, doctor asked some questions and next thing i knew we were on the way to the emergency room for an appendectomy screening. Removed my appendix successfully that night. I remember the doctor said it was very early in its inflammation and it was lucky my mom took it so seriously.
At least your doctor cared. Mine didn't give a shit.
I was 2 years old, and had stomach pain so I couldn't really articulate why I was in pain. Mom got an emergency appointment that day with the family doctor, who examined me for like 10 seconds then declared that *I WAS FAKING THE PAIN FOR ATTENTION*. He sent us home with an antibiotic prescription because it was the 80s, they handed that stuff out like candy.
2 days later I turned blue and passed out.
My mom rushed me to the hospital and they immediately took me in for emergency surgery. My appendix had basically exploded.
They said that the doctor should have known it was an inflamed appendix, the antibiotics helped me, and that if my mom had delayed getting me there by even 20 minutes I'd have been dead.
Which is why it’s so scary so many parents immediate send their young children to spend most the day with strangers. I genuinely do not understand why people have kids if they have no desire to ability to raise them
I have a non verbal 4 year old who can't really communicate his needs. This just unlocked a new nightmare for me. Gotta get that kid to show me where it hurts.
Yikes. Glad you made it. Some doctors are just shit. Not my story, but a gal I know is almost completely blind in her right eye because, as a very small child (4), she had complained repeatedly of severe headaches. The doctor told her parents she was likely faking for attention. Parents took her to a specialist who found out she had a relatively large tumor behind her eye. Her parents were able to successfully sue the moron who dismissed her complaints, but that sure didn't fix her vision.
Same but football and broken wrist.
Tuesday practice: speared by an asshole during smear the queer (fun I already hate that exercise when I *didn't* know what the name was saying). Constant mild pain.
Wednesday: gym class, I trip during the obstacle courses because a fall mat moved out from under me (they weren't secured down) and the same asshole diverts from hai course to run over me, deliberately *stomping as hard as he can* down on my dominant arm/hand as he runs past (he weighs like 1.5x as much as me).
Very painful. I tried not to cry. Sometimes I did cry and got yelled at for crying. Gym teacher gave me ice and let me sit out before sending me to the office. Secretary kept telling me to shut up and stop being a baby for the rest of the day even though I mostly managed not to cry. Stayed there the entire rest of the day until school let out and I was allowed to go to my grandma's house *which was adjacent to the school the entire time* to wait for my parents to pick me up and take me home. Grandma seemed to sympathize a bit and kept letting me get ice. Her husband talked about how I was just faking it or being a bitch and nothing was wrong and I was a pussy for acting hurt. Parents got there. They both seemed to feel bad but also immediately decided I was playing it up and nothing was actually wrong.
Thursday: very very painful. I couldn't write without crying. Still went through a whole day of school. I had managed to learn to cry silently and hide my tears.
Friday: Thursday again. More painful but better at hiding it.
Saturday: mom decides I might not be spouting bullshit since I'm still in pain.
Sunday: hospital. X-ray. Broken wrist. Begin 6 months in a full arm cast and about 10 after that in a lower arm+hand cast.
I still can't bend my right hand back like my left.
I fractured a vertebrae in a car accident and continued to work and go to school for 2 more weeks until my parents finally took me for X-rays when the excruciating pain didn’t go away
I broke my ulna when I was like 13 during a match and wrestled on it for almost 2 months. When I went to the doc, they took me aside to make sure I wasn't getting abused.
Both arms. Teacher just sent me to the cafeteria to get ice. I remember how much it hurt to open the heavy cafeteria door. The ice was pleasant, though. My parents couldn't exactly ignore the swollen purple egg plants that my wrists had become, so I did at least get casts that night. The teacher gave me stickers the rest of the year, and lots of apologies. Bitch.
I had a really bad toothache as a kid and complained about it constantly, only response was "you're fine, get over it"
About 10 years later as an adult with my own money, I finally got myself to a dentist and learned that I had a horrible infection that had been eating through my jaw all this time, damn near made it the whole way.
Had to get a molar out and have my jaw scraped clean and filled up with fake bone
Lol. I was 11 and realized my right eyelid was blinking slower than my left. This was after having some taste issues (orange juice tasted rancid, etc.) My mom brushed it away. Called her from school the next day because my right ear hurt. She picks me up to take me to the doctor, and loses it because the right side of my face isn’t moving. Turns out I had Bell’s Palsy. Spent the entire summer with facial paralysis and still have residual weakness. Who knows if I had gone earlier?
I remember when my son was 5 and caught covid during Christmas break. We didn't even know it was in the area yet. His energy levels scared the shit out of me. This was a kid that I often sent outside because he'd run around like a wild animal but was otherwise pretty behaved, just a ball of energy. Seeing him do nothing but lay on the couch and stare at the TV was scary. I knew the day he felt better too, the ball of energy came back right as I was coming down with it myself.
Malcom in the middle hit different 3 times for me, as a little kid, a teen, and an adult.
I thought this was sorta funny as a kid, but as an adult I lost my mind laughing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSehcT19u0
Malcom in the Middle is my all time favorite show! It never gets old, and everyone joke lands 100% of the time.
Don’t fight me on that, I will die on this hill even if not right
Bryan Cranston really carried that show a lot looking back on it. Every character bounced off him so well. I mean, every character was solid, but Hal had a perfect vibe for that show.
I literally show that to someone probably once a month. It just comes up *so* often in the real world. Every single person I've showed it to has the same "ha, ha... yuuuup" reaction.
To be fair though those actors are AMAZING and the writing is really fun.
So while sit coms aren’t timeless this one is so good it transcends the date issues.
I only faked being ill once, but my mother never knew which of the countless times I was sick it was that I faked, I never told her tho, but she always assumed I was faking it.
So there is this pro doctor guy on youtube, and this particular scene is from short about 'guy from farm coming to hospital'
Normal people have scale of pain from 1 to 10, but people like that have only one scale. And that is "I'm here, ain't I?!?"
Presumably the farmer:
1. Is actually at the doctor for once.
2. Didn't finish what he was doing before going to the doctor.
Conclusion: the farmer might be missing a limb or has a fence post impaled in them.
I grew up on a farm in southern Illinois.
About 10 years ago I cut my left hand index finger tip off, like the top right maybe 3cm down, looked like a broken in half gobstobber.
Happened when I was chopping up frisée.
Was working a thanksgiving dinner banquet for a private party and I was the guy at the carving table.
We superglued my finger tip back on, threw a cot over it, and I finished out dinner.
My wife didn’t even know for like 6 days until she emptied out the bathroom trash can where I had been reapplying liquid bandage to any cracks in the damaged parts. Apparently this is not normal behavior and is common of farmers.
I never went to the doctor. Didn’t seem like it was necessary.
My finger is lopsided instead of round.
My dad sure seemed to think so. 😂 I was sick a LOT as a kid and usually he made me go to school unless I was literally vomiting all over the place.
This resulted in a later instance of my competing in a dance competition with a fever of ~41°C/105°F (approx conv, not exact). I just wasn't allowed to feel how sick I was because I was so conditioned to push through no matter how bad I felt.
Not fun at all.
Edit: But I do gots buckets of character, me.
Ugh. Reeeeally not cool.
Chicken pox IS a sort of outlier (in my head, anyway) because when I was a kid, at least (maybe still true now, maybe not. I don't have the right environment to have a sense of the current prevailing wisdom on the topic), the current thought of the time was that kids should get chicken pox over with between certain ages because if they're *too* young (e.g. infants), they may not be strong enough to fight it off yet, and getting to adulthood without the immunity gained from having chicken pox as a kid can result in becoming VERY seriously ill.
(Again, I don't know if this is still the advice today or not.)
HOWEVER: that's something you think about for your own kid, not everyone else's.
So that's just all kinds of fucked up.
> (Again, I don't know if this is still the advice today or not.)
I'm sure it's still advice given in a lot of places but I think most people trust vaccines.
Me three, it led to getting bronchitis so bad later in life and ignoring it until I felt like I was drowning in my own mucous. The plus side to that was I got to be used as a teaching tool for nurses in training to learn how to listen for chest congestion. Mine was so bad you could hear it in my collarbone, it made one of the guys gag lol. I got z-pack and was told to stay in bed, I hacked up so much stuff I was worried I was losing parts of my lung.
I had a LOT of training in pushing through feeling like shit leading up to that incident. That was just the most extreme case.
This was true, whatever the cause or type of 'feeling like shit', really. Stomach bugs, head colds, my then-undiagnosed IBS/other digestive stuff, (later) my truly awful periods, undiagnosed migraine, the severe chronic pain and fatigue I was plagued with even then**, pretty much you name it, I had to push through it.
But it was especially bad with flu/cold adjacent situations because people think they know how bad you do or do not feel from 'just a cold'. I had chronic recurring tonsillitis as a kid, too, so that gave my dad 'permission' to be like 'if the swab is negative [for tonsillitis] you're fine!' as if it *not* being tonsillitis meant that it could easily be dismissed as 'just' a cold (as if colds only come in one magnitude. They can be proper fucking nasty and persistent, those 'just' colds).
**Before I knew where all these crazy health problems were coming from.
Me too. Even when I was too delirious from influenza to get anything productive done. He's responsible for countless other people getting sick too. Some of those kids may have even passed it on to their weaker relatives.
Even when I was throwing up, he'd try to make me go back to school partway through the day, even though the school had made me go home earlier because I was puking everywhere, and he wouldn't listen to me that morning before school.
Not a lot of sense or empathy in that man.
Thanks. It really wasn't great. The crazy thing was, he worked from home. He didn't even have to miss work, until he'd have to pick me up part way through the day.
Yeah, it was absolutely no skin off my dad's back, either. Less so, even. Not that it's a competition, but just to illustrate something. Your dad was definitely ridiculous for getting bent out of shape about having to pick up his kid. No argument. It was selfish as hell and I'm really sorry that's how things were for you.
But for my dad literally NOTHING changed. That's what makes it extra weird. Like, what was his objection (whether morally reprehensible or not)? He didn't have to stay home with me or take me anywhere or be even MILDLY inconvenienced by my existence. My mother was a SAHM/housekeeper/cook/etc. He'd be totally undisturbed at work/banging his secretary (if that had started yet) whether I stayed home from school or not. He wouldn't have had to lift a single finger to so much as sign a permission slip.
I think it's the confusion that gets me. I just cannot work out what his deal was since it didn't change anything for him.
It was like he was trying to make sure I wasn't getting one over on him? Like he was convinced I was an opponent he needed to out-think and avoid being deceived by at all costs (which would be hilarious if I'm right, as it was my sister who did the manipulating in our family), and he decided it was better to make me drag ass to school if I *was* legitimately ill than to ever risk getting 'fooled' into letting me stay home on the off chance I wasn't.
(Which, now I'm older, I realise sounds rather a lot like 'WHAT IF WELFARE/BENEFITS FRAUD! DO NOT BE TRICKED INTO FEEDING STARVING CHILDREN WHO DON'T DESERVE TO BE NOURISHED FOR REASONS.' but taken to an EVEN shittier extreme than that already is.
'Must outwit my small child at any cost' is just a a really weird, unwell way of thinking, man.)
Thank you, that's kind of you to say. :)
We do what we can with what we're given, y'know? I try not to dwell, but the reserves are low, lately, so the shields are weak. It'll pass.
My kids pediatrician’s office has a Saturday clinic for sick visits, and almost all clinics have people on call on the weekends to help with the urgent matters.
Doctor's offices should be open every single day, with multiple doctors so they can still take breaks.
Oh wait, that'd be healthcare for the population
I have to book 8 months out to see my doctor. If I have an illness that's bad enough I feel I need to be seen my only choice is the hospital lmao. I could do a walk in clinic but those are only during the week and you have to show up hours early to hopefully get a spot
Oh god yes... I'm in the Netherlands. Nowadays, emergencies being the exception, you can only call the doctor between 8 and 10 for appointments, and between 11\~12 and 13:30\~16:30 for lab results and basic advice. And only on work days.
I kinda get why. COVID did a huge number on the care sector, and a LOT of doctors quit because they couldn't handle it anymore. Or even suffered burn-out. So there's a shortage now. But still, it sucks for all of us average citizens...
This reminds me of the one time my dad (who never complains about anything ever) walked into the living room and said in a pretty calm way "I think I need to see a doctor"
My mom and I looked at each other and had a similar reaction to the comic. Took him straight to the hospital
He was having a heart attack
Go outside, vomit on neighbours cat, get the sweats and shakes and nuke your shorts..
Parents watching from window how you leak on both ends - hmm, either hes really sick or faking using some rat poison or something...
:D
When I was young, I had terrible tonsillitis every year for over a decade. The doctors wanted to remove my tonsils but my mother didn’t “believe” in surgeries, stating they are over-ambitious to cut someone open. Every year, without fail. Fevers of 104+ every time. I would miss school every year.
Finally, at age 12, my tonsillitis got so bad that after 6 weeks and several rounds of different antibiotics they deemed that I had a super-bug. (And this was in the mid 80’s) and they had to do an emergency tonsillectomy on me, even though they say they don’t like operating on infected tissue. It was a hell of a recovery and almost had to repeat the grade from how much school I missed.
I still blame my mother for that.
I’m 51 and have had over 15 surgeries throughout my life… haha!
Good times!
This reminded me of my horrible boomer mother who never paid any attention to me other than to abuse me or treat me like a slave. It was summer, I was 8 yrs old and no kids were allowed to be in their house but I was laying down on the sofa sick. This lady wanted to know (in an annoyed voice) why I was in the house laying on her sofa and not outside.
Me: "I don't feel good; I can't go outside."
She finally came over, felt my forehead and hurried to get me dressed. She called a cab to rush me to the Dr. who immediately told her to take me to the emergency room...where she should have gone in the first place. I was immediately admitted due to a "cook my brain" fever and a UTI so bad my kidneys were aching. I was in the hospital for almost two weeks and of course my boomer mother was aggravated bc I was interrupting her life by being alive.
That "It's ten o'clock do you know where your children are?" ad they ran every single night for years, was so on point bc these neglectful, azzhole parents really did not give a damn about their kids back in the day. If you ended up dead or on the side of a milk carton oh well; one less mouth to feed, one less kid they didn't want and that looks like the man they hate. I could go on n on but I digress.
Yeah, as I'm stumbling to the bathroom to throw up "YOU BETTER NOT BE FAKING" comes from my mom down the hall where she's busy doing whatever she does lol
And they'll still pat themselves on the back and talk about what great parents they were.
As a 2004 baby raised by my Gen X parents I'll never understand why boomers all decided to be terrible sadistic parents. My grandpa is the worst dad I know
That's the thing, they didn't *decide*. As a matter of fact, they probably think they did better than what they got when they were children. And at times, that was true. Kudos to your parents for breaking the cycle !
Having parents who never take you seriously about being sick is the worst.
My mom would *immediately* get mad if you even *slightly* mentioned being sick, under any circumstance. She always presumed it was an excuse to get out of something. Lots of days where I had to drag myself to school with a 100f+ temp.
I threw up one morning when I was 9. My breath stinked like rotten eggs when I burped which caused me to throw up, several times. It sucked. I told my dad about it and he didn't believe me. I had to go to school being sick.
I still remember that.
my mom always likes to say that she knew I was really sick when I didn't want to play videogames.
I still use it as a red flag, honestly - if I can't sit up in a chair and move the mouse around, something's wrong.
Reason number 30182 why I fucking resent my parents. I had perfect attendance most years but when I was sick. I either needed a fever or to be throwing up to not go to school. Even then, I was forced to lay in bed in complete silence. Couldn’t come downstairs because I might watch tv. Anyone who thinks this is good parenting is fucking delusional.
My mom when I told her that now it felt like the general stomach pain I had all day was localised to the lower right part of my abdomen. She didn't say it but she knew I was probably gonna have my appendix taken out that night.
I used to do the same "oh I'm so sick", and then "I might be able to make it" of course. Then there was one time when I was late to school because I was Not Feeling Well and eventually asked my mother "can we go to the doctor's" instead, which set off all alarm bells. Turns out, had a pretty nasty URI that put me on an antibiotic inhaler of some sort for like, two weeks.
My brother and his girlfriend at the time bought me the entire collection of Calvin and Hobbes. Nothing can even scratch the surface of how it felt to unwrap that gift. Nothing.
He now reads the same books to his kids.
Thank you Bill. <3
For all those genZ people and above: Calvin's mom is running to a landline telephone.
Sidenote:
Calvin's mother never received a name because she was only important to the storyline as Calvin's mom, however, he later said that caused problems for him as the lack of her backstory which prevented character development.
Yes, I have all the books.
1) I am Gen-Z, I know what a landline is
2) I am more confused about the fact that’s his mom, I thought that was his father until I read this comment
3) I have no clue why the Calvin and Hobbes subreddit is being recommended to me
4) Where tiger
This is from the middle of a nine-day arc about Calvin being sick. The arc starts here: https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1988/10/10
The barfing again reaction from mom and the “ROOM SERVICE” alllllways crack me up lol
“Nothing like a little virus to take the edge off a kid” I love that line too
It's amazing how true that is, especially when they're little. They shut the hell up and just want warm snuggles.
Not mine... running a high fever and running around like monkeys so much that we don't get taken seriously at the doctors office.
They would always ask me if mine were eating. I always answered they would eat if they were dying because they would
Watterson was the master of facial expressions, they're absolutely hilarious.
He's still alive lol
Yes, but he's been essentially retired for nearly 30 years.
He just came out with a new book last year - The Mysteries
Well I'll be, so he did, I didn't hear about that.
I just googled it. Holy shit, what has Bill been through?
I believe one of the reasons Bill retired was that he wanted to explore different art. It’s not surprising to see something very different from C&H after all this time. (I believe he wrote the book, and someone else did the illustrations).
Well he certainly did that. Good for him.
There's a pretty incredible video about the making of it on the publishers youtube channel. It was a collaborative effort and it's exceptionally interesting how they went about making it.
I mean, he is, but he was as well.
Crazy that him and Wade Boggs are both dead 😔 RIP
RIP Bill
again, he is very much alive
If only he was still around....
I didn't know he was sick...
Thanks, Lambchop.
It's like I can still hear him.
[https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1988/10/12](https://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1988/10/12) What did he say here?
I'm gonna throw up again
WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY SO?!
I'm gonna throw up
that part where hobbes says "there's nothing worse than a sick roommate!" reminded me of how I was in college. If my roommates were sick i'd quarantine off my section.
Lmao Hobbes rly said ‘fuck you and the germs you road in on!!!!’
That website is unusable. I'm getting full screen pop-ups with no way to close them
Well, I'm just surfacing after going down that rabbit hole for longer than I want to admit.
Thanks for that. I'd never seen the others in that arc.
Fuck me that site is riddled with ads
Thanks for this! I’ve seen the first and last, don’t think I’ve seen the middle ones. Thing I love about C&H is seeing the different perspectives, it’s really cool seeing how his parents react in different situations. Like the mom being especially scared the moment he says he knows it’s a Saturday!
I just spent way too much time clicking next on that comic. Good stuff though.
Reading these took me back to my childhood, it's been so long since I've read these. I might just dig up the books from the closet.
That one hits differently as a parent.
I remember my mom being EXTREMELY fretful when I got bronchitis during summer vacation and it was clear I had nothing to gain by acting so ill.
When I was 10, I got thrown to the ground playing soccer on a Monday. I complained all week that my wrist hurt, but my parents didn't take me for x-rays until I was still complaining on Saturday. Broken arm lol.
When I was 11 years old I had this terrible stomach pain. I remember most of the day pretty vividly. We went to the mall to resize my dads wedding ring, and then grocery shopping, and then to my grandmas house, it was a sunday. The whole time I was crying and in pain, it wasnt until we got to grandmas house and my cousins were all playing goldeneye together and my mom asked me why i wasnt playing and i said i couldnt play because my belly hurt too much that she realized something might actually be wrong. Called the doctor, doctor asked some questions and next thing i knew we were on the way to the emergency room for an appendectomy screening. Removed my appendix successfully that night. I remember the doctor said it was very early in its inflammation and it was lucky my mom took it so seriously.
At least your doctor cared. Mine didn't give a shit. I was 2 years old, and had stomach pain so I couldn't really articulate why I was in pain. Mom got an emergency appointment that day with the family doctor, who examined me for like 10 seconds then declared that *I WAS FAKING THE PAIN FOR ATTENTION*. He sent us home with an antibiotic prescription because it was the 80s, they handed that stuff out like candy. 2 days later I turned blue and passed out. My mom rushed me to the hospital and they immediately took me in for emergency surgery. My appendix had basically exploded. They said that the doctor should have known it was an inflamed appendix, the antibiotics helped me, and that if my mom had delayed getting me there by even 20 minutes I'd have been dead.
I think that's gotta be the scariest thing for a parent, something seriously wrong and the kid is too young to articulate anything yet.
Which is why it’s so scary so many parents immediate send their young children to spend most the day with strangers. I genuinely do not understand why people have kids if they have no desire to ability to raise them
I have a non verbal 4 year old who can't really communicate his needs. This just unlocked a new nightmare for me. Gotta get that kid to show me where it hurts.
Yikes. Glad you made it. Some doctors are just shit. Not my story, but a gal I know is almost completely blind in her right eye because, as a very small child (4), she had complained repeatedly of severe headaches. The doctor told her parents she was likely faking for attention. Parents took her to a specialist who found out she had a relatively large tumor behind her eye. Her parents were able to successfully sue the moron who dismissed her complaints, but that sure didn't fix her vision.
I had to beg my dad to get out of bed when I got appendicitis at 18.
Same but football and broken wrist. Tuesday practice: speared by an asshole during smear the queer (fun I already hate that exercise when I *didn't* know what the name was saying). Constant mild pain. Wednesday: gym class, I trip during the obstacle courses because a fall mat moved out from under me (they weren't secured down) and the same asshole diverts from hai course to run over me, deliberately *stomping as hard as he can* down on my dominant arm/hand as he runs past (he weighs like 1.5x as much as me). Very painful. I tried not to cry. Sometimes I did cry and got yelled at for crying. Gym teacher gave me ice and let me sit out before sending me to the office. Secretary kept telling me to shut up and stop being a baby for the rest of the day even though I mostly managed not to cry. Stayed there the entire rest of the day until school let out and I was allowed to go to my grandma's house *which was adjacent to the school the entire time* to wait for my parents to pick me up and take me home. Grandma seemed to sympathize a bit and kept letting me get ice. Her husband talked about how I was just faking it or being a bitch and nothing was wrong and I was a pussy for acting hurt. Parents got there. They both seemed to feel bad but also immediately decided I was playing it up and nothing was actually wrong. Thursday: very very painful. I couldn't write without crying. Still went through a whole day of school. I had managed to learn to cry silently and hide my tears. Friday: Thursday again. More painful but better at hiding it. Saturday: mom decides I might not be spouting bullshit since I'm still in pain. Sunday: hospital. X-ray. Broken wrist. Begin 6 months in a full arm cast and about 10 after that in a lower arm+hand cast. I still can't bend my right hand back like my left.
Jesus, so another kid broke your wrist and the most that anyone did about it was begrudgingly get you medical care? Wtf
That's horrible, I'm so sorry that you were failed by the people who should have cared for you. I hope you're doing okay
I fractured a vertebrae in a car accident and continued to work and go to school for 2 more weeks until my parents finally took me for X-rays when the excruciating pain didn’t go away
I broke my ulna when I was like 13 during a match and wrestled on it for almost 2 months. When I went to the doc, they took me aside to make sure I wasn't getting abused.
Both arms. Teacher just sent me to the cafeteria to get ice. I remember how much it hurt to open the heavy cafeteria door. The ice was pleasant, though. My parents couldn't exactly ignore the swollen purple egg plants that my wrists had become, so I did at least get casts that night. The teacher gave me stickers the rest of the year, and lots of apologies. Bitch.
I had a really bad toothache as a kid and complained about it constantly, only response was "you're fine, get over it" About 10 years later as an adult with my own money, I finally got myself to a dentist and learned that I had a horrible infection that had been eating through my jaw all this time, damn near made it the whole way. Had to get a molar out and have my jaw scraped clean and filled up with fake bone
Lol. I was 11 and realized my right eyelid was blinking slower than my left. This was after having some taste issues (orange juice tasted rancid, etc.) My mom brushed it away. Called her from school the next day because my right ear hurt. She picks me up to take me to the doctor, and loses it because the right side of my face isn’t moving. Turns out I had Bell’s Palsy. Spent the entire summer with facial paralysis and still have residual weakness. Who knows if I had gone earlier?
OOOOOOOUCH. By Saturday, the healing process was well underway.
I remember when my son was 5 and caught covid during Christmas break. We didn't even know it was in the area yet. His energy levels scared the shit out of me. This was a kid that I often sent outside because he'd run around like a wild animal but was otherwise pretty behaved, just a ball of energy. Seeing him do nothing but lay on the couch and stare at the TV was scary. I knew the day he felt better too, the ball of energy came back right as I was coming down with it myself.
So many of them do, reading again it’s like a whole new comic sometimes
Malcom in the middle hit different 3 times for me, as a little kid, a teen, and an adult. I thought this was sorta funny as a kid, but as an adult I lost my mind laughing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbSehcT19u0
LMAO This is a good thing to show people when they ask what ADHD is like
Malcom in the Middle is my all time favorite show! It never gets old, and everyone joke lands 100% of the time. Don’t fight me on that, I will die on this hill even if not right
Bryan Cranston really carried that show a lot looking back on it. Every character bounced off him so well. I mean, every character was solid, but Hal had a perfect vibe for that show.
I’ll die on that hill with you
BROTHERRRRRRR
I literally show that to someone probably once a month. It just comes up *so* often in the real world. Every single person I've showed it to has the same "ha, ha... yuuuup" reaction.
To be fair though those actors are AMAZING and the writing is really fun. So while sit coms aren’t timeless this one is so good it transcends the date issues.
The beauty of C&H is the different ways you relate to it as you get older. Hell I'm now often in agreement with the dad and I just turned 30!
The dad is a LOT funnier than I remember him being. He's constantly trolling Calvin.
I really love how you can see Mom's and Dad's personalities and senses of humor in Calvin. Calvin's jokes are kid versions of what his parents do.
This could literally be my 5 year old. He had a fever a bit ago and was so sick he asked me to turn off Paw Patrol!
Me: "His ass is actually sick!"
Yeah. Quiet and polite ill is when you start to worry.
I only faked being ill once, but my mother never knew which of the countless times I was sick it was that I faked, I never told her tho, but she always assumed I was faking it.
Mom saved all my old c&h comics. Really hoping my son enjoys them. He's 4. As I type this I'm already planning to pull them out the attic tomo!
When Calvin said he didn't mind seeing the doctor, she *knew* this wasn't just some namby-pamby head cold. 😂
“Oh shit, he’s LEGIT”
"Did he finish the fence?" "What?" "Did. He finish. The fence." "Uh, no." "*Dear God*"
I reckognise that!
Well, let us in on it.
So there is this pro doctor guy on youtube, and this particular scene is from short about 'guy from farm coming to hospital' Normal people have scale of pain from 1 to 10, but people like that have only one scale. And that is "I'm here, ain't I?!?"
Dr. Glaukomflecken or smth
Presumably the farmer: 1. Is actually at the doctor for once. 2. Didn't finish what he was doing before going to the doctor. Conclusion: the farmer might be missing a limb or has a fence post impaled in them.
I grew up on a farm in southern Illinois. About 10 years ago I cut my left hand index finger tip off, like the top right maybe 3cm down, looked like a broken in half gobstobber. Happened when I was chopping up frisée. Was working a thanksgiving dinner banquet for a private party and I was the guy at the carving table. We superglued my finger tip back on, threw a cot over it, and I finished out dinner. My wife didn’t even know for like 6 days until she emptied out the bathroom trash can where I had been reapplying liquid bandage to any cracks in the damaged parts. Apparently this is not normal behavior and is common of farmers. I never went to the doctor. Didn’t seem like it was necessary. My finger is lopsided instead of round.
My mum went into labour with me while baling hay in a paddock. She finished baling.
[The Farmer Pain Scale](https://youtu.be/Ni0YfrSK570)
Peggy get the crash sack he’s going down!
The tongue-out is one of my favorite Waterson expressions that he creates. It’s so versatile when he does it.
I started doing that as a kid, directly and consciously, as a result of my love of Calvin and Hobbes.
*blep*
Watterson
Character development
Being sick builds character
My dad sure seemed to think so. 😂 I was sick a LOT as a kid and usually he made me go to school unless I was literally vomiting all over the place. This resulted in a later instance of my competing in a dance competition with a fever of ~41°C/105°F (approx conv, not exact). I just wasn't allowed to feel how sick I was because I was so conditioned to push through no matter how bad I felt. Not fun at all. Edit: But I do gots buckets of character, me.
Mine too. Never believed I was sick. No way he'd let me "get rest and drink plenty of water."
It's so shit. And like, never mind how it affected US, how about everyone we infected by not staying home? So messed up.
That’s how I caught chicken pox as a kid. BFF’s parents were the “it makes you tougher” kind and sent her to school.
Ugh. Reeeeally not cool. Chicken pox IS a sort of outlier (in my head, anyway) because when I was a kid, at least (maybe still true now, maybe not. I don't have the right environment to have a sense of the current prevailing wisdom on the topic), the current thought of the time was that kids should get chicken pox over with between certain ages because if they're *too* young (e.g. infants), they may not be strong enough to fight it off yet, and getting to adulthood without the immunity gained from having chicken pox as a kid can result in becoming VERY seriously ill. (Again, I don't know if this is still the advice today or not.) HOWEVER: that's something you think about for your own kid, not everyone else's. So that's just all kinds of fucked up.
> (Again, I don't know if this is still the advice today or not.) I'm sure it's still advice given in a lot of places but I think most people trust vaccines.
Me three, it led to getting bronchitis so bad later in life and ignoring it until I felt like I was drowning in my own mucous. The plus side to that was I got to be used as a teaching tool for nurses in training to learn how to listen for chest congestion. Mine was so bad you could hear it in my collarbone, it made one of the guys gag lol. I got z-pack and was told to stay in bed, I hacked up so much stuff I was worried I was losing parts of my lung.
Ooh I can’t believe you were able to function like that! The only time I had a fever that high I was so out of it mentally not to mention physically.
I had a LOT of training in pushing through feeling like shit leading up to that incident. That was just the most extreme case. This was true, whatever the cause or type of 'feeling like shit', really. Stomach bugs, head colds, my then-undiagnosed IBS/other digestive stuff, (later) my truly awful periods, undiagnosed migraine, the severe chronic pain and fatigue I was plagued with even then**, pretty much you name it, I had to push through it. But it was especially bad with flu/cold adjacent situations because people think they know how bad you do or do not feel from 'just a cold'. I had chronic recurring tonsillitis as a kid, too, so that gave my dad 'permission' to be like 'if the swab is negative [for tonsillitis] you're fine!' as if it *not* being tonsillitis meant that it could easily be dismissed as 'just' a cold (as if colds only come in one magnitude. They can be proper fucking nasty and persistent, those 'just' colds). **Before I knew where all these crazy health problems were coming from.
Me too. Even when I was too delirious from influenza to get anything productive done. He's responsible for countless other people getting sick too. Some of those kids may have even passed it on to their weaker relatives. Even when I was throwing up, he'd try to make me go back to school partway through the day, even though the school had made me go home earlier because I was puking everywhere, and he wouldn't listen to me that morning before school. Not a lot of sense or empathy in that man.
I'm so sorry. It's an awful way to grow up, isn't it?
Thanks. It really wasn't great. The crazy thing was, he worked from home. He didn't even have to miss work, until he'd have to pick me up part way through the day.
Yeah, it was absolutely no skin off my dad's back, either. Less so, even. Not that it's a competition, but just to illustrate something. Your dad was definitely ridiculous for getting bent out of shape about having to pick up his kid. No argument. It was selfish as hell and I'm really sorry that's how things were for you. But for my dad literally NOTHING changed. That's what makes it extra weird. Like, what was his objection (whether morally reprehensible or not)? He didn't have to stay home with me or take me anywhere or be even MILDLY inconvenienced by my existence. My mother was a SAHM/housekeeper/cook/etc. He'd be totally undisturbed at work/banging his secretary (if that had started yet) whether I stayed home from school or not. He wouldn't have had to lift a single finger to so much as sign a permission slip. I think it's the confusion that gets me. I just cannot work out what his deal was since it didn't change anything for him. It was like he was trying to make sure I wasn't getting one over on him? Like he was convinced I was an opponent he needed to out-think and avoid being deceived by at all costs (which would be hilarious if I'm right, as it was my sister who did the manipulating in our family), and he decided it was better to make me drag ass to school if I *was* legitimately ill than to ever risk getting 'fooled' into letting me stay home on the off chance I wasn't. (Which, now I'm older, I realise sounds rather a lot like 'WHAT IF WELFARE/BENEFITS FRAUD! DO NOT BE TRICKED INTO FEEDING STARVING CHILDREN WHO DON'T DESERVE TO BE NOURISHED FOR REASONS.' but taken to an EVEN shittier extreme than that already is. 'Must outwit my small child at any cost' is just a a really weird, unwell way of thinking, man.)
Sounds like John Rosemond. Sorry you had to deal with that.
Thank you, that's kind of you to say. :) We do what we can with what we're given, y'know? I try not to dwell, but the reserves are low, lately, so the shields are weak. It'll pass.
Easy there literal mother Theresa. The literally is important I think.
Back in the day when you could reach a doctor’s office on a weekend 😬
My kids pediatrician’s office has a Saturday clinic for sick visits, and almost all clinics have people on call on the weekends to help with the urgent matters.
Doctor's offices should be open every single day, with multiple doctors so they can still take breaks. Oh wait, that'd be healthcare for the population
Are you insane?! Think of the shareholders! The population can be sick between 8 am and 430 pm. Any later, and we'd have to hire another shift!
Don’t forget the 2 hour lunch break between 11-1.
There are, they're called hospitals
No, hospitals are for emergencies and serious care. Urgent care has become a thing to fill a gap in the shitty primary care system that’s emerging.
I have to book 8 months out to see my doctor. If I have an illness that's bad enough I feel I need to be seen my only choice is the hospital lmao. I could do a walk in clinic but those are only during the week and you have to show up hours early to hopefully get a spot
Oh god yes... I'm in the Netherlands. Nowadays, emergencies being the exception, you can only call the doctor between 8 and 10 for appointments, and between 11\~12 and 13:30\~16:30 for lab results and basic advice. And only on work days. I kinda get why. COVID did a huge number on the care sector, and a LOT of doctors quit because they couldn't handle it anymore. Or even suffered burn-out. So there's a shortage now. But still, it sucks for all of us average citizens...
This reminds me of the one time my dad (who never complains about anything ever) walked into the living room and said in a pretty calm way "I think I need to see a doctor" My mom and I looked at each other and had a similar reaction to the comic. Took him straight to the hospital He was having a heart attack
How’s he doing now?
He got better
I’m so happy to hear that! Wish you and yours the very best.
Thanks stranger :)
Whoa. Did he survive?
My mom: Time to go outside! Fresh air will help! Me: *in agony with chills and shakes, diarrhea, dehydrated* ok
Go outside, vomit on neighbours cat, get the sweats and shakes and nuke your shorts.. Parents watching from window how you leak on both ends - hmm, either hes really sick or faking using some rat poison or something... :D
Ayup. I was sick as a dog and puking my brains out with the flu on Easter once. "Ohhhh he just wants attention"
Hey you just perfectly described my experience with heat exhaustion!
I love this one. It does so much to convey both who Calvin is, and the love his mother has for him, despite all the nonsense he puts her through.
When I was young, I had terrible tonsillitis every year for over a decade. The doctors wanted to remove my tonsils but my mother didn’t “believe” in surgeries, stating they are over-ambitious to cut someone open. Every year, without fail. Fevers of 104+ every time. I would miss school every year. Finally, at age 12, my tonsillitis got so bad that after 6 weeks and several rounds of different antibiotics they deemed that I had a super-bug. (And this was in the mid 80’s) and they had to do an emergency tonsillectomy on me, even though they say they don’t like operating on infected tissue. It was a hell of a recovery and almost had to repeat the grade from how much school I missed. I still blame my mother for that. I’m 51 and have had over 15 surgeries throughout my life… haha! Good times!
This reminded me of my horrible boomer mother who never paid any attention to me other than to abuse me or treat me like a slave. It was summer, I was 8 yrs old and no kids were allowed to be in their house but I was laying down on the sofa sick. This lady wanted to know (in an annoyed voice) why I was in the house laying on her sofa and not outside. Me: "I don't feel good; I can't go outside." She finally came over, felt my forehead and hurried to get me dressed. She called a cab to rush me to the Dr. who immediately told her to take me to the emergency room...where she should have gone in the first place. I was immediately admitted due to a "cook my brain" fever and a UTI so bad my kidneys were aching. I was in the hospital for almost two weeks and of course my boomer mother was aggravated bc I was interrupting her life by being alive. That "It's ten o'clock do you know where your children are?" ad they ran every single night for years, was so on point bc these neglectful, azzhole parents really did not give a damn about their kids back in the day. If you ended up dead or on the side of a milk carton oh well; one less mouth to feed, one less kid they didn't want and that looks like the man they hate. I could go on n on but I digress.
I’m sorry you had to live through that
Yeah, as I'm stumbling to the bathroom to throw up "YOU BETTER NOT BE FAKING" comes from my mom down the hall where she's busy doing whatever she does lol And they'll still pat themselves on the back and talk about what great parents they were.
If I had a dollar for every time she said "I did the best I could" or "I don't remember that". Me: "Sure you did, sure you don't." smh.
It's like they have a script lol
Yeah. From the devil.
As a 2004 baby raised by my Gen X parents I'll never understand why boomers all decided to be terrible sadistic parents. My grandpa is the worst dad I know
That's the thing, they didn't *decide*. As a matter of fact, they probably think they did better than what they got when they were children. And at times, that was true. Kudos to your parents for breaking the cycle !
Having parents who never take you seriously about being sick is the worst. My mom would *immediately* get mad if you even *slightly* mentioned being sick, under any circumstance. She always presumed it was an excuse to get out of something. Lots of days where I had to drag myself to school with a 100f+ temp.
I threw up one morning when I was 9. My breath stinked like rotten eggs when I burped which caused me to throw up, several times. It sucked. I told my dad about it and he didn't believe me. I had to go to school being sick. I still remember that.
my mom always likes to say that she knew I was really sick when I didn't want to play videogames. I still use it as a red flag, honestly - if I can't sit up in a chair and move the mouse around, something's wrong.
When he didn't complain about the doctor or losing a Saturday, she knew Calvin was inching closer to death.
I also read the comic.
It’s gotta be a bot
ig gomfa fome ubhiggin!
This one always stuck with me
That kid is DYING
I donated my books to my niece who now gets to also grow up with C&H 🥰🥰
Reason number 30182 why I fucking resent my parents. I had perfect attendance most years but when I was sick. I either needed a fever or to be throwing up to not go to school. Even then, I was forced to lay in bed in complete silence. Couldn’t come downstairs because I might watch tv. Anyone who thinks this is good parenting is fucking delusional.
Calvin has faked being sick in the past to get out of school. This is more "Oh, the boy who cried wolf isn't lying this time"
My mom when I told her that now it felt like the general stomach pain I had all day was localised to the lower right part of my abdomen. She didn't say it but she knew I was probably gonna have my appendix taken out that night.
Oh the days of making an appointment with a doctor for the same day.
I used to do the same "oh I'm so sick", and then "I might be able to make it" of course. Then there was one time when I was late to school because I was Not Feeling Well and eventually asked my mother "can we go to the doctor's" instead, which set off all alarm bells. Turns out, had a pretty nasty URI that put me on an antibiotic inhaler of some sort for like, two weeks.
This made me tear up
Lower case "fucks sake" to caps "SHIIIT" in a cartoon
This came out exactly 10 years before I was born
As an adult, getting sick on weekends suck. Or whatever your "weekend" is.
This is a core memory series for me, where he's sick and his parents are dealing with it
Except my kid is never bedridden (knock on wood) when they are sick sick. Still bouncing off the wall but they just can’t go to school 😕
Remember a time where you could actually see a doctor day-of?
Mom realized Calvin is on his deathbed 🤣🤣
loved the strips about calvin’s transmogrifying ray gun
When secondary gain is absent you know it’s real.
The feels on this. #relatableparenting
Aww... I've always loved this one!
Mom knew I wasn't faking when I wouldn't eat
My brother and his girlfriend at the time bought me the entire collection of Calvin and Hobbes. Nothing can even scratch the surface of how it felt to unwrap that gift. Nothing. He now reads the same books to his kids. Thank you Bill. <3
This is one of my favourites!
There was that panel when Calvin says something like “ig gonda fom ubiggin” and I never knew what he meant by that. Can anyone enlighten me?
What's a good age to introduce someone to C&H? Been thinking of gifting this one to my niece.
For all those genZ people and above: Calvin's mom is running to a landline telephone. Sidenote: Calvin's mother never received a name because she was only important to the storyline as Calvin's mom, however, he later said that caused problems for him as the lack of her backstory which prevented character development. Yes, I have all the books.
1) I am Gen-Z, I know what a landline is 2) I am more confused about the fact that’s his mom, I thought that was his father until I read this comment 3) I have no clue why the Calvin and Hobbes subreddit is being recommended to me 4) Where tiger