Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for April 04, 2017

Little rocket ships?

Is Calvin wearing his Spaceman Spiff costume underneath his street clothes?

Well, let your back touch the wall, Calvin.

He should be lucky with those underpants on.

Some kids have ants in their pants. But Spaceman Spiff’s secret is showing through the porthole of the pants of his secret identity, Calvin! Tune in for the next reveal!

I was late to class after noon recess once in first or second grade, I think it was. I was playing “tag” with the Russel twins, Terry and Tom and I was “it”. We were at the far end of the playground and just as we reached a patch of tall weeds, the boys split apart, each running on a different side of that patch of weeds. I decided to take a short cut through the weeds to catch one of them. Just before I entered the patch of weeds, they both stopped and shouted, “No, no!” I thought the were just trying to trick me, but they were trying to warn me that I was about to run into a patch of sand burrs. Well, I ended up coated with burrs just as the bell rang to call us in from recess. A couple teachers (or playground aids or whatever) hurried over to me as they heard my cries of shock and pain. They patiently pulled all the burrs off of me, but I was so afraid I was going to be in trouble for being late back to class, I think I was crying more from worry about getting in trouble than I was crying from pain. One of the teachers walked me back to class to explain what happened. I was told later that the janitors were really mad at me for running through the sand burrs because then they were sent out there to cut them all down. Why they allowed the things to grow there in the first place, I will never be able to figure out.

Usually he “girds his loins with funny animals” (if I remember the quotation correctly).

I’ll bet Miss Wormwood keeps a needle and thread in a desk drawer just for these kinds of emergencies.

Maybe this is where the trend of wearing your pants so low your underwear shows started. About the right era.

Reminded me of the ‘boys’ of The Big Bang Theory.

It could have been worse; he could have gone commando that day.

DUDE! What is WRONG with you?!? The rocket ship undies get special honor of being worn on the OUTSIDE! It’s ROCKETSHIPS!

I would have got beat up for that.

Memory did serve after all.

Next: Calvin tries to figure out how to cover it up.

Should have gone with the Spiderman underoos.

When you’re a kid, you have to wear the clothes your mom buys for you, and you have little or no say. When I was about 8 or 9, my mom had bought me some new pairs of cheap underpants that, when I wore them, had some stitching (i think nylon or maybe acrylic?) that was very irritating in the worst possible place. When I told her, her response was “Too bad, but I just bought those, and I can’t return them and I’m not going to buy others so soon. Just try wearing them backwards.” I was in a class where half the kids were a grade higher and a year older, and of course as soon as I bent over to pick up something, one of the older kids laughed and said “Look at that stupid kid. He’s got his underwear on backwards”.

One of Calvin’s nightmare comes true.

What’s the matter with little rocket ships? He should be glad it’s not flowers…

xxx

Tiger Briefs (yes that is a brand name) come in a rocket pattern, also a tiger pattern for Hobbs.