Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for April 23, 2022

Calvin does have an ability to find mud puddles, even when he’s not looking for one.

Have a nice trip?…..

Sure. Blame luck for your easy-to-avoid accidents.

I think his latest prediction is 100% true: “Man, here comes another bath.” Eat your heart out, Nostradamus!

He fell for it

I’m a fatalist, myself. I honestly believe that some Higher Power determines the course of my life.

And whenever that Power calls me, I’m ready.

Horoscopes aren’t good enough to find rocks in your path, Calvin.

“It is impossible for someone to dispel his fears about the most important matters if he doesn’t know the nature of the universe but still gives some credence to myths.” – Epicurus

“Don’t fear god, Don’t worry about death; What is good is easy to get, and What is terrible is easy to endure.” – Epicurus

Good luck charms don’t exist I am afraid. Just ask any other kid who ate the frosted ones—they still had baths when they didn’t want them, had chores after breakfast, and still had to eat that awful fried okra.

Today’s strip reminds me of a comic strip that I read as a boy in the 1970s. In the first panel, the wife was reading her husband’s horoscope to him and warning him he was likely to have an accident. The husband claimed not to believe superstitions. At the end of the strip, the husband and wife were in bed the next morning. The husband had his arm in a sling and an ice pack on his head and was wearing several good luck charms. “Not superstitious. Just not taking chances.” “Your horoscope for today says not to rely on charms.”

I’ve never been able to understand why people use good luck charms. Take rabbit’s feet as an example. Look how much luck it brought the rabbit, and it had four of them.

Be where you are, do what you’re doing and let the future surprise you. It’s a true adventure.

A trip, or a push?

Hobbes has the point here.

Here’s mud in your eye… and your nose and ears…

Narrow winding path on the edge of a cliff though a beautiful place. Enjoy the view, but keep an eye on that path.

PAY ATTENTION!

… and keep your eyes on the road.

Nobody tell Calvin that another bath is heading his way, mud puddle or no mud puddle. He’s already got enough to deal with thinking about his future.

Internet leakers, please pay attention to the words in the second panel.

Most older belief systems, such as “astrology” originated at a time that believed that “The Stars” were much closer than they actually are and were actually “reachable” from the tops of tall mountains. At a time when “disease” was attributed to “bad humours” and “curses” it was believable that the stars controlled our destines.

Nowadays, Astrology, like most other belief systems, requires a “suspension of disbelief” that rivals any fantasy you care to name, and are in fact in line with Lewis Carroll’s “Red Queen”, who bragged that she routinely believed six “impossible” things before breakfast each morning.

I think that kids don’t really dislike baths — it’s just that they seem in prospect like “time out from living”.

The future should not make you weep, now, the present most likely will.

When you are wondering about the stars and galaxies, the reality does not take time to kick in.

Calvin, for that one they will do to you what they (usually) did to me at least twice a week.

Make you strip down in the back yard and hose you off before you are allowed inside!