Babies come from vending machines

Calvin and Hobbes has long been one of my all time favorite cartoons.  I think in large part it is because I see a lot of myself in the characters; and not just in Calvin with his vivid imagination and roguish nature, but in the other characters as well, like Calvin’s dad.  One of my favorite themes in the series is Calvin’s dad bestowing pearls of wisdom to his son, pearls that are completely bogus, and intentionally so.

 image copyrighted by Bill Watterson

I do this myself sometimes as well.  For example:

One day many years ago I was running an errand with the girl friend of one of my best friends.  As we were driving down the road I could see a dead skunk at the side of the road further ahead.  Naturally I changed the air conditioner from vent to recycle in anticipation of the smell.  But when we got closer it turned out to not be a skunk at all.  She looked at me curiously and she asked why I had changed the A/C settings.  I was about to explain my thought process to her when the mischievous side of my nature seized me.  Instead I told her that we “are getting close to the river and there are lots of bugs and I don’t want them getting into the car”

PS, bugs normally cannot get into your car through the air conditioner regardless of the settings, this is where I was bestowing some bogus pearls of wisdom.

Flash forward to several years later.  I had just picked up my friend’s wife (same girl, they are married now) and we were driving to get my friend from work before going hiking.  Suddenly she reaches over and turns the air conditioning from vent to recycle.  Remember, this is years later, so I’m not thinking about the prior incident at all.  I can’t figure out why she would have done it so I ask.  She answers “because there’s lots of bugs down here” (we were going through a marshy bit of lowlands) “and I don’t want them getting into the car”

I was amazed that anyone would believe that bugs could get into a car through the vents... were did she pick up that bit of... oh... (a memory of several years earlier pops into my mind) ah... err... I taught her that.  So now I’m faced with a dilemma.  Do I tell her that bugs can’t get into a car that way and hope she doesn’t remember that I’m the one that told her that in the first place or do I just bite my tongue.

Somewhere out there a girl is driving around with her car always set to recycle so the bugs don’t get in.  Maybe she’ll figure it out some day.  I mean I’m almost sure my nephew doesn’t still think babies come from vending machines.