2014-05-20
Original: 2014-05-20 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Elderly woman: If you could change anything about how you parented the kids, what would it be?
Elderly man: Oh, that's easy. I would've done all the diapers.
Panel 2:
Elderly woman: Why?
Elderly man: Diapers got the best chore cross section.
Panel 3:
Elderly man: Chores have two qualities: E is level of easiness. P is level of perceived difficulty. If you put them on a scale of 1 to 10, the perfect score is E·P = 100.
Panel 4:
Elderly man: If I had to do over, I would've called doing diapers the easiest thing about parenting, and everyone thinks it's the hardest. While your spouse is diaper-naive, it has a chore cross section of 100!
Panel 5:
Elderly man: But, once the diaper-naive spouse does a diaper, P falls to 1, making the chore cross section a mere 10.
Panel 6:
Elderly man: So yeah. If I could have it over again, I'd have done all the diapers and told you how gross and terrible it was, and you'd have been none the wiser. Just imagine what a life it could've been.
Panel 7:
Elderly woman: I was hoping we'd have a moment there.
Elderly man: You didn't?
Votey:
Close-up of the man's weary face, a single tear under his eye.
Man (thought/caption): So much wasted time.
Elderly woman: If you could change anything about how you parented the kids, what would it be?
Elderly man: Oh, that's easy. I would've done all the diapers.
Panel 2:
Elderly woman: Why?
Elderly man: Diapers got the best chore cross section.
Panel 3:
Elderly man: Chores have two qualities: E is level of easiness. P is level of perceived difficulty. If you put them on a scale of 1 to 10, the perfect score is E·P = 100.
Panel 4:
Elderly man: If I had to do over, I would've called doing diapers the easiest thing about parenting, and everyone thinks it's the hardest. While your spouse is diaper-naive, it has a chore cross section of 100!
Panel 5:
Elderly man: But, once the diaper-naive spouse does a diaper, P falls to 1, making the chore cross section a mere 10.
Panel 6:
Elderly man: So yeah. If I could have it over again, I'd have done all the diapers and told you how gross and terrible it was, and you'd have been none the wiser. Just imagine what a life it could've been.
Panel 7:
Elderly woman: I was hoping we'd have a moment there.
Elderly man: You didn't?
Votey:
Close-up of the man's weary face, a single tear under his eye.
Man (thought/caption): So much wasted time.
Alt text
A two-person conversation comic between an elderly woman and an elderly man, drawn as close-up portraits. She asks what he'd change about how they parented; he says he'd have done all the diapers because diapers had the best 'chore cross section.' He explains a pseudo-mathematical theory: chores have two qualities, E (level of easiness) and P (level of perceived difficulty), each scored 1 to 10, and the perfect chore scores E times P equals 100. He says diapers, when a spouse is 'diaper-naive,' are actually easy (E high) yet perceived as hard (P high), giving a cross section of 100 — but once the spouse does one diaper, P drops to 1, making the value a mere 10. He concludes he should have done all the diapers while complaining about how gross they were, so she'd never have known, lamenting 'what a life it could've been.' She replies she was hoping they'd 'have a moment there'; he asks, 'You didn't?' Votey: an extreme close-up of the man's weary, lined face with a single tear welling under one eye, and the caption 'So much wasted time.'
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.