Follow TV Tropes

Following

Funny / Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Go To

This series has been called "the funniest books you'll ever read", and for very good reason.

Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid has its own page.

    open/close all folders 

    General 
  • Greg has some ridiculous and hilarious thoughts about how the world works, to the point where one may wonder how he hasn't flunked out of school yet. Then again, The Deep End implies he makes stuff up when he's retelling the events of the day in some fashion whether it's to Rowley or in his journal.
    • In Rodrick Rules, he writes a paper that claims that moose (or "mooses" as he calls them) evolved from birds, "just like people did", but that "somewhere along the line, people got arms and the moose got stuck with these useless horns". He illustrates this with two birds. One with its wings down (arms) evolves into a human and the other bird with its wings up (antlers) evolves into a moose.
    • When Greg's French penpal Mamadou writes that he's pleased to make Greg's acquaintance, Greg replies with, "I'm pretty sure 'aquaintance' doesn't have a 'c' in it. I really think you need to work on your English."
    • His whole theory that the human brain can only store so much information and when you turn eight or nine, you've filled it up and once you learn something new, you instantly forget something old. He "proves" this by stating that he forgot how to do long division since learning about photosynthesis, and illustrates him writing, "No clue" as an answer to a long division question.
    • When he starts reckoning his whole life is a movie and his family are robots or actors. One of his reasons for thinking his family are robots is when he hears Susan mention "recharging [her and Frank's] batteries". He even tried to test if Frank was a robot by pouring water on him, but that just made him mad.
    • He thinks that houseflies are tiny drones sent by aliens to beam images back to their spaceships (because their eyes look like high-tech cameras) and that the aliens "seem to be really fascinated by dog poop".
    • He thinks that oatmeal raisin cookies were invented as a practical joke a long time ago and never actually meant to be eaten. He illustrates this with a cartoon showing a Pilgrim spitting out an oatmeal raisin cookie and two Native Americans laughing at him.
      "I can't tell you HOW many times I've bitten into an oatmeal raisin cookie thinking it was chocolate chip."
    • He thinks that sweat is "your body's way of telling you you're working too hard and you need to take it easy".
    • Some other characters occasionally have hilariously dumb notions too.
      • Rowley thinking volleyball is called "bolleyball" and then he reads the entire "B" section of the dictionary twice in order to prove his case. When he can't find "bolleyball," rather than admit to being wrong, he accuses Greg of giving him an "outdated dictionary".
      • Rodrick wanting to keep the pig Manny won because he believes they could get "free bacon from it every day" the same way you get eggs from a chicken.
      • Rodrick writing in his essay that Abraham Lincoln wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. It's even funnier in the webcomic version where he wrote that Benjamin Franklin fought in The Vietnam War.
  • An incident from the webcomic that didn't make it into the print version: When Frank is taking the boys out to eat, they keep arguing over where to go for dinner, so he gives them three choices: Tofu Grille, Vegetarian Delight, or Red Lobster. Greg, Rodrick, and Manny all yell at the same time, "Red Lobster! Red Lobster!" It's only later that Greg realizes that Frank tricked them into going to his favorite restaurant.
  • Another thing that didn't make it in was Mr. Peters, the biology teacher who puts Greg to sleep during class because he talks ridiculously slowly and quietly, with all of his dialogue represented by "Blaah, blaah, blaah, blaah..." Rodrick had him back when he was in middle school, and Susan wasn't buying his excuse that he couldn't stop himself from sleeping...only for Frank to come to Rodrick's defense, because Frank was also in Mr. Peters' class a couple decades ago, and he had the same effect back then!
    • And Mr. Peters standing right in front of Greg while he lectures somehow makes it even harder to not pass out at his desk. Greg comments, "You would think that would help me stay awake, but he's like one of those snakes in a cartoon that can hypnotize its prey."
    • At one point, Greg gets so tired in Mr. Peters' class that he actually starts hallucinating that Mr. Peters is a penguin (still going "Blaah, blaah, blaah, blaah...") and there's a rabbit sitting behind him, saying, "Moo!"
  • While the replacement of Heather Hills by Leland as Rowley's babysitter is left unexplained in Rodrick Rules, the same situation in the webcomic has Rowley's parents tell him not to tell anyone about Lori Matthews, the equivalent character in the webcomic, so as not to hurt her reputation. Rowley tells Greg on the condition that he not say what happened, and in the journal, he declares that he wouldn't say a word. This is accompanied by a drawing of the Jeffersons catching Lori smoking.
  • Rodrick decided to name his garage band Löded Diper. It may seem like a case of Myspeld Rökband at first, but Greg implies Rodrick really just thinks it's spelled that way.

Books

    Diary of a Wimpy Kid 
  • Rodrick wakes Greg up and tells him that he slept all the way through summer break, but woke up just in time for the first day of school. Greg believes this, goes down to make a bowl of cereal, only for Frank to yell at him because it's actually 3 in the morning.
  • Greg talks about his school dividing the reading classes into "easy" or "gifted" groups, and comments you can tell from which book they give you — "Einstein as a Child" or "Bink Says Boo". Greg, hoping to get out of any extra work, tried to throw the placement test so he'd be put in the easy group (such as not being able to say "book"), but got placed in the advanced group anyway, suspecting that his mother stepped in to make sure he got more challenging books. Not that he's totally against it...
    You know, I'm kind of glad my plan to get into the easy group failed. I saw some of the "Bink Says Boo" kids holding their books upside down, and I don't think they were joking.note 
  • When Manny is done eating his cereal, he dumps the rest of it into his plastic potty. Greg writes that he loses his appetite scraping the cereal out.
  • Greg explaining how to beat Rowley at a racing video game: Just name your car something ridiculous like "Bad Fart" at the beginning of the game and Rowley busts out laughing when the announcer says, "Bad Fart ahead!" The illustration of Greg rolling his eyes when this happens is just the icing on the cake.
  • Fregley's "secret language." When he needs to use the bathroom, he says...
    Fregley: Juice! Juuuice!!!
    Mr. Underwood: (holding a cup and a jug of Hi-C) OK, kid... gee whiz!
  • Rowley bawling his eyes when a teacher tells him that rock and roll would "ruin his brains". Greg facepalms at this, and even admits that sometimes, he doesn't know about that boy.
  • Greg sneaks up at night to listen to Rodrick's music. He puts on a pair of headphones, puts the CD into the stereo, and plays it at max volume. Unfortunately, Greg forgot to plug in his headphones, and the music blasted out of the speakers, much to his dad's anger.
    Greg: I can definitely understand why they put that "Parental Warning" sticker on the CD.
  • After being punished by his dad, Greg comments that if he or his brothers mess up in front of their dad, he usually throws whatever he's holding at them. The accompanying illustration shows a "good time to screw up", with Greg kicking over Manny's blocks in front of Dad holding a newspaper, and a "bad time to screw up", with Greg doing the same thing in front of Dad while he's laying down bricks.
  • Manny bringing one of Rodrick's magazines, which features a page with a scantily-clad woman, to show-and-tell. His classmates show no emotion while the teacher looks on in horror.
    • Rodrick's response to the question "Do you have anything you want to say to women for having owned this offensive magazine?"
    I'm sorry women.
  • Greg imagines what he would do as school treasurer: When the cheerleaders complain about riding the bus with the band geeks, Greg buys them a limousine. And yet he proceeds to shoo the football players away who simply ask for an air pump after their only ball deflates.
  • Greg makes posters while running for treasurer. His strategy is, rather than make himself look good, to make his opponent Marty Porter look bad. He draws borderline propaganda about how Marty is a bumbling idiot, how he will waste the school's money, and even bringing up the time Marty got head lice despite it having no correlation to the election.
  • In a flashback to a previous Halloween, Greg's "cowboy" costume consists of him wearing two baseball caps at once.
  • Rowley gets a really good knight costume for Halloween. But when Rowley shows up at Greg's house on Halloween night, his mom had made so many safety regulations to itnote  that it's impossible to tell what he's even supposed to be.
  • When a student named Preston Mudd becomes Athlete of the Year, others start mocking his initials of "P. Mudd."
    "Pee mud! Pee mud!"
    • In the Spanish version of the book, Preston Mudd became Preston Zonn, with his initials now sounding like "pezĂłn", the word for "nipple". (in Spanish, the letter P is pronounced "peh").
    • In the Polish version, Preston is instead named "Kriss Bell". His initials are now read "kabel" ("wire", also slang for a snitch), which is quickly twisted into "kibel", an informal word for "toilet".
  • During the Wrestling unit, Greg is teamed up with Fregley, and somehow gets his ass handed to him.
  • Greg's original thought process on working out:
    Frank: If you work out regularly, you can get big muscles!
    Young Greg: Muscles are gross!
  • The fact that so many people tried out for the Wizard of Oz play, and Mrs. Norton promising everyone would get a role, led some kids to be given roles to replace background props, such as Rodney James playing The Shrub.
  • Greg is cast as a tree, and only has one line: "Ouch". He tries to get out of the play by flubbing his line, which ends up being hard to do when you've only been assigned a single word.
    Greg: Owwchhh?
  • A first-grader is brought in to play Toto. But the boy's mother demanded that he walk on two legs, fearing that crawling on all fours would be "too degrading".
    • It gets worse during the actual performance, where Toto sits on a stool and reads comics for every scene he's in.
  • Rodney James, the Shrub, getting stage fright. This causes the play to be delayed by half an hour.
    Greg: You'd think someone whose job it is to sit on the stage and do nothing would just suck it up for one performance.
  • Rodrick's Christmas wish list consists of new drums, a new van, and a shrunken head.
  • Uncle Charlie's present for Greg is an 8 x 10 picture of himself.
  • Greg gets a last minute present from his mom, which turned out to be the sweater that she was supposed to give to their Giving Tree guy.note  Susan admits that she bought Greg a new video game, but she used the same wrapping for both presents and must have put the wrong names on them. She attempts to stay positive, saying that at least the Giving Tree guy got a great gift, until Greg tells her that the game is most likely useless to him without a console or TV.
    Giving Tree guy: Jerks.
  • Greg makes a fill-in-the-blank template to write thank-you cards to his relatives, which doesn't work as well when he gets pants.
    All my friends will be so jealous that I have my very own pants.
  • When some students crowd Rowley when they see his broken hand. Greg then tries to get in on the popularity by saying he was the one who broke Rowley's hand. Unsurprisingly, the kids aren't amused.
  • Greg joins an Independent Study class, where the students are left on their own to brainstorm different ideas. For the first day, the class is tasked with brainstorming a robot and what it would do.
    • While things start smoothly, it derails once some of the girls propose that the robot should give dating advice and have different lip glosses for each fingertip. The boys think the idea is stupid, and the class splits between genders.
    • The boys come up with the idea for a robot that can repeat a person's name back to them, but they decide that they should program the robot to not cuss. So they write a list of dozens of words the robot would not be able to repeat. When the teacher returns and sees this, Independent Study is barred from the boys for the rest of the year.
      Greg: So if robots in the future are going around with cherry lip gloss for fingers, at least now you know how it all got started.
  • The school holds an assembly where they show a movie about being proud of who you are, no matter what other people say. Greg is quick to point out that many of the school's bullies use it to avoid any guilt for their torment.
    Bully: [shoves kid] It's great to be me!
  • Greg talks about Wacky Dawg, the school paper's former comic that used to be funny, until the creator started using it to handle his personal drama.
    Kid: Hey, Wacky Dawg, say somethin' FUNNY!
    Wacky Dawg: Actually, I have something serious on my mind today. Susan Lim, if you are reading this, Bryan is very sorry he kissed your best friend Rachel behind the lockers. He hopes you can find it in your heart to forgive him. P.S. Barry Palmer, you still owe Bryan five dollars, you BUM!
  • Greg lost an anti-smoking poster contest to a guy who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day.
  • Rowley's "Zoo-Wee Mama!" comic:
    Character: Oops I stepped in a puddle. At least it's not an acid puddle. Aye-aye-aye! It is an acid puddle!
    Squirrel: ZOO-WEE MAMA!
  • When Greg's first comic is published, the teacher in charge of the paper, for no apparent reason, decided to completely gut the joke from it and turn it into a promotion for the library expansion. This quickly gets Greg labelled as a "Teacher's pet".
  • After Greg and Rowley have a falling out, Rowley starts hanging out with a boy named Colin. They even wear matching T-shirts with their faces on it.
    Greg: It made me just about want to vomit.
  • At Fregley's sleepover, Greg locks himself in the bathroom after Fregley chases him with a booger. Later on, Fregley slips him a letter under the door.
    Dear Gregory, I'm very sorry I chased you with a booger on my finger. Here, I put it on this paper so you can get me back.
    (The bottom of the letter has an arrow pointing to where the booger is, which is where Greg's thumb is. Greg passes out.)
    • Greg wakes up in the middle of the night, and after noticing that Fregley is asleep, he escapes Fregley's house and runs home. In the online version, Greg runs home after waking up in Fregley's bed.
  • Greg, in an attempt to be voted Class Clown in the yearbook, plans to mess with the substitute for his History class. Unfortunately, his mother is the substitute, who proceeds to spend the whole class making him look stupid.
    Greg: I'm just lucky there's not a category called Biggest Mama's Boy, because after today, I'd win that one in a landslide.
  • After arguing at school, Greg and Rowley are surrounded and encouraged to fight. While Greg takes a stance and holds his fists up, Rowley starts "prancing around like a leprechaun".
  • After people find out that the cheese is gone, Greg knows that Rowley's reputation would be ruined if everyone found out he ate it. So Greg decides to take the heat and announces that he got rid of the cheese so they no longer have to live in fear of it. While he expects his peers to praise him, they instead run away in fear because he technically revived the Cheese Touch.
  • Greg's reaction to finding out that Rowley was voted Class Clown.
    "If anyone wants a free yearbook, they can dig one out of the trash can in the cafeteria."

    Rodrick Rules 
  • Susan buys Greg a pair of Speedos for his swim team, insisting that he will perform better and make his teammates jealous. It cuts to Greg being ridiculed by the other boys.
  • Greg talks about Peter Uteger, a boy who answered all of the teacher's questions until he was made fun of for having the initials P.U. He stopped raising his hand altogether and became a C student. Greg says he feels bad, but then he admits that he started it and will brag about it when it's brought up.
  • Manny draws a picture representing an incident where Greg and Rodrick fought over who got the TV remote. His parents believe that the drawing is of them, so they make sure to act extra lovey whenever Manny is around.
  • Rodrick is in charge of driving Greg home from school. The problem is that he is always forced to sit in the back of the van with his drum equipment and no seat, which leads to each ride being a painful one.
    • One day, Greg decides he's had enough and asks Rodrick to go easy on the brakes. Rodrick responds by going out of his way to drive over every speed bump in town.
  • When Greg and Rodrick fight and Susan holds a "Summit" for them, which consists of making someone draw a picture of the bad thing they did (a tactic she used to punish misbehaving children when she was a preschool teacher). This quickly blows up in her face.
    Greg's picture, captioned: I will not call Rodrick names.
    (the picture has Greg saying "Bunny rabbit!" and a baby Rodrick crying)
    Rodrick's picture, captioned: I will not push Gregory.
    (the picture has stick figures of Rodrick pushing Greg off a cliff into the mouth of a hungry shark)
    • Even better: In the original webcomic version of that scene, Rodrick spells Greg's name wrong in his drawing and adds in tiny writing "...unless he really annoys me."
  • In Rodrick's sophomore year, he was sick the day he was supposed to get his school picture. So Frank is asked to find a picture to send to the school. Frank decides to send in Rodrick's SECOND-grade picture. And it even got printed and included in the yearbook. Greg is completely amazed that someone would screw up on this level.
  • Bill Walter, Löded Diper's lead singer, was only asked by Rodrick to be in the band because he was voted "Most Likely to Be a Rock Star" in high school, along with Anna Wrentham. Keep in mind that Bill is 35 and still lives with his parents.
    "That hasn't really worked out for Bill yet. And I think I heard Anna Wrentham is in prison."
  • Manny apologizes to Greg for destroying his game console by giving him a ball of tinfoil with toothpicks sticking out. Greg tries to throw it out, seeing it as nothing but trash, but his Mom refuses to let him get rid of a gift from his brother.
    • He eventually does get rid of it after Rowley accidentally sits on it. Although, Greg mentions that his mom likely wouldn't have stopped him.
  • Greg decides to play a prank on Chirag by pretending that he wasn't there. Pretty soon, the entire class is in on the joke.
    • Greg knows Rowley will inevitably screw up the joke and does his best to keep the two apart, but he slips up at one point. When Chirag asks Rowley if he thinks he exists, the latter does not do a very good job of joining the joke:
    • Chirag decides to take advantage of Rowley and attempts to get him to admit he exists in exchange for a corn dog. Greg retaliates by telling everyone about the "floating corn dog" and eats it himself.
    • Chirag decides to report Greg to the Vice Principal, who orders Greg to apologize. However, he ended up misidentifying the victim and forced Greg to apologize to a kid named Sharif, who has no idea what Greg is talking about.
  • Greg's excuse for not buying Rowley a birthday present.
  • Greg tries to prove a point about Rowley copying everything he does. He rolls up one of his pant legs, ties a bandana around his ankle and goes to school like that. Not only does Rowley copy this, but Greg gets sent to the office again after a woman reports the two for sporting "gang colours".
  • When Susan finds out about the Invisible Chirag prank, she tells Greg that he'll be grounded if he lies again. So Greg does whatever he can to not lie, even if it means saying inappropriate things.
    • A neighbourhood kid, Shawn, tells Greg that he wants to grow up to be a professional basketball player.
      Greg: Think again, Shawn! Neither of your parents is taller than five-foot-two, and you're the only 200-pound six-year-old I know!
      Shawn: (is comforted by his dad, who is glaring at Greg) WAAAH!
      Greg: I cannot tell a lie.
    • At Rowley's grandfather's birthday party, he comments that he wants a chocolate cake next year. Greg immediately ruins the moment by giving the hard truth that, due to his age, he may not be alive to see his next birthday. Mr. Jefferson is visibly aghast at this.
      Greg: Hey, I'm just trying to be realistic!
    • When Greg answers the phone from someone from the PTA looking for Susan, and she tells him to say that she's not there. Greg isn't sure if she's serious or if she's just testing him. So, in a case of deconstructing one of the classic Parentisms of all times, makes her wait outside and then tells the caller that his mom was not inside the house at the moment so he wouldn't be lying. Susan stops holding him to the "no lying" pledge after this.
  • At the school's Career Day, a lot of kids are unhappy with the jobs they were deemed best suited for. The teachers tell them that the jobs they get picked as are not their destiny and that they shouldn't take them seriously. Greg then brings up Edward Mealey, a boy who got "Sanitation Worker" on a previous Career Day and ever since, the teachers have always asked him to clean up any mess.
  • Greg assumes that Rowley is talking badly about him behind his back and decides to look in his diary. The problem is that Rowley's diary is locked, so he gets his dad to buy him that same diary so that he could get a key. Frank is visibly sad that his son is pestering him for a book made for little girls. And when Greg manages to open Rowley's diary, he finds... an account of Rowley playing with his dinosaur action figures.
  • In English, Greg is tasked with writing an allegory story. He creates Rory Screws Up, a comic about a monkey (Rory) who continually messed things up and doesn't know how to fix a car. He then shows it to Rodrick, who happens to be fixing his van.
  • Manny's first day of preschool is on Halloween. He immediately panics upon seeing everyone in costumes and has to be taken home early.
    • Greg recounts his first day of preschool, where a boy named Quinn made the Why Don't You Marry It? quip upon learning that Greg liked ice cream—only, Greg didn't realize Quinn was joking. When Susan explained it was a joke, however, Greg actually found it funny, so he tried to make it back to Quinn, but he ended up saying:
      Greg: You're gonna grow up and get married to some ice cream! Ha!
  • Susan is curious about Greg playing Magick and Monsters, a Dungeons & Dragons clone, with Rowley and Leland. She decides to join in on one of their games.
    • When making her character, she wants to be Greg's character's mother. Greg turns her down by lying that all of their characters are orphans. Susan believes him, but then her character is simply named "Mom".
    • Even in a fantasy world, Susan refuses to let Greg drink alcohol.
      Susan: Mom accidentally bumps Grimlon's [Greg's character] arm and spills his drink.
  • Susan buys a bunch of Magick and Monsters books so that Greg and Rodrick could play together. On their first day, Rodrick does his best to begin (read: get out of) their quest:
    • Greg also names his characters Joe and Bob, so that they'd have generic names that Rodrick couldn't lampoon.
  • Greg is seen bragging to girls at school, telling them that Rodrick got a gig and is a "professional drummer". What he doesn't tell them is that said gig was volunteering as the Rimshot drummer after every joke at a local theatre's comedy show because the regular guy was sick. He only made five bucks off of it.
  • After Rodrick ends Greg and Rowley's drum lesson early, Susan demands that he give them homework. The homework he assigns? Listen to music with some drums in it.
  • Greg buys a paper off of Rodrick, realizing that the two had the exact same teacher and assignment: a poem about the 1900s. When he reads it on the bus, he finds such enlightened lines as "Did cavemen ride on dinosaurs?" and "Did giant spiders rule the Earth?". Needless to say, Greg doesn't even bother turning it in.
  • Greg mentions that some of the biggest fights he and Rodrick have gotten into were over who had to greet their Aunt Loretta first on Thanksgiving.
  • Grandma insists that she loves all her grandchildren equally, even though the fridge right behind her is covered with photos of Manny and none of the other kids (though that may just be because Manny looks cuter because of his young age). Greg then supposes that all grandparents play favourites and notes that he doesn't mind that Grandpa does... only because Grandpa favorites him.
  • The only thing on Grandpa's TV is the security footage of the retirement home's lobby.
  • Grandpa always serves watercress salad, because Rodrick tricked him into thinking Greg loves it when he actually really hates it. Greg ends up putting his salad into his pocket instead of eating it.
  • Greg, Rodrick, and Grandpa play a game called Gutbusters, where the objective is to make the others laugh by reading incredibly antiquated joke cards. Whenever it's Greg's turn, Rodrick takes a big gulp of milk to spit in his face, pretending to laugh.
  • While Rowley is sleeping over at Greg's, he always makes sure to kick a pillow across the room whenever he leaves and comes back. This annoys Greg, who responds by putting one of his dad's dumbbell in the pillow while Rowley is gone as a prank. Unsurprisingly, Rowley breaks his big toe.
    • Manny saw Greg do this. So Greg decides to pretend that he's running away to make him feel guilty. What does Manny do once he thinks Greg's gone? Eat all of his candy. Greg considers this significant enough payment for keeping the secret... and then wakes up the next morning to find that Manny tattled on him anyway.
  • During the talent show, a punk teen named Larry Larkin is performing a speed metal guitar solo. Frank decides to make a comment to the man sitting next to him about how it would suck to be his dad.
    Greg: I wish I had time to warn Dad that the man he was talking to was Larry's father.
  • When it's time for Löded Diper to perform, Greg notices that his Dad is gone. Turns out that he was standing outside with cotton balls in his ears.
  • Rodrick's band loses the trophy for "Best Musical Act" to a kindergartener roller-skating in figure eights around a boom box playing "Yankee Doodle Dandy".
  • Rodrick gets Susan to record the band's performance in the chance they could send it to record companies. However, she screws it up by making constant comments, such as Rodrick's shirt and Bill sticking his tongue outnote . The only time she stops talking is Rodrick's drum solo, where the camera shakes all over due to Susan being unable to resist dancing.
    • While their home video is useless, there is still hope that the local broadcast would be good enough. However, when the drum solo came on, the cameraman focused on Susan for the rest of the song, who subsequently becomes an Internet sensation while Rodrick's band is left with nothing.
  • Greg's secret incident. While he and Rodrick are staying with Grandpa, Greg decides to write a little in his first diary. The moment Rodrick sees it, he snatches it and tries to run off with it, but trips. Greg runs down to the lobby and hides in the bathroom, where he rips up pages and attempts to flush them down the toilet. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Greg accidentally ran into the Ladies Room. After a while, Greg is found and carried out by security, with Rodrick watching the whole thing on Grandpa's TV.
  • Greg's first day at school since his secret was revealed. A group of boys swarm Greg and... congratulate him. As it turns out, the story got passed around to so many people, it turned into a game of Telephone. In the end, the story went from Greg getting trapped in the ladies' room at Leisure Towers to Greg infiltrating the girls' locker room at Crosslands High School.
    • While the boys all look at him with more respect, Greg's reputation with the female student body went way down.
      I think I might have a little trouble getting someone to go to the Valentine's Dance with me.

    The Last Straw 
  • Manny sets a New Year's resolution that he was a "big boy" and was going to get rid of his pacifier before promptly throwing it in the trash. It then cuts to Manny, not even a minute later, having dug through the garbage sucking on his pacifier with a Deer in the Headlights expression.
  • Greg sets up a resolution for Rodrick to make him a better person: He would be given a checklist and any time Greg saw him acting bad, he'd give him an X. Rodrick proceeded to get all three strikes by punching him three times, before he could even figure out what would happen if he got them all.
  • Uncle Charlie got Greg a laundry hoop for Christmas, saying that he could have fun trying to throw his clothes in the net. Greg rejects it by saying he doesn't need the net: he just leaves his clothes on the ground for his mom to pick up and clean them. This backfires when Susan not only makes him keep it, but declares that Greg would do his own laundry from then on.
    Greg: So basically, it ends up that Uncle Charlie got me a chore for Christmas.
  • Frank used to tell Greg that he might run into Shel Silverstein (specifically, the scary picture of him on the back of The Giving Tree) to scare him into staying in bed.
    • And he's still scared of that today, even saying that he doesn't get up to use the bathroom anymore.
  • While watching TV, Greg is too lazy to grab the remote. So he tries to use the Force to make it come to him, which becomes awkward when his Dad walks in.
  • Frank accuses Greg of not using the bench press he got him in the first book. Greg proves that he in fact does... to hang his shirts up after washing them.
  • Frank is clearly jealous of his boss' kids being into athletics. The illustration shows him driving by their house as they're all playing different sports. The next picture shows him arriving home to see Greg and Rodrick burning one of Manny's toy cars with a magnifying glass.
  • Albert Sandy tells Greg's lunch table that a man in Asia learned how to jump higher than humanly possible by digging a hole, training himself to jump out of it, and then digging the hole deeper as he got better. Greg immediately is stoked on the idea of leaping up 12 feet to escape any bully.
    • Susan forbids Greg from digging any holes in her yard, so he goes to Rowley's and convinces him to do it his yard. When Rowley asks how they will hide it from his parents, Greg says they'll just put a tarp with some leaves over it. However, even he admits that the Jefferson's will eventually find out, showcased with an illustration of Mr. Jefferson falling into it while mowing the lawn.
  • Manny still carries around a blanket he had since he was a baby. However, it degraded so much over the years that it is now nothing more than a bunch of string held together with raisins and boogers. Manny even started to call it "Tingy".
  • The boys' bus route is changed and forces them to walk to school. Greg says that the city should at least make a compromise, like installing a ski lift on the large hill they live on. He even admits to sending several emails to the principal about his idea, which got no responses.
  • Greg's essay on chimps. He used large font and pictures to make what little info he had stretch out to the four pages required, and the only "facts" he put in were that "chimp" is short for "chimpanzee", and that they're "supposed" to be smart, but he's not sure that's true. He draws a chimp being offended at being addressed as "chimp", forgetting that it is one.
  • Mrs. Craig believed that someone had stolen her favorite dictionary and has promised to hold her class inside during recess until it was returned to her. After three days, the kids have had enough and try to find the culprit. Greg and some others soon ask the class genius, Alex Aruda, if he could help, since he normally spends recess breaks inside reading anyway. Alex offers them his assistance in exchange for five dollars. Once paid, he simply holds up the book he was reading, which turned out to be the dictionary that he borrowed to practice for an upcoming spelling bee.
    • Another student named Corey Lamb takes the book and puts it on her desk. Unfortunately for him, Mrs. Craig walks into the room right as he does this, automatically assumes he took it, and makes him stay inside during recess for the next three weeks (Even though she initially said that the culprit would not be punished).
      Greg: Looking on the bright side though, at least he'll have Alex Aruda to keep him company.
  • The one time Greg tried sneaking from the snack bin, he picked one of Susan's substitute snacks.
    Greg: Would one of you gentlemen care to trade something for a pack of croutons?
  • Greg getting scammed out of his money on things that would supposedly change his life from the ads in the back of comic books, like X-ray glasses (which just make your vision blurry), a "Cash Machine" that he hopes will solve his money problems (it turns out to just be a magic trick where you have to already have dollar bills on hand for it to work), and a hovercraft (Greg only gets instructions on how to build a hovercraft... the first step of which is "acquire a twin combustion engine").
  • Greg goes with Gramma to her bingo night as a way to avoid Dad’s wrath in seeing his report card. After he calls a bad bingo, Gramma warns Greg that the regulars don't take kindly to losing to newcomers. Sure enough, one of the regulars is sent to his table to intimidate him.
  • The wasp incident. Why was Leon Ricket (who was both The Ditz and The Bully) put in detention? For trying to hit a wasp that had landed on the window with a chair.
  • One year, during Valentine's Day, Greg makes a poem card for a girl he liked named Natasha. Once he gives it to her, she takes a card that was for a friend of hers that was sick that day, scribbles her name out, and replaces it with Greg's name.
  • During card exchange, Greg throws the holiday's message of love out the window and uses his cards to tell his classmates exactly how he felt of them, such as saying they smelled bad. He's sneaky about it as well, not only avoiding putting his name on any, but writing one for himself just in case.
  • The school holds a Valentine's Day dance where they play cheesy music (such as the Hokey Pokey). Nobody is ready to dance and everyone just sits on the bleachers. It takes the principal telling them that this dance would count for 20 percent of their Phys Ed grade to get people on the dance floor.
    • Greg's method of dancing? Take one step to the left, followed by a step to the right, on repeat.
  • Greg finds out that someone left him a Valentine in his mailbox. While he initially hopes it was from Holly, it ends up being from Rowley. In fact, it's hard to even call it a "card", as it was simply a piece of construction paper with a single candy heart taped on.
  • After an incident at church, Susan bans the boys from using the word "Ploopy" or they'll be grounded. Rodrick finds a loophole in that he says the word syllable by syllable each day.
    • "Ploopy" started as an insult invented by Manny, and when Greg asks Susan what it means, she replies, "WHAT is a PLOOPY?!", which throws him, because that's what he wanted to know.
  • Rodrick and Greg have to pay Manny money whenever they swear in front of him. Susan won't even let them use basic insults like "stupid" and "jerk". So to combat this they start making up phrases as substitutes. So when Rodrick calls Greg a "Spooky Stork," the latter will react in genuine shock while their parents are more confused than anything.
    • Greg mentions having to remember to keep it at home after he snapped at a kid who spit gum in his hair at recess and called him a "Raspberry Plastic Tickle Bear."
  • When picking out a name for Greg's soccer team, the players decide to go with the "Red Sox," even though their uniforms were blue. The coach's only objection is fear of a lawsuit, changing the name to "Red Socks."
  • Greg runs with his butt pointed towards the soccer coach when the latter yells "GET YOUR BUTTS OVER HERE!". Made funnier by the fact that he and two other teammates had agreed to do it together — but the other two just sat back and let Greg take the heat.
  • Greg's response to Frank insisting that he didn't raise a quitter.
    Greg: I'm a HUGE quitter, and so is Rodrick. And I think Manny is on his third or fourth preschool by now.
  • Rowley invites Greg to a sleepover with his karate class. He's initially uninterested, until he hears that the house is in the same neighbourhood as Holly Hills, who was also having a sleepover that night. He hopes that he can convince the guys to crash Holly's party. But upon arrival, he finds that nobody there (besides Rowley and himself) were older than six.
    Greg: Rowley's friends were more interested in Sesame Street than they were in girls.
    • Greg is stuck playing party games with a group of first-graders. He finally breaks and leaves the room when someone suggests they play "Who Licked Me?"
  • The Heffley boys have some creative April Fool's pranks:
    • Rodrick pulled a prank on Greg by offering fim 50 cents if he could touch his toes standing up. As he does this, Rodrick shoots him in the butt with a paintball gun. He runs inside and tells his dad. Frank orders that Rodrick at least pay him as he promised. So Rodrick take two quarters and tosses them on the ground... which means Greg would have to bend over again to pick it up. No surprise what happens next.
    • Greg once told Rowley that some random guy using a urinal was actually a famous athlete. Rowley immediately ran over and asked for an autograph.
    • A group of boys prank Chirag by intentionally speaking quieter when he's nearby to make him think he's going deaf. Not wanting to repeat the "Invisible Chirag" incident again, he immediately goes to staff to get them to stop.
  • Greg's team loses their first game 1-0 and ends their perfect record. Initially, Greg is hush-hush about what led to the loss, painting it as an honest mistake, and even trying to play dumb about how the other team scored. However, he eventually admits that he was too focused on blowing dandelions to notice the ball going into his net.
  • Susan signs up for an exercise program, but she quits after the first class. Frank takes a picture of her before her first class and receives duplicates from the photo place. Then, Frank decides to write "Before" on one photo and "After" on the other, posting them on the fridge as a joke. Susan is not amused.
  • A few classes at the school have bathrooms in them. This sounds convenient, but that means the other students hear everything you do and will mock you for it.
  • The boys' bathroom at school used to be chaotic due to many boys lobbing wet toilet paper at each other. That all changed when security cameras were installed...except they were actually air fresheners. Greg simply lied about them being cameras to stop the fights. This works, as by the time the lie spreads, the bathroom is quieter than the library.
  • At Boy Scouts, Greg and Rowley are tasked with making two sculptures out of soap. Greg's first sculpture is a sheep. For his second one, he simply flips the sheep over and turns it in as the Titanic. It too gets accepted.
  • Greg runs out of time getting a Mother's Day gift for Susan. So he just takes Manny's picture of her and adds "+ Greg" under his name.
  • Susan used one of her old maternity dresses to cover Rodrick during a haircut, which Greg gleefully took pictures of. Rodrick got back at him by shaking the hair into his bed. Greg ends up having a nightmare about sleeping on a nest of fire ants.
  • Greg makes two attempts to talk to Holly before he gets shipped off to boot camp.
    • His first attempt has him simply call her on the phone. Unfortunately, Susan has a habit of dialling without checking if anyone else is using it. So when she hears Holly's mother on the other end, she is initially confused. But soon they start chatting like nothing happened. Soon, she starts talking about Greg and how he called Manny a "Ploopy." Greg is listening as all this happens.
    • On the second attempt at the skating rink, he finally manages to get her to notice him, but she mistakenly thinks his name is "Fregley". Greg is so offended that anyone would mistake him for Fregley that he immediately loses all interest in her.
  • On the last day of school, everyone is signing each other's yearbooks. Holly actually signs Greg's, where she not only calls him by his real name, but admits that he's a decent guy. Greg shows this to Rowley, who reveals that Holly wrote in his yearbook about how she thinks he's adorable and would love to be in the same homeroom again next year. So when Holly's notebook comes around, Greg writes a message under Rowley's name, telling her that he (Rowley) only sees her as a friend.
    Greg: The way I see it, I just did Rowley a huge favor. I don't want to see him get his heart stomped on by Holly Hills, because the truth is, girls can be a little cruel sometimes.
  • Greg and Rowley meet a girl named Trista who just moved into the neighbourhood. Once it's clear that both boys are interested in her, the first plan Greg thinks about is to kill Rowley with a baseball bat. The best part is that the book ends on a note of hope from Greg that summer might not be so bad after all, and...

    Dog Days 
  • ...We immediately find out that Trista ditched Greg and Rowley the first chance she got.
  • Greg being terrified of waves, even the smallest ones, when he was little.
  • Despite their disagreements, one thing that Greg and Frank always agree on is their hatred of "Li'l Cutie", a newspaper comic about an overly-cute toddler asking his parents crazy questions. They often talk at breakfast just to gawk at how awful that day's strip is.
    • It was recently announced that the creator would be retiring and the final Li'l Cutie comic would be released soon. Greg and Frank put the date down on the calendar to celebrate the strip's demise.
    • By the end of the book, however, it is announced that the creator's son would take up the mantle and continue the strip. Not only do the two have to deal with the terrible strip for much longer, but the son is also a much worse artist, meaning that the strip went from looking okay to looking like a five-year-old drew it.
  • Frank has become stressed that Susan calls him five times a day just to update him on random stuff happening around the house, such as Manny using the potty on his own.
  • Susan was into photography when Rodrick was born, but lost time to do it once Greg came around. That's why the photo albums show so much of Rodrick's early life. Meanwhile, Greg's section jumps from his birth, to his 6th birthday, to his first day of middle school.
    • Susan has a picture of Rodrick's first and second times trying peas.
    • Greg catches Susan burying seashells at the beach for Manny to find so she can take pictures of them. This is unfortunate when he remembers the pictures she took of him doing the same thing at Manny's age.
  • Gramma has started to read lots of tabloids. One time she was not answering her phone. So when Susan came to check in case something was wrong, Gramma admits she read an article saying cordless telephones erase the memory of seniors. Susan demands to know who told her such nonsense.
    Gramma: Um...The New York Times.
    • Susan started confiscating any tabloids she see in Gramma's house and taking them home to dispose of them. Greg got his hands on a few, and confidently talks about how all of North America will be underwater in six months.
  • Greg's short stint in watching soap operas, giving him a sassy personality.
    Male Character: But Marissa, I...I love you!
    Greg: Girlfriend, you can do SO much better than him!
  • Greg and Rowley find a keychain in Rodrick's room with a picture of the latter standing next to an attractive woman at the beach. He has to hold it for Rowley after he gets a little too "interested" in it.
  • Last summer, Rowley slept over at Greg's house, but they heard a voice in the middle of the night from the furnace room saying, "I'm hiding...can you find me?" Greg and Rowley ran up the basement stairs and told Frank that the house was haunted and they had to move immediately, but Frank went into the furnace room and found that the voice was just one of Manny's talking toys.
  • Greg and Rowley watch a horror movie called "Hello, You're Dead", which is about a muddy hand that goes around killing people. It ends with the Hand seemingly Breaking the Fourth Wall, which leads the two to think that the tape is cursed and the hand is coming for them. They go to hide in the bathroom which they end up falling asleep in, which becomes really awkward when Frank goes to use it the next morning.
  • Greg remembers that he once took out a library book years ago and never returned it, causing him to panic that he will be arrested the next time he steps foot in the library again.
    Officer: Greg Heffley, you are under arrest for failing to return "How to Make Sock Puppets."
  • Greg's guess on what criteria a book has to meet to be considered a "classic":
    I think it has to be at least fifty years old, and some person or animal has to die at the end.
  • Susan doesn't approve of Greg reading a fantasy book due to her believing the cover "portrayed women in a negative light." Greg points out that there aren't even any women in the novel, questioning if the cover artist even read the book.
    • In the online comic, he adds that the raciest scene he could think of was a guy trying to use the bathroom in the woods only to run back with a bare butt due to wasps.
  • Fearing the Muddy Hand will get him in his sleep, Greg covers his whole body in a blanket with the exception of his mouth so he could breathe easily. Rodrick takes this opportunity to shove a sock in his mouth.
  • One time, after the Heffley's ran out of toilet paper, they briefly used Christmas cocktail napkins to wipe their butts. Rowley saw this, assumed it was an expensive brand of toilet paper, and asked Greg if his family was rich. Greg immediately said yes, not wanting to miss a chance to impress Rowley.
  • Greg and Rowley find out that they owe the country club $83 for all the smoothies they had there, which their parents chose to make them pay for. To do this, the two start a lawn-mowing service.
    • Their attempt at advertising is taking a birthday card with brawny construction workers and editing their faces on them, and replacing the construction tools with lawn equipment.
      • They then try (and understandably fail) to ask Mr. Jefferson for several hundred dollars to print out flyers to place around town so they could promote their business aiming to pay off $83 for Mr. Jefferson.
    • A woman named Mrs. Canfield is interested in their service, but wants a good reference before she hired them. Greg asks Gramma to give Canfield her approval, only for Gramma to call Greg out for leaving piles of leaves in her yard during fall and causing much of her grass to die. Greg is forced to mimic Gramma's voice and fake her approval to get the job.
    • Once there, Greg explains how the job would be done. Rowley doesn't approve how Greg is essentially making him do all the manual work while he sits and makes a business plan, wanting it to be 50-50 effort. Greg retorts that since it was his idea for the service, he's technically the owner and that someone needs to make sure the money doesn't get "sweaty". No surprise that this makes Rowley quit and go home.
    • Greg finally starts mowing. The problem is that there's tons of dog poop on the yard. He mows ten-foot circles around each pile of poop. This means by the time he asks Mrs. Canfield for the money, very little has actually been mowed.
      • Greg not only charges Mrs. Canfield the $30 for the mowing, but an additional $10 for the time he took to make the flyer.
    • When Canfield refuses to pay him, Greg runs home and asks his Dad for help. He assumes Frank would yell at the woman for trying to scam him. When he gets there, Frank instead just turns on the mower and finishes the lawn, not even asking for the money.
  • Susan began to pay Manny money whenever he used the potty without asking. He quickly learned to exploit this, and now always takes a gallon a water wherever he goes.
  • When Greg was in kindergarten, he quickly learned the "Cleanup song". But he never realized that he was supposed to take the lyrics to heart and help in cleaning up the toys, even if all the other kids were doing it.
  • With Greg still owing Mr. Jefferson the money, he decides to pray so God would help him in a time of need:
    Dear Lord, please let Mr. Jefferson get hit on the head so he forgets about the money I owe him.
  • Greg really wants a cell phone, but is unlikely to get one due to Rodrick racking up $300 in just one month of getting his. Most of that came from him calling his parents at night and asking them to turn the heat up.
  • Something else Greg wants is a recliner. While he assumes that he would never have to leave it unless he needs to use the bathroom, he fixes that by imagining a model with a hole at the bottom.
  • Greg's failed attempt at bonding with his dad, in a canoe, as Frank is about to get hit with a branch.
    Greg: "Duck! Duck!"
    Frank: "Where? Where?"
  • When Fregley is waiting outside Greg's door, he seriously considers calling the cops. He almost goes through with it until Susan intervenes.
    • Greg's theory that Fregley is like a vampire and thus cannot come in uninvited leads to this illustration:
      Vampire: Mind if I borrow some flour?
      Greg: Sure, it's back in the kitch - Hey, wait a second!
    • When asked by his mom why he won't go out with Fregley, Greg's excuses is that, due to Fregley hiding behind a tree and some of his clothes on the floor, he might be naked.note 
  • Susan takes the boys to a pet store to buy some fish. Manny instead buys fish food. Greg assumes he wants to feed his and Rodrick's fish, only to find out that he ate half the canister before they even made it home.
  • Greg actually did get a taste of fame when he went to a photo shoot for kids to model and be used for print media. One of Greg's photos did end up appearing on the cover of a book... about child constipation.
  • There's a comic strip called "Precious Poochie" about a dog who talks about experiencing new technologies like a bicycle and a phonograph. Greg admits that modern audiences won't find it entertaining, but seniors eat it up. So much so that every single time the local paper considers dropping it, they show up to their offices in the busloads and protest for hours until they change their mind.
    • As a result, when the paper runs a contest for a new strip to replace Li'l Cutie, they make it clear that any proposals with an animal as a main character would immediately be disqualified.
  • Frank hates fast food restaurants and assumes that the workers are morons. The issue stems from the fact that whenever he uses the drive-thru, he always mistakes trash cans for the speaker.
  • Greg recalls a past incident in which he thought the sign saying "Under 48'' Must Ride With Adult" at a water park meant people under the age of 48 must ride with an adult. As a result, he spends the whole day waiting around for Grandpa to bring him home.
    • Löded Diper once had a gig at the same water park. They asked the technicians for a smoke machine for a cool effect. Due to a mix-up, they instead got a bubble machine, which led kids to run onto the stage during the show.
  • The family is rained out at the water park and is stuck in traffic trying to leave. Manny tries to cheer everyone up by telling jokes, which his parents encourage. But after a while, his "jokes" make so little sense that even Susan and Frank are visibly tired of them.
    Manny: One two three four five. Five named Clive.
  • On the way home, Susan gets a headache and goes to the back of the car to lay down. After getting home, the boys find that she had disappeared. It turns out that when they stopped for gas, she got out to use the bathroom and nobody noticed, causing them to leave without her.
  • Rodrick never cleaned his fish's bowl to the point where it was mainly living off the algae growing in it. Susan places it in the same bowl as Greg's fish so she could clean it. Unfortunately, Rodrick's was an aggressive type. So by the time the family came back from the water park, the bowl only had one fish inside.
  • Grandpa casually admitted that he accidentally ran over Frank's dog Nutty backing his car into the driveway and lied about it for decades.
    Past Grandpa: Was that Frank's skateboard?
  • According to Greg, Susan is so judgemental of Frank's spending, that he can't even buy himself a pair of pants unless he gets her approval.
  • When brainstorming ideas to name their new dog, Rodrick proposes the name "Turtle", or "Turd" for short.
  • Rodrick, whom Greg describes as the worst speller in the family, is sent to get a dog bowl for Sweetie. The one he gets reads, "SWEATY".
  • At the public pool, there's a 15-minute period where all the kids have to get out and give the adults some time to themselves. The illustration shows a group of four boys preparing to pounce on a swimming couple when the break was over.
  • Greg's experiences in the baby pool:
    Toddler: Mama! I'm peeing!
  • Rodrick once lied to Greg that eating watermelon seeds would lead to one growing in your stomach. This leads to a illustration of Greg returning to school looking like a pregnant woman.
  • Greg is genuinely outraged that there are already two-page back-to-school ads in the beginning of July, even saying it should be illegal.
    Anyone who would do that kind of thing must really not like kids.
  • Greg finds out that Holly Hills' older sister Heather is a lifeguard at the pool. He decides to shoot his shot and impress her. After a week, Greg asks his mom to take a picture of him next to the lifeguard chair so he can tell his friends he got to be close to her. Susan tries to take a picture with her phone, but right before she does, she gets a call which distracts her for a few minutes. By the time she's done, Heather has moved to a new chair, and his photo is taken while a chubby, hairy male lifeguard is moving into it.
    • We actually see the photo in the photo collage at the end of the book, in which Greg stands there depressed while the lifeguard has a notable Plumber's Crack.
  • Greg takes Manny into the Men's changing room. Since he usually goes with his Mom, he is unfamiliar with most things in it. This leads to Greg having to stop him when he washes his hands in a urinal.
    • Right after this, Manny hops into the shower with a bunch of older men. Greg tries to grab him while diverting his eyes, only to freak out after believing he touched one of the men.
  • Rowley's mother always sneaks spinach into the brownies she makes. For this reason, when Rowley finally had a regular brownie, he spit it out in disgust.
  • Greg going on a trip with Rowley's family to their beach house.
    • They play a game called "I Love You Because", where they take turns explaining why they loved another player. Greg refuses to participate.
    • Greg and Rowley share a single small bed. Rowley gets most of it while Greg hangs on the side. On the first night, right as he's about to drift off, Rowley lets out a terrified scream. Greg initially fears that the Muddy Hand finally caught up to them. However, it turns out Rowley just had a nightmare that a chicken was hiding under the bed.
    • After three days, Greg is fed up with the family. He sneaks onto Mr. Jefferson's computer to send his mom an email, begging for her to come and save him from the people driving him crazy. But since the email came from Mr. Jefferson's account, Susan assumes that HE was the one saying this.
    • At the boardwalk, Greg blows $20 trying and failing to win a giant stuffed caterpillar in a carnival game. Not long after, Mr. Jefferson buys Rowley that same caterpillar from a shop for just $10.
    • Greg recounts a story on why it's bad to make your kids feel like winners even when they suck - When he was on a swim team, he was invited to a "Championship Swim Meet" where he found that none of the good swimmers were there. Despite getting exhausted during the 100-meter freestyle to the point of walking the final lap, he still got a First Place ribbon. In fact, all the swimmers got first place ribbons, including a boy who swam the wrong way at one point. Rodrick quickly gives Greg the hard truth: the parents orchestrated the whole thing to make their kids feel better and not lose confidence.
      • He then explains how Rowley's parents will likely continue doing this even as he becomes an adult. The illustration shows an elderly Mr. Jefferson praising an adult Rowley (who runs his own restaurant) for making a cake, even as the entire thing is toppling.
    • We find the woman Rodrick took that picture with in the keychain... was just a cardboard cutout so guys could brag to their friends. When Greg tries to do this, the Jeffersons join in the picture and completely block him, killing that idea.
    • Greg finally rides the Cranium Shaker ride he always wanted to go on. However, he underestimated how intense the ride was and spent a good long time sitting and trying to avoid throwing up. Rowley, who was too scared to ride, is bought a shirt that reads "I survived the Cranium Shaker" by his father.
    • At the arcade, Greg shows Rowley an arcade game where he got the high score. The good news is that his score is still at the top of the leaderboard. The bad news is that the person in second place missed beating him by a mere 10 points, and they did not take it very well.
      1. GREG HEFFLEY
      2. IS AN IDIOT
    • The boys get in trouble and are sent to bed early. Greg sees how bummed out Rowley is, so he cheers him up by zapping him with static electricity. It works, and Rowley returns the favor. Not wanting to be one-upped by him, Greg waits for him to go to sleep and snaps a rubber band onto his arm. Rowley, believing that Greg has electric powers, screams and tells his parents that he burned him. This is the last straw, and they call Frank to take him home.
  • After a series of misunderstandings and deliberate lies by Rodrick, Greg believes that Frank is going to sell him for what happened at the beach house.
    • It starts when Frank wants to know if Greg will be available on Sunday while refusing to explain why. He asks Rodrick if he knows what's going on. After a few minutes, Rodrick shows that, in Frank's day planner, he apparently wrote "Sell Greg" for Sunday (even though Greg notes that it looks awfully like Rodrick's handwriting).
    • Sunday comes. Frank says that the location is a "surprise" and they drive off. Greg is now in full panic mode. When Frank is getting gas, Greg looks up the address of their destination, and uses his Ladybug phone to call the police to that location. However, by the time they make it there, it's revealed that Frank was just taking him to see a baseball game for some father-son bonding.
    • After explaining themselves to the police, Frank is in no mood for sports and gives the two officers the tickets and returns home. And just to rub salt on the wound, the TV broadcast shows the two cops enjoying the game.
  • Greg and Rowley camp outside the Game Hut for the qualifiers for a Twisted Wizard tournament. While keeping watch, Greg eats some candy bars and has his hand covered in chocolate. He decides to take this chance to prank Rowley by going outside and slipping his hand in the tent to make him think he's the Muddy Hand. He hears no noise and assumes Rowley is asleep... only for Rowley to smash his hand with a mallet.
    Greg: Any fool knows you have to either use fire or acid to stop a muddy hand. All a mallet's gonna do is make it angry!
    • It turns out Greg and Rowley showed up too early for the store to actually set up the competition, but the clerk offers to set up a qualifying game for them anyways. Greg initially thinks he’ll be able beat Rowley easily… but then it turns out his smashed thumb is unable to press any of the buttons, leading to Rowley beating Greg 15-0. Then the clerk offers Rowley the choice between the paperwork for the tournament or a box of chocolate-covered raisins.

    The Ugly Truth 
  • After he and Rowley stop being friends, Greg chooses his two alternative best friends as Christopher Brownfield and Tyson Sanders. He hangs out with Chris mostly because he's a mosquito magnet (which makes him more of a summer friend than a school-year one), and he's hesitant to hang out with Tyson due to the latter always pulling his pants all the way down at the urinal.
  • Greg imagines how Rowley will be presented in his autobiography:
    I used to live near this kid. I think his name was Rupert or Roger or something.
    • He also predicts that, with his eventual fame, Rowley will make a book of his own about how he used to be friends with Greg just to cash in on his success.
  • Greg admits that with hand-me-down textbooks, it's tough to learn anything when everyone before him has doodled all over the pages.
  • Bryce Anderson has cronies that, in Greg's words, practically worship him. They will follow literally anything he says even if he's lying. The following illustrations have Bryce claiming to hear a high-pitched noise. Two of his friends act like they hear it too, only for Bryce to admit he was lying and they only managed to make themselves look stupid.
  • Greg feels like if he doesn't post photos of him having fun, people will assume that his life is boring. His plan? Photoshop himself into various places, such as him at a wedding and playing beach volleyball.
  • Rodrick has been looking for a job, so he posted photos of himself. Susan pointed out that his rebellious personality and rock star lifestyle will deter potential employers... So he replaces them all with a picture of him wearing glasses reading an encyclopedia.
  • Greg's Health class watches a video on puberty. Rowley lasted two minutes before passing out.
    • Rowley seems to see puberty as some kind of disease, one time telling Greg that he avoids the older boys so as to not "catch it."
  • Greg makes a point about Rowley's paranoia by reminiscing on a smoking unit in their health class from the previous school year—the teacher for that class had warned students that you never know who's going to offer you a cigarette, and that it could even end up being your best friend. Apparently, after Rowley heard that, he wouldn't walk on the same side of the street as Greg for a month.
    Greg: Believe me, I don't need some teacher to convince ME it's not cool to smoke. My grandfather convinced me of that last Thanksgiving.
    (illustration shows Greg walking in on Grandpa standing on the toilet and smoking into the vent)
  • The mere idea that the same child actor would remain the spokesperson for Peachy Breeze ice cream up until his late teens.
  • Whenever Frank sees a Peachy Breeze commercial (since they're run non-stop on TV), he writes the company angry emails about how he will never buy their products. And every time, they send him coupons for free ice cream. Greg says they've got so much Peachy Breeze from those coupons they might need another freezer to hold all of it.
    • Heck, Greg notes Frank hates the Peachy Breeze ads more than he hates Li'l Cutie.
  • Greg wants to audition for the new Peachy Breeze spokesperson. He told his mom and she called it a great opportunity. However, it's clear she was thinking of Manny when she said this, as the two almost left for the audition without Greg.
  • Greg is upset with how getting old leads to you being replaced by someone younger. He recounts how he used to sing "I'm a Little Teapot" at all his family gatherings to the adoration of the adults. But the moment Manny was born, they instantly got sick of it and told him to grow up.
  • Uncle Gary's string of misfortune at his weddings.
    • His first wife was a woman named Linda, and the two of them got engaged just a couple months after they first met and started dating. In fact, Linda didn't even know what Gary did for a living until the day they got married—at the time, Gary was working as an entertainer for kids' birthday parties. Gary was late to his first wedding because he was working at a party right before it and even showed up to the venue in a dinosaur costume.
    • Gary's second wife was a woman named Charlene—due to a misunderstanding, she thought Gary had $45,000 in the bank, but in reality, Gary only had $45. This becomes an issue when it comes time to pay the band at their wedding.
    • Uncle Gary got a tattoo of his third wife's name (Lydia). After they divorced and Gary got engaged to Sonja (his fourth wife), rather than get the tattoo removed, he simply added extra words to make it say "I'm not in love with Lydia anymore." Even better, "Lydia" is written in fancy cursive, which really makes it stick out from the rest of the sentence written in plain text.
    • When Gary married Lydia, Susan had a picture of him marrying Charlene hung up. Rather than replace it, she merely cut out a picture of Lydia's head and put it over Charlene's.
  • When Greg pranks Gammie (Frank's paternal grandmother, making her Greg's great-grandmother) with a whoopee cushion, everyone thinks she really farted, even Gammie herself. She then handwrites an apology note to every member of the family, which speculates that it was because of her recent surgery.
    • Greg actually speculates if Gammie's just faking her Scatterbrained Senior act; one Easter she invited everyone to her house, but nobody came. She then called everyone and told them she had a winning lottery ticket worth $10 million. Once everyone came over and found out that it was not a winner, not only does she not seem too upset, but she conveniently prepared a ham for potential guests.
  • Rodrick showed Greg that he could avoid passing Fregley's house on the route to school by climbing into the drainage pipes under the street. When he gets home, Susan gets one whiff of him, forces him to take a shower, gifts him deodorant and a book on puberty, and even writes an article in the newspaper about him.
  • Susan called a house meeting to complain about how the boys have "lousy aim". Greg furthers this with an illustration of him missing the bus after his feet get "stuck" on the bathroom floor after Manny used it.
    • Susan wants the boys to start peeing sitting down. Rodrick offers an alternative solution: installing four urinals.
  • Rodrick is in charge of making Greg's school lunch after their mom goes back to school for a semester. He even writes a note on the bag reminding Greg to "change his diaper."
    Greg: I didn't even bother eating my sandwich because I've never seen Rodrick wash his hands even once.
  • The Epic Fail at trying to have dinner without Susan — Manny stirs the iced tea with his bare hands, while Rodrick forgot to take the plastic wrap off the roast beef before putting it in the oven.
    Frank: Why is this meat shiny?
  • Despite the teachers pushing the importance of standardized testing, the students don't really care, as exemplified by a math test that turns into a giant paper battle.
  • Frank is angry that Greg forgot to take out the recycling bin. Greg argues that whenever he wants to remember something, he does something odd like throw his pillow across the room. That way, when he questions why it's there, he could remember it better. In fact, Greg realizes he did do something to remind himself of the recycling: he put his dirty socks on the TV. Greg immediately blames his dad for taking them down, expecting him to see no issue in his son leaving dirty laundry on it.
  • After Greg accidentally pulls the fire alarm, the teachers are in search of the culprit. A rumor spreads among the students that the alarm sprays invisible ink on your hands once pulled, and the teachers have an X-ray wand that they can use to see the invisible ink. However, they quickly begin to realize that the teachers made up that rumor in order to see who would wash their hands first. This leads to everyone refusing to use the bathroom even if they really had to go. And the school was shut down early since it was the middle of flu season.
    • The reason Greg accidentally pulled the fire alarm was because he briefly fell asleep on it due to Sleep Deprivation. And why was he sleep deprived? Frank told him to use his alarm clock, but it didn't work (He'd dream about a beeping rabbit instead of waking up) so Greg found an old-fashioned wind-up alarm clock in the storage room. As it lacked a snooze feature, he put it underneath the bed so that he'd have to physically get up to turn it off rather than press it and fall back asleep. However, the ticking underneath the bed kept him awake because he felt like he was sleeping on top of a Time Bomb.
      • When Frank buys Greg the alarm clock, he's honestly surprised and expected Frank to wake him up every morning, even calling him when he goes to college.
  • Most of the stuff Greg knows about sex-ed comes from Albert Sandy, a prolific liar. He once claimed it was scientifically impossible for girls to fart, and Greg says that he knows that's not true because of the time Susan hugged Aunt Dorothy on Christmas Eve.
  • For his Parenting unit in Health, Greg and his classmates are tasked with taking care of an egg for a day as if it were a baby.
    • Most of the boys' eggs don't even leave the school, instead being used to throw at one another. Rowley, of course, being the sole exception.
      Rowley: [gingerly tucks egg in shirt pocket] Come along, Rowley Junior.
    • Since Manny loves to break his things, Greg decides to hide his egg in the fridge. The next morning, he finds that it's gone. He asks his mom if Manny took it, only to see that she's making scrambled eggs for breakfast.
      • Greg tries to cut his losses and turn in a plastic bag of the scrambled eggs.
        Greg: (to his unimpressed teacher) Can I at least get partial credit?
    • All the girls managed to bring their eggs back safely. Some of them, completely missing the point of the assignment, even decorated them with glitter and stickers. Rowley even drew a face on his with crayons and called it "Rowley Jr."
      • Upon grading all the eggs, the teacher throws them all into the garbage. This drives Rowley and the girls into tears, as they've become so attached to their eggs. Greg comments that he's seriously concerned about the next generation of parents in their country.
  • While at the Snella's house for a half-birthday party, Greg got a whole plate of deviled eggs, but they tasted terrible. Instead of just throwing them in the garbage, he throws them into a plastic plant. Within a few weeks, the eggs had rotted and the Snellas tear their house apart trying to find the source. Eventually, they can't take it anymore and move out. Greg admits to feeling a bit guilty when he noticed them carrying the plant to the moving truck.
    Greg: Ever since, I've been trying to figure out how to sneak some deviled eggs into Fregley's house.
  • Grandpa is taking care of Rodrick, Greg and Manny for a weekend. Rodrick takes off the first chance he gets and leaves Greg to be cared for like a child. It turns out that Grandpa was getting his tactics from a book made when Greg and Rodrick were much younger (possibly from before Manny was born). So Greg decides to add a new page to the book, saying that Rodrick needs to get a spanking whenever he leaves the house without asking. Unfortunately for Greg, Rodrick never returns before Frank and Susan get home.
  • To keep the house clean while she's gone, Susan hires a maid. However, she always forces the house to be cleaned the day before she comes to not have her think they live in a pigsty. So all the maid does at their home is watch TV.
    • The maid, Isabella, treats the house like she owns it. She eats their snacks (even leaving a note asking Susan to buy a barbeque chips instead of plain). And Greg even finds a panty hose sock near his bed, implying that she's taking naps in his room.
    • Greg tries to get Isabella to do his laundry by leaving a note under Susan's name. However, instead of doing it, she instead writes a note herself asking which son Greg was. He clarifies it the next day, only to be met with another note over if it's okay to mix the lights and the darks. Finally, after saying any method of cleaning was acceptable, she writes a final note where she admits to forgetting who Greg was. He officially gives up, pointing out that, since they clean the house for her, writing these notes is the only work she's been doing.
    • Isabella is finally caught when Susan came home early one day to find her and all the other maids in the neighborhood in their living room having a soap opera viewing party.
      Woman on TV: Kiss me, Rex. Kiss me to help me snap out of my amnesia!
  • Whenever Rodrick wants Greg to get him something and the latter refuses, he starts counting down from 10. Greg complies immediately, presumably fearing what Rodrick will do once he reaches 0. Greg has tried to use this on his Dad once, to no effect.
  • The Lock-In doesn't stop being funny.
    • Greg needs to find a nickname for himself by adding a word with the same first letter as his name. He finally settles on "Great Greg", which is the best he can do. Unfortunately, the kid sitting next to him, George Fleer, claims it first, and Greg can't use the same word as George or people will think he's copying him. When he's stuck, one of the chaperones picks "Jolly Greg" for him.
      • The chaperone who picked that name was the eighth-grade honors English teacher.
    • The kids play a game where they confess a little-known secret about themselves. However, the reason for the game is put into question when Teddy Caldwell admits to spray-painting a swear word on school property, causing his every move to be monitored like a CIA operation.
    • The next game has the kids split into groups and take pictures of someone, while the other groups guess who the person is and what body part. Greg's team take a picture of Tyson Sanders' closed elbow. However, the chaperones believe that they took a picture of someone's butt, which nearly gets them all kicked out until they can explain themselves.
      • When the chaperones accuse Greg's team of photographing someone's "posterior", they don't know what "posterior" means, so they look it up in the dictionary and giggle at all the synonyms for "butt".
      • Tyson panicking that they were going to make their entire team line up and have the chaperones inspect to see whose "butt" is in the picture.
      • Greg notes that Christopher Brownfield wasn't rounded up; for all Greg knows, he's still hiding behind a soda machine on the second floor.
      • For some reason, the kids on Rowley's team used a full-frontal picture of him with a thumbs up with just the top half of his head out of view. Greg tells the readers to not ask him what they were thinking.
    • While all of the boys are trying to sleep, one of them occasionally lets out a fart. The chaperone tells them to go behind the curtain if they need to pass gas. So the boys make it a contest to see who can make the most ridiculous fart noises.
      • One of the boys even snuck into the music room and used a tuba!
    • Once the heater turns off and the gym goes cold, the boys hatch a plan to escape. Albert Sandy suggests they take spoons from the cafeteria and tunnel their way out, which is useless against the linoleum floor.
  • Rowley gets his first zit and begins to go around acting like he's hot stuff. Annoyed by this, Greg makes a fake letter from "The Girls" telling him that nobody likes his zit.
  • Greg can be a germaphobe when it comes to getting kisses from family members. At one family event, he even brought wipes whenever someone kissed him. Come Uncle Gary's fourth wedding, Susan forbids Greg from doing that this time around. Unfortunately, the first person he greets this time is his Aunt Dorothy, who kisses him on the lips. Greg waits until nobody's looking before wiping with a curtain.
  • Greg has a lot of peculiar family members on his father's side.
    • The last time he saw his younger cousin Benjy, he could only say two things: "No" and "Shut up!" Now, he can suddenly speak full sentences and read chapter books despite still wearing a diaper.
    • Great Uncle Arthur only speaks in muffles and grunts. Greg isn't sure if he's just old or if he's actually trying to communicate, sometimes forcing him to make assumptions on what he could be saying and responding accordingly.
    • Great Aunt Reba was once forgotten by Gammie from being invited to a Christmas party. She came anyway, and spent the entire party angrily sitting on a chair without even taking her coat off, just to make everyone feel guilty.
    • The adults say Greg looks like his relative Terrence when he was a kid. Sure enough, he finds a photo of him at his age, and they look identical. And since Terrence is not someone you'd call handsome, Greg is already saving up to get plastic surgery.
    • Uncle Lawrence never comes to family events due to always travelling. He will occasionally show up on webcams, even for funerals.
    • At multi-day family gatherings, all the unmarried men huddle up in the same room and even have to share beds in some cases. Greg's Uncle John just got married recently, and Greg wonders if he only did it so he wouldn't have to sleep in that room anymore.
  • Susan bought some Legos for Gammie so the kids could have something to do there. But since Gammie got tired of them making a big mess, she glued all the pieces into one big block.
  • Greg once tried one of the candies on Gammie's fireplace and ended up getting sick. Sure enough, he found a photo of his father having one of them decades prior.
  • Gammie's so old, that some family members have already started to leave sticky notes on her furniture in an attempt to claim ownership of them upon her death. Greg initially says that it's disrespectful before admitting that he has his eye on her phonograph.
  • Susan told Greg that he would be getting a tuxedo for the wedding. He was initially excited, believing he'd get to participate in the bachelor party and be hooked up with one of Sonja's bridesmaids. However, it turns out he and Manny are matching because they are scheduled as the "Flower Boy" and "Assistant Flower Boy". As Manny throws rose petals down the aisle, Greg was in charge of holding the basket for him. Rodrick snaps as many photos as he can of this.
  • This book ends on some delicious Cringe Comedy: when at the wedding reception for Gary and Sonja, Gary's best man blurts out the REAL story of how Gary proposed to Sonja: it turns out that Gary was actually planning on dumping Sonja for her sister, but was too chicken to actually say anything. Then when he planned to do it at a baseball game, a plane carrying a banner saying "Marry Me Sonja" flew overhead, and while he obviously didn't send it and it's likely that someone else at the game had a girlfriend named Sonja, Gary's Sonja immediately accepted. The only reason Gary didn't correct this mistake was because he was scared that he would get beat up by the crowd. Gary's panicked laughter and Sonja's angry glare say it all.
    Greg: I have a feeling we'll be back next year for Uncle Gary's fifth wedding.

    Cabin Fever 
  • Greg is disturbed at the idea of Santa watching him at all times. He imagines him checking him while doing something embarrassing like picking his nose.
    • This paranoia once led him to write a letter to Santa trying to claim innocence.
    Dear Santa, I did not throw a crab apple at Mrs. Taylor's cat, even though it might've looked that way from a distance.
    • The family has a doll called "Santa's Scout". Much like an Elf on the Shelf, it allegedly watches the kids and reports their behaviour to Santa. Greg is genuinely terrified of him, and starts to act extra kind when he's around. Rodrick exploits his fears by not only snitching on him for things he didn't do, but leaves him in places to scare Greg, including the shower.
  • To demonstrate just how much Susan spoils Manny, Greg talks about how while the family was decorating the Christmas tree, he threw a fit because someone put up his favourite ornament. So Susan takes it down so he can hang it up. But then Manny decides he wants his ornament to go up first. So the boys are forced to take down all the decorations just so Manny could get his way.
  • Two groups of girls get into a huge fight. Why? They were arguing over which group stole the other's slogan for an anti-bullying contest.
  • Dennis Root is the only legitimate bully at the time the anti-bullying campaign commences. And if Greg's illustrations are anything to go by, he appears depressed and almost feels like the signs and posters in the hallway are a personal attack.
  • In response to rampant bullying, the teachers installed a "Tell-a-Teacher Station" where kids could sound an alarm to alert faculty if they are being bullied. The plan backfired when bullies would hide in a nearby bush and use it to scare those that tried to use it.
  • In kindergarten, a boy named Cody Johnson stepped in dog poop, leading him to be nicknamed "Dookie". Cut to the present, and his nickname is still used, even by the faculty, much to his clear dismay.
    Principal: Congratulations to Dookie Johnson for getting straight A's in the third quarter!
  • Greg and Rowley had to deal with a bully of their own: Nasty Pants. He would constantly chase them with a stick whenever they went to school. One day, the boys and their fathers decide to go to his house and confront him. As it turns out, Nasty Pants was only five. When Frank calls out Greg for letting someone so young push him around, Greg sticks to his guns.
    Greg: When some kid is chasing you with a stick, you don't stop to ask him how old he is.
  • The school has taken out all the playground equipment due to kids having accidents on them. And since the school has issues with insurance, it's easier to just remove them. So recess equates to just standing around with very little means of physical activity.
    • The swing set and seesaw were lost in the same incident after a boy flew off the former and landed on the latter... while a girl was sitting on the other side.
    • Students are forbidden to even sit down, with the excuse being that they need to stay active. The illustration shows a teacher yelling at two girls for sitting... while sitting on a bench herself.
    • Any and all toys are banned from recess. So when a toy car with three missing wheels was found in the sawdust, the kids were so desperate for entertainment that there were lines of kids just to play with it.
      • There's a black market for toys at the school. Christopher Stangel brought in a bunch of Legos and charged fifty cents for a single brick.
    • Because of how many kids got hurt playing tag, the school banned students from touching each other or even running. So the boys invented a new game called "Air Tag", where they speed-walk and try to touch the air around another person. Unsurprisingly, it's simply not as enjoyable.
      Kid #1: (sticking out his hand) Got you!
      Kid #2: (in front of him) Nuh-uh! Nuh-uh!
    • Greg hopes the lack of commotion will make it easier for him to concentrate in class. He takes it back quickly because the recess kids have literally nothing to do, so they just spend their break staring through the windows.
  • When Manny joined a peewee soccer league, all the kids had to wear bike helmets as protection.
  • A math teacher named Mr. Sparks would stand on his chair whenever he wanted the kids to remember something important. One time, one of the chair's legs snapped and he broke his collarbone.
    Greg: I don't remember the concept he was trying to teach us that day, but I do always remember never to stand on furniture.
  • Greg can't skip and imagines that he's at his high school graduation and is told he would not be receiving his diploma due to his inability to skip.
  • When Susan was pregnant with Manny, she got Greg a doll named Alfrendo to teach him how to be a big brother. While he initially wants nothing to do with it, he eventually grows attached to him. He even started using him for his own benefit, such as feeding him all his vegetables at dinner, and holding comic books for him while on the toilet.
    • He eventually lost Alfrendo one day. Not wanting to disappoint his parents and look like an irresponsible brother, he draws a face on a grapefruit and wraps it in a towel. This works until the grapefruit rots and has to be thrown out. Greg admits to becoming attached to the fruit baby and cried when it was disposed of.
      • While Susan was not upset at the time, Greg notes that he has never been left alone with Manny for more than 15 minutes.
    • To this day, Greg fears the real Alfrendo may come back home and kill him for abandoning him. The illustration shows Alfrendo eerily scratching the bedroom window, trying to reach a terrified Greg.
  • When Greg went to the hospital to get his tonsils removed, Manny tried to sell off all his possessions.
  • Greg once got a hand-knit blanket as a present which he absolutely loved. That is until he found a photo of his late Great Uncle Bruce with the same blanket, prompting him to give it to Rodrick for his birthday.
  • Rowley and Greg attempt to hang out in the basement.
    • Before Rowley came over, Greg asked him to bring over some movies for the two to watch. However, he only managed to bring home movies, which included the video of his birth.
    • Rowley developed a new habit where, rather than laughing normally, he would simply say "LOL". This made Greg's attempts at telling him wacky Mad Libs stories aggravating.
    • Rowley believes that as long as he can't see someone, they can't see him. This means that any game of Hide-and-Seek where Greg is it usually end in mere seconds.
  • The school once held a raffle with the winner getting their yard cleaned by the seventh-grade class. When the day came, there was only one rake, so only one kid worked at a time while the rest sat around doing nothing. By the end, the winner's yard was worse off than it started.
  • One Halloween, Frank complimented a guy for his fake teeth and said they looked hilarious. They weren't fake.
  • Frank got a new sports car which, to nobody's surprise, led to misfortune.
    • Greg was crowned "Student of the Week" at school and given a bumper sticker. He notes that they give it to just about anyone, with even Fregley winning for going an entire week without biting anyone.
    • Greg doesn't know what to do with it, so he gives the sticker to Manny and tells him to put it on his wagon or something. Manny, with no hesitation, slams it onto the car's driver-side door.
    • When water and a sponge won't remove it, Greg uses steel wool pads. It works, and he decides to use them to remove dirt and bird poop all over the car. Unfortunately, it worked too well, and the pads managed to remove the paint on the car. So he colors in most of the spots with marker. As for the area where the sticker was, he writes a fake letter from Susan telling him to have a good day and that he should keep it on that spot permanently to see the message every day. It takes less than a day for Frank to find out.
    • After Frank takes it to the dealer and finds out how much a re-paint will cost, Susan convinces him to trade it in for a used minivan. By coincidence, this new van had a Student of the Week bumper sticker on it.
  • Greg joins the new pre-teen club at church. However, by "pre-teen", they meant "literally anyone who is younger than 13". So Greg is confused when he walks into a room full of kids no older than ten.
  • The school replacing the soda machine with a bottled water machine... and placing it right next to the drinking fountain.
  • The entire situation with Rowdy Riot energy drinks getting banned. In particular, the part where the kids who were caught drinking some were forced to empty the cans, only to sop up the puddles with their socks so they can still drink what little they could.
  • Greg becomes too tired to do sit-ups in gym and asks the teacher if he could do them at home. Coach Underwood agrees as long as he can come back with proof he did them. So he returns with a fake six-pack made with mascara. This inspires several boys to copy him and make their own fake abs, although many are sloppy artists and could not make them look convincing.
  • Greg revealing that the Holiday Bazaar serves these chicken legs that he likes, but "they have this really goofy name and you feel like a dork trying to order them":
    Greg: Can I have one of those chicken leg thingies?
    Saleswoman: You mean DRUMMIES?
    Greg: If that's what you call them.
  • Greg takes pity on Jesus for the fact that his birthday landed on Christmas, meaning he only got half the amount of presents most people get each year.
  • Greg really wanted to be an author when he was growing up. But all of his ideas he pitched to Susan were blatant knock-offs of famous books. This was until he decided to create a story about a dinosaur. Susan, happy that he finally made an original idea, took his story to a publisher. It was only there that she was informed that Greg just took a book called "Geoffrey the Gorilla" and changed any mention of "gorilla" to "dinosaur".
  • Susan is asked by Greg to get his favorite graphic novel signed by the author. However, when Greg tries to sell it, he is informed that the signature is a forgery. Turns out that Susan had gotten tired of waiting in line so long and wrote in it herself. Greg even notes that, based on what was written, he should have figured it out immediately.
    Readers are winners! Keep reading to make your dreams come true!
    • Greg enforces Susan's lack of patience in lines by recounting their visits to theme parks. Whenever the line to meet a mascot was longer than five minutes, Susan would butt up to the front and snap a picture with whoever was with the mascot, leading to their vacation albums being filled with random people.
    • At the end of the book, when she gets the graphic novel signed for real, the author mishears Greg's name as "Craig". Greg decides to hold onto the book until he can find a rich graphic novel fan named Craig to sell it to.
  • Greg once went to a birthday party for a classmate named Dean Delarosa. But Susan got the date wrong and they showed up a week before the party. Within that week, Greg opened Dean's present and played with it himself. By the time the party rolled around, he had broken it and he chose to skip it out of shame.
  • Greg and Rowley held a small fair in the Jefferson's yard. One attraction was a homemade dunk tank with Mr. Jefferson as the victim. What the boys failed to realize is that they needed to put a cage around him, which made him susceptible for teenagers to target him directly.
  • The boys decide to make a homemade Pac-Man machine for their Holiday Bazaar. It would all be made of cardboard with Rowley on the inside controlling the ghosts with pencils, while Pac-Man was controlled with a popsicle stick.
    • Rowley brings up how hard it would be sitting in that cramped space for what could be hours and asks about how he'll use the toilet. Greg's only response is to hand him an empty two-liter soda bottle.
    • While cutting out the path for the pieces to follow, Greg starts with the outer border, which makes it fall off. He mentions that the game will not be as successful as he thought, as it's literally just Rowley sitting in a box.
  • While creating their own newspaper, Greg and Rowley make a deal with Papa Tony's Pizza for ad space. Unfortunately for Tony, Greg placed the ad right next to a negative review of his restaurant.
    • Also during the newspaper-making scene, Rowley writes an article titled "Kitten Has A Fun Day" (about a kitten playing with a butterfly) and Greg makes a fake Q&A question:
    Dear Greg, are you single? Sincerely, The Ladies
    Dear The Ladies, why yes I am! Sincerely, Greg
  • When Greg was in the Boy Scouts, he and Rodrick went to Leisure Towers to see if any elderly people needed help. They found an old woman walking to the grocery store and offered her a ride. They dropped her off and went back home. Susan told them that there was a new supermarket only a few minutes from Leisure Towers and the two had left her deserted five miles away with no means to get home. They go back out and find her walking back. Not only does she not accept their offer to bring her home, but she reports them to the local news who report on teens "kidnapping" old ladies.
  • Police come into school in order to help find out who left the big green blobs on the outside wall. One kid named Mark Ramon recalls being put up to a "lie detector" and being informed any lie he told would be caught. He said it was obvious the machine was a photocopier, as whenever Mark said something the officer didn't like, he would press the "copy" button that would print out "He's lying".
  • Rowley sends a note to Vice Principal Roy confessing that he and Greg left the green globs. Except he forgot to mention his own name, leaving Greg to take all the thunder.
    Me and Greg Heffley vandalized the school.
    Greg: "Rowley confessed, but left himself anonymous. I don't know if Rowley did it that way on purpose or if he's just a total doofus, but I'm guessing it's door number two."
  • Greg is highly bothered when he has no privacy in the bathroom. On a trip to the prison, his primary fear was the cell toilets being out in the open. And at school, it's not uncommon to return to class with at least one guy wanting to know what he did in there.
  • Greg used to be part of the Cupcake Club at the supermarket, where the young kids would always get a free cupcake with every visit. He kept taking one even after he got too old for it. Then one day, an alarm sounded the moment he bit into a cupcake. While it was likely for a different reason, he assumed that he was about to be arrested. He ran out of the supermarket and was ready to begin his life of crime until his mom stopped him.
  • One morning, Greg woke up to someone knocking on the door. He ignored it until the knocking got louder and more frantic. He feared that someone was trying to break in and went downstairs with a baseball bat. It was there he realized it was just his dad with his tie stuck in the door.
  • Greg had just found out that there was a blizzard. Rowley had called him earlier to tell him there would be one the other day. Greg had dismissed that thought because, according to him, Rowley calls him every year around this time to say that a blizzard is coming. The reason why is because a few years ago, Rowley's parents had taped a Christmas special and the night they had taped it, a severe weather warning had been announced, so now it's a permanent part of the recording, and Rowley takes it seriously every time he watches it. Greg admits that he used to fall for it, but stopped after Rowley happened to watch the special over summer vacation and immediately called him to tell him that a blizzard was coming.
  • Manny somehow managed to figure out the parental controls on the TV and change them so that only the channels he enjoys would play. And no matter how much he is bribed, he refuses to change it back to normal.
  • Susan bought a fitness game to exercise and encourages Greg to play it. He quickly finds out that the game could be played with a controller and gets all the high scores. Susan has been tiring herself out just to try and beat them.
    • Susan criticizes Greg for not being active. Greg defends this choice by saying he plans to conserve his energy until much later. So when all his classmates are in their eighties and can hardly stand up straight, he'll be able to exercise consistently.
  • Susan attempts to keep the kids up to date with learning by holding classes in the house. Rodrick and Greg are not amused when she lectures about the alphabet and treats them like Manny's age.
  • Manny is amazed by Greg's magic trick where he appears to make a cup fall through the table by crushing it under a napkin. He tries to replicate it with his mom's glasses. But since he doesn't know how the trick worked, all that results is broken glasses.
  • Manny throws a fit at breakfast because he refuses to eat cereal when the milk is poured in first. When Greg brings this up to Susan and wants her to tell him it's not a big deal, she admits that she won't eat cereal that way either.
    • Greg uses this as an argument for how his perception of elders has changed throughout history; Back in ancient times, they were often seen as the wisest and could help settle disputes. To show how much they've changed overtime, he shows an illustration with his parents asking him to remind them how the microwave works.
  • Greg passes his mom a towel in the shower, but it's awkward, because neither of them can see: Susan doesn't have her glasses on, and Greg is averting his eyes to not see her naked.
  • Susan used to read Manny stories whenever he used the bathroom. But it quickly escalated, to the point where she will put on entire puppet shows for him.
  • For lunch, Greg makes Manny a hot dog. He's told Manny will only eat it if it had a straight line of mustard down the middle. He does this, and yet Manny still refuses to eat it. It turns out that the straight line had to be vertical, not horizontal.
  • There was a picture in an old photo album of Greg crying on a pony ride. It's cropped in a way to make it seem like Greg was scared of the horse, when he was actually scared of the guy handling it.
  • We finally see Sweetie again after he moved in with Grandma at the end of Dog Days. She fed him so much that he's becoming fat, with Greg describing him as a "beach ball with legs."
  • Because of a flood in the basement, Rodrick temporarily moves in with Greg. He makes himself at home by hanging up all his heavy metal posters.
  • Greg accidentally puts on Rodrick's dirty underwear. Having nothing else to wear, he resorts to putting on an old Halloween costume.
  • As the blizzard gets worse, food starts to become an issue. The family has microwave burritos for dinner, but Greg thinks they taste funny and refuses to eat them. When Susan tells him to eat something, he resorts to having a plate of ketchup.
    • The family used a bitter apple spray when they had Sweetie to prevent him from chewing on furniture. Manny loves the stuff, and puts it on almost everything he eats.
    • Greg seriously starts to consider eating dog food or toothpaste. Finally, he resorts to a giant gobstopper he's been working on for years.
  • The power goes out and the family starts to freeze. Greg thinks about sharing a sleeping bag with Rodrick before deciding that he values his dignity far too much.

    The Third Wheel 
  • Greg claims that he developed consciousness while in his mother's womb (which is impossible). Whenever she and Frank kissed, he'd kick her to show his disapproval. All that would do is convince them to keep doing it.
  • For the first few months of his life, Greg didn't have his own crib. So he slept in a dresser drawer (which is extremely dangerous).
  • All of Greg's things when he was a baby were hand-me-downs from Rodrick. So by the time he got them, they were usually worn out or covered in slobber.
    • In particular was Greg's pacifier, which was also a hand-me-down. Since Rodrick was not too happy about having to give it up, Greg theorizes that this may be the reason Rodrick never liked him.
  • Manny used to have a navel stone when he was a baby, but it disappeared one day and was never found. Greg is still paranoid that it will one day pop up somewhere, like in his food.
  • Susan used to put Greg in front of a program called "Teeny Genius", that she hoped would help him grow to be smarter. While he isn't sure if it really did the job, he did learn to change the channel and remove the batteries from the remote so she couldn't stop him.
    • Where exactly did he hide the batteries? The only place a baby could hide something that small: he put them in his diaper. Susan was continually flabbergasted that they kept showing up when she changed him.
  • Greg was having a hard time keeping up with classmates in preschool, so he decided to bring them all down a peg by feeding them misinformation, such as telling them that a triangle is actually called a circle.
  • Manny likes to watch a show called "The Snurples", in which the characters all talk in a fictional nonsensical language. This occasionally leads him to talk like them to his family and gets frustrated when they don't understand him.
  • It's pretty clear that Manny has poor social skills. Whenever Susan holds playgroups at the house, Manny takes all his toys and locks himself in Sweetie's old exercise pen.
  • In preschool, Greg had a bully named Bradley who would terrorize him and constantly misbehave, so much so that Susan wrote a book after he moved called "Bad Bradley" about a character that looked identical to the real one, and saw him engage in acts such as biting the teacher and poking his classmate's eyes. She was actually going to publish it until Bradley moved back.
    • She does, however, read it to Manny as a bedtime story. Greg theorizes this is why Manny is so nervous around other kids.
  • Manny's whole shtick with his seven imaginary friends. He uses them to get extra dessert after dinner and blaming them for the bad things he does. And Susan forces the whole family to play along with it as she's worried he'll be "traumatized" if he's told they aren't real. Greg admits that he'll check the couch to make sure he doesn't squish Tiny Jim.
    • He even spends a really, REALLY long in the bathroom to ensure that they all take care of business.
  • When going out for dinner, the Heffley's often go to a place called Corny's Family-Style Restaurant, which is an absolute monkey house:
    • The establishment has a strict "No ties" policy. If you walk in wearing one, the greeter cuts it off with scissors and pins it to a wall of shame. On the family's first visit, Frank learned this the hard way.
    • The seats do not appear to be cleaned between families. Greg was given a rude awakening to this when he sat on an open-faced peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
    • Greg really has an issue with the bathroom doors swinging wide open. This means that if you are facing it, you often see people using the urinals while trying to eat.
    • There's a self-serve ice cream machine, which is frequently used by people dispensing it straight into their mouths.
  • Greg and Susan once got so lost in a corn maze that they had to call 911 to get them out.
  • Gary's story of why he's moving in: On a trip to Boston, he ran into a guy running a shirt stand who offered him a chance to take over his business. Gary convinced Frank to send him the money to buy his stock. However, upon doing this, he found that all of the shirts had a typo and said "Botson". By the time Gary figured out that he'd been scammed, the guy had already vanished.
    • He does manage to sell one of the shirts to Rodrick, who probably sees nothing wrong with it.
  • After Uncle Gary moves in, he sleeps in Manny's room on an air mattress. But after having a really bad nightmare about monkeys in the walls, he moves to the living room couch, while Manny moves his bed to the centre of the room away from the walls.
  • With Gary on the couch, Rodrick no longer has a place to sleep when Frank forces him to get up... until he decides to just sleep on the back part.
  • Uncle Gary taking up a bunch of terrible jobs, with his most recent one being a test subject for a pepper spray company.
    Greg: I'm pretty sure he quit before lunch.
  • Frank once brought Greg to "Bring Your Child to Work Day". He found it hard to concentrate with Greg over his shoulder eating jawbreakers and asked him to go away for a little bit. He ended up leaving him behind to go home, and it wasn't until the janitor came by that Greg was found.
  • Whenever Greg's gym class has a dancing unit, they have to write the name of the person of the opposite gender they would like to partner up with. Last year, Greg picked a girl named Baylee Anthony, who chose Bryce Anderson but ultimately ended up with Greg because Bryce was chosen by so many other girls. She ended up spending the whole unit making it painfully clear to everyone that she didn't pick him.
    • Cut to the present, we find Baylee going around to all the guys who she didn't like and made sure that they don't write her down.
  • Ruby Bird is basically the female Fregley. She is the only girl Greg knows that was suspended from school, and that was for biting a teacher. She is seen with only one front tooth, and that's because the other one was lodged in the teacher's elbow.
    • Greg even uses his paper not to pick someone, but instead to ask the teacher not to pair him with Ruby.
  • Greg wonders if you only get a certain number of prayers in your lifetime that God will actually answer and that he may be using them up too fast. He is known to pray for mundane requests, such as hoping the plumber fixing their toilet doesn't use it before he leaves.
  • For this year's dancing unit, Greg and a few other boys are left without a partner. They are initially excited, as that means they don't have to do any dancing. But then the teacher makes the boys partner up. So Greg was forced to ballroom dance with Carlos Escalera. While bummed out at first, the two actually do end up making a really good duo.
  • A number of strange speakers have visited the school assemblies:
    • After a hypnotist visited the school, some boys had an argument over whether or not he was legit. Two deniers link their arms while another boy tries to hypnotize the boys into thinking their arms are stuck with super glue. It works... too well, as the boys begin to panic when not even the magic word the hypnotist used breaks them out. So the teachers were forced to track down the hypnotist at his job as a fast food cashier to free them.
    • One motivational speaker named Strong Steve talked about staying off drugs and ended off by ripping a phone book in half. The school had to replace half of the reference books in the library after so many boys tried to replicate him.
    • Krisstina is a singer who writes motivational music. She calls herself an "international pop sensation", even though a T-shirt for her "World Tour" has locations like a car wash and a skating rink.
    Greg: As far as I can tell, she hasn't even been out of the STATE.
  • Greg and Rowley set up their own detective agency and begin to spy on their neighbours to see if they are up to no good. One particular neighbour they spy on frequently is not actually a bad guy: they just mooch off him for having all the movie channels.
  • Greg asks Rowley to get a video game he lent to Scotty Douglas back after the latter lied about losing it. After waiting for a while, Greg goes to Scotty's house to find Rowley playing the game with Scotty. Greg fires Rowley on the spot.
  • On the topic of class elections:
    • Greg convinces Rowley to run. Not because he thinks he'll make a positive change on the school, but so he can use Rowley as a Trojan horse to make the decisions himselfnote . The illustration shows him using an earpiece telling Rowley to vote for double recess and half-days on Friday.
    • Rowley decides to run for Social Chairperson, so Greg decides to write letters on a bunch of Uncle Gary's souvenir shirts to spell out "VOTE ROWLEY JEFFERSON FOR SOCIAL CHAIRPERSON", which would then be worn at the assembly. While writing it all down is difficult enough, getting all the people wearing the shirts to stand in the right order is even harder, to the point where Greg likens the situation to "trying to herd cats". His efforts end up being for nothing, as Rowley wins the position by default due to being the only person to run for it.
    • During the assembly for the school president nominees, a boy named Brian Buttsy is supposed to give a speech. But the moment he gets on stage, the entire student body starts to make farting noises.
      Greg: I'm sure Bryan said a lot of interesting things during his speech, but you couldn't hear a word with all that racket.
    • Eugene Ellis is also running for president, even though he never did any promotional work for himself. His speech is thirty seconds long and his only promise is to upgrade the toilet paper in all bathrooms. He wins the election in a landslide. Cue Greg's description of the first student council meeting, where the teachers tell him there's no way they're letting him waste the school budget on this.
  • The school did a fundraiser where every student were given boxes of chocolate bars to sell to their neighbours. Pretty much everyone helped themselves to a few of their bars, with Greg admitting that he ate 15 before he was caught. The school made most of its money from that fundraiser through parents writing cheques to pay for the chocolate their kids ate. Greg even state that it's possible not a single bar was sold.
  • Frank has a bad history with scratch tickets — Uncle Gary bought one for him on Christmas one year, and he was shocked to see that he had won a hundred thousand dollars. But it was then revealed that it was fake and bought as a prank. Greg mentions that bringing it back up to Frank will put him in a bad mood for the rest of the day.
    • When Frank tells Gary that he's more likely to be struck by lightning than win a scratch ticket, Manny becomes scared of the rain.
  • Gary spends much of his time playing an online game much like Second Life, where you can be any kind of person that you want. Gary's life in the game? A bum who has no job and wastes all of his money on scratch tickets.
  • The teachers initially shut down Eugene's promise to replace all the toilet paper with more expensive brands for budgetary reasons. But then one of the council members exposed them after using the bathroom in the teacher's lounge and finding a roll of good paper. Being caught, the teachers make a compromise and allowed students to bring their own toilet paper.
    • The next day, pretty much every student brings a roll. Some kids brought entire packages of the stuff, to the point where there was no room in their lockers and they had to carry bags full of them all day.
    • Since this is a school in the Wimpy Kid universe, it is no shock that it takes less than a day for the boys to start massive fights with the rolls. After this, the new rule is that students could only bring in five squares a day. The faculty took this rule seriously, checking kids' bags at the door and inspecting lockers for any excess rolls.
    • Greg decides to stockpile all his toilet paper in a bathroom stall. He uses spare shoes to make it look like someone's always in there. But one day, he forgets to pick one up while he's using it, so people were surprised to see someone with three legs in the stall.
  • The student council brainstorms events to help raise money. The boys pitch an idea of either a pro wrestling match in the gym or a motocross stunt show. Eventually, they decide to combine it into a wrestling/motocross show. The sheer absurdity means it doesn't take much for the teacher to shut the idea down.
  • In gym class, there was a string of boys pantsing one another during basketball. It got so bad that everyone started to scoot on their butts for every game (and Greg even took the precaution of wearing two extra pairs of shorts under his sweatpants), escalating to the point where Vice Principal Roy was brought in to talk to the boys about how the next person to pants someone would be suspended...before someone manages to sneak behind Vice Principal Roy and pants him, and the suspect was never found—earning him the title of the Mad Pantser.
  • Greg's many attempts at getting a date for the Valentine's Day dance, which go as well as you'd expect:
    • He buys a Candy Gram for Adrianne Simpson, but adds an additional note telling her to pass it to Julia Barros if she isn't interested. The next day, both girls give him dirty looks when he arrives to class.
    • He writes a message on his desk in History for Leighann Marlow, who he knew was in the same desk for her homeroom and would see it the next morning. However, he forgot that the room was also where after-school detention was held, so one of the detention kids wrote an additional message before Leighann could see it:
      "Dear Greg: Yes I will go to the dance with you and P.S. will you marry me? HAR HAR HAR"
    • He decides against asking Erika Hernandez, who just broke up with Jamar Law, a guy that is mostly known for the time he got his head stuck in a chair. Greg mentions that she would be at the top of his list if not for the memory of that incident remaining in his head and fearing he could meet a similar fate.
    • He hires Rowley to be his wingman to spread positive word of him to the girls. This backfires when he tells them Greg has "really strong muscles".
    • He tries to leave a message on Alyssa Grove's answering machine to ask if she would like to go with him. He continually tries and fails to leave a good message, made worse as Rowley makes faces trying to stay quiet that cause him to laugh. Eventually, the two forget the main goal and start goofing off, trying to make the other laugh while they leave a message. However, that evening, Alyssa's father knocks on their door and asks the Heffleys to never call his house again.
    • Against his mother's wishes, he wears one of Frank's leather jackets to school to look cooler. She responds by interrupting his homeroom and forcing him to hand it over in front of everyone. When Greg protests that he won't have anything warm to wear on the way home, she gives him her coat, which only makes him more of a target for mockery.
  • Greg's date with Abigail, with Rowley tagging along as his wingman.
    • Greg wants to wear cologne that Rodrick had in his drawer. He decides against it, fearing that all the girls would chase him nonstop like he saw in commercials.
    • Greg buys her a box of chocolates. Except he already helped himself to most of them and only left the flavours he didn't like.
    • After finding out that Rowley has what they believe is chicken pox, they just try to cover it up with a bonnet and scarf.
      Greg: I'm not gonna say Rowley looked totally normal, but at least you couldn't tell he had the chicken pox.
    • Rowley's family car still has a booster seat. He claims that they just never took it out once he got older. But Greg recalls that Rowley looks much taller when he drives with his family. Not help by the fact that during the drive, he is seen drinking from a sippy cup.
    • The three go out to Corny's for dinner. At first their table is near a family with a bunch of wild kids, so Greg asks to move, but the new table isn't much of an improvement — it's right next to a couple changing their baby's diaper. Greg quickly tapes menus to the glass to avoid the sight.
      • Greg isn't sure if chicken pox are airborne. So whenever Rowley spoke, he made sure to hold his breath.
      • While Rowley is ordering, a molecule of his spit flies and lands on Greg's mouth. He quickly panics and, with no napkins, he wipes his lip on Abigail's dress when she's distracted.
      • After Rowley and Abigail order a large amount of food, they want dessert. Greg, realizing he won't be able to pay for it if they do, lies to the waitress that Rowley was celebrating a birthday so he'd get a free slice of cake.
      • Abigail still orders a pricy slice of cheesecake... and only take two bites from it.
    • The three finally arrive at the dance.
      • Before entering, Mr. Jefferson hugs Rowley and tells him to have a great time. Abigail is confused by this, assuming he was a professional chauffeur.
      • Partway through, a group of seniors arrive and reveal they had booked the gym months prior for a town meeting for a new Senior Center. To compromise, the gym is cut in half via partition.
      • Not long after, the seniors complain about the music making too much noise. This forces the DJ (Uncle Gary with another unusual gig) to lower the music low enough that the speaker at the meeting was louder.
      • Gary also took the time as DJ to sell his t-shirt stock. He used the dark room so kids don't find out the truth. However, since there is only one light switch for the entire gym, the meeting has them turn it on, which exposes Gary's plan.
      • Even after the meeting is over, the seniors decide to move to the other side and help themselves to the refreshments. They also make song requests until they have practically taken over the whole dance.
      • When Greg chose not to wear Rodrick's cologne, he instead used some that belonged to his Great Uncle Bruce. This takes effect at the dance, in which a few of the women from the meeting try to flirt with him.
      • The boys spent much of the book on their best behaviour to raise their chances of getting a date. But with the dance starting to collapse, they finally collectively crack. They completely cut loose, ripping their clothes off and throwing food at each other. The Mad Pantser also strikes again by pantsing Rowley.
      • After most of the evening was a disaster, Greg and Abigail finally share a dance. But then Greg notices what looks like a chicken pox on her neck, causing him to scream bloody murder. It turns out that it was actually a pimple, and Abigail's makeup washed off when she was crying over her boyfriend lying about being unable to attend so he could take another girl to the dance. Greg later realizes that Rowley's chicken pox might have actually been pimples too, since he appeared to be wearing his mom's makeup for a few days prior.
  • After the dance, Abigail and Rowley end up becoming a couple. Greg immediately calls Rowley the "worst wingman in history."

    Hard Luck 

  • Greg's rants about Abigail being a bad girlfriend for Rowley come off as massive cases of Hypocritical Humor, as it's pretty obvious that he's less upset at Rowley being exploited and more so that he isn't the one doing it. For example, he talks about how Rowley would always carry his bag for him on the walk from school and even describing him as a "pack animal". But once he sees him doing the same thing for Abigail, he gets concerned and wonders if she's just using him.
  • Greg and Rowley used to be chased by a Rottweiler named Rebel. This came to an end once Rebel's owner put a shock collar on him to prevent him from leaving the yard. The boys initially had fun with this by dropping sandwiches in front of him and pretending to be cats. But then the dog realized that he'd only get a shock if the collar crossed over the property line. So he started to poop onto the sidewalk in the hopes of having one of them step in it.
  • According to Greg, boy friends are far quicker to forgive each other than girl friends. The illustration then shows Greg next to Rowley's broken living room TV after the former threw a baseball at it:
    Greg: We can always watch TV at my house!
  • The boys at Greg's lunch table have a Five-Second Rule code in place where anything dropped on the floor is still okay to eat if you pick it up fast enough. But then it was decided that whenever a boy dropped food on the ground, it was fair game for anyone to grab and claim it. This caused problems when Freddie Harlahan ate a piece of ham off the ground assuming someone dropped it. It was actually there for much longer and he ended up having to go to the nurse.
    • Another occasion at said table is an event called "French Fry Friday", where Nolan Tiago's mother brings him a meal from a fast-food place every Friday, and everyone splits the fries evenly. One day, there were not enough fries to split among them all. So some of the boys resorted to paying Nolan a dime each just to smell his breath.
  • All of the school's couples are segregated to their own table simply because nobody else can stand being around them.
  • Susan once sent out invitations for Greg's birthday party. But she left a small note on them all saying that Greg has enough toys and that they should buy him a book instead.
    Greg: Usually, when you open your presents at your birthday party, all the other kids are jealous. But at my party I think people just felt sorry for me.
  • Greg and Rowley go to a "superhero training academy" thinking that they will gain superpowers to stand up to Leon Feast and his gang. It turns out that it's actually a day camp at the YMCA for little kids. The illustration shown is of a "Wall Smash Station", in which the "wall" is made of foam bricks and is only a few feet tall, with the other participants being much younger than Greg and Rowley.
    • At the end of camp, Greg received a certificate claiming that he was a superhero of "showing good manners during snack time."
    • Despite the obvious, Rowley legitimately believed he had gained superpowers, as he tries to blow Leon and his gang away with super-breath.
  • The school banned any games that involve a ball during recess due to the amount of kids getting injured. So some of the boys invented a new game where the shoe is the object of interest. However, the rules of the game are unknown, as it mostly involves the players beating the crap out of each other.
  • Back in elementary school, "Girls Chase Boys" was the popular game to play. Now, the girls are only interested if popular boys like Bryce Anderson are there.
  • Manny meets a new friend named Mikey. Although "Friend" is a generous term, as all the two do together is watch TV, with Greg being unable to recall if they've even spoken to one other.
    • Greg describes that as Mikey drinks a lot of grape juice, he has a ring around his mouth at all times that makes him look like a "forty-year-old man with a goatee."
  • When Rowley and Grandpa both have girlfriends, Greg worries that both couples will have ugly kids, apparently not realising that Darlene (Grandpa's girlfriend) is probably too old. He imagines Rowley and Abigail with three kids including a daughter with Abigail's hair but Rowley's slack-jawed expression, and Grandpa and Darlene having three elderly-looking kids.
  • Susan tries to help her son find new friends. She invites her friend's son over to hang out with him. The problem was that he was a high school senior, yet treated him like he was a child.
  • The fact that a clothing store has a section solely for the men to stay there while the women go shopping.
  • In fourth grade, Susan bought Greg some new shoes that she claimed had "space-age technology," which made him proud of them and he was quick to show them off to his classmates. But it only took one day for the soles on both feet to come off. When the two go to the store to get some new ones, it's revealed that she got them from a dollar store bargain bin.
  • Greg's attempts to scout for new friends in his neighborhood leads to some interesting characters being shown off.
    • The Lasky boys are a trio of brothers. Their favorite hobby is to strip down to their underwear and wrestle in their front lawn.
    • Mitchell Flammer is a kid who has never been seen without a motorcycle helmet on.
    • A boy named Aric Holbert was suspended for breaking in and vandalizing the school. He denied everything, even though the perpetrator spray-painted "ARIC HOLBERT IS COOL" on the wall.
  • Fregley and Greg get chased by some of the Mingo kids on the walk from school. After they lose them, the former admits to throwing the latter's textbooks and homework at them. When Greg asks why he'd do such a thing, he admits that he assumed the Mingo kids would stop to read them.
  • Greg arrives at Fregley's in the morning to find out he put his shirt on upside-down and is stuck. Rather than help him get out, he brought him to school like that and showed it to the girls in the hopes of impressing him.
  • Fregley managing to chew a piece of gum with his belly button. He attempts to blow a bubble, only to shoot it into a girl's food.
    • When getting his yearbook photo taken, he actually does blow a bubble with his belly button, much to Greg's astonishment.
  • We are introduced to Susan's four sisters, each with some unique traits to them:
    • Aunt Cakey clearly hates kids. As when she was once tasked to babysit him, she did everything to get him away from her, like forcing him to take a nap. Before she leaves him be, she tells him she'll be ironing clothes and not to touch the iron when it's on. This only makes him want to do it more and leaves him with a second-degree burn.
    • Aunt Gretchen has twin sons (named Malvin and Malcolm) who're so out-of-control that they're basically like wild animals (in fact, Gretchen has used child leashes on them).
      • Gretchen would often bring her pets along with them while staying with the Heffley's. Problem is that they have a lot of them. So not only does the house turn into a zoo, but one time their rabbit gave birth to a litter of kits. Frank isn't happy about this, because Gretchen told him her rabbit was a male.
      • Malvin and Malcolm once played catch with a piece of concrete that ended with Malvin being taken to the hospital for stitches.
    • Aunt Veronica, much like Uncle Lawrence in The Ugly Truth, never shows up to gatherings in person and instead appears on video conference. Greg even says he has not seen her in the flesh since he was in preschool.
    • Finally, there's Aunt Audra. She is obsessed with astrology and will not do anything without asking her psychic first. Even minor things like when to clean her bathtub.
  • A fortune cookie Greg opens reads, "You will buy some new pants."
  • The only toy at Gramma's house is a plush elephant named Ellie. But Sweetie ripped off her limbs, ears, and trunk. So now she just resembles a bowling pin with eyes.
  • Speaking of Sweetie, Gramma has started to dress him up in little clothes, which makes him look even more depressed than before.
  • Greg and Rodrick played a game with Sweetie where they would sneak up behind him and make a farting sound to scare him. The two have a lot of fun with it, to the point where even Frank tries to give it a shot. Unfortunately, he puts his face down just in time for Sweetie to fart right in his face.
  • Greg's late great-grandmother (Susan's maternal grandmother), Meemaw, would always hold an egg hunt at Easter. However, she always hid way more eggs than necessary—in fact, Greg theorizes that going into Gramma's backyard today, you'd still find enough to fill a basket.
    • As Meemaw got older, she started inserting random junk in the eggs. Greg has found eggs containing a bottle cap and used tissue while Manny found one with dental floss.
  • Easter gives us a chance to see more crazy characters from Susan's side of the family:
    • Susan's cousin Martina struck it rich at in Las Vegas. But not by gambling — She was at a hotel buffet when she mistook a large mirror for another room with more food. She walked right into it, broke her collarbone in the fall, and successfully sued the hotel.
    • Uncle Larry, despite showing up to all gatherings, is not actually related to anyone. Someone invited him once and he just kept showing up on his own accord until the family eventually accepted him.
    • Gramma has two sisters who hate each other, but they still exchange gifts at Christmas. Although it seems more like a contest on who can give the more insulting gift, such as used deodorant and ketchup packets.
    • Uncle Cecil is only four-years-old. But since he was adopted by Great Aunt Marcie, the family still treats him like an adult. So he gets to sit at the grown-ups' table while Rodrick (who's almost eighteen) is still forced to sit with the kids.
  • During Peepaw's birthday a few years back, his dentures flew out trying to blow out the candles on his cake. Greg tried not to laugh (since he also took a sip of chocolate milk). He tries to think of something sad, but all he can think of is Sweetie in his clothes, and that thought leads to him thinking of the incident with him farting in Frank's face. That is enough to make him crack, spewing chocolate milk all over the table.
  • Back at home, the Heffleys run out of ketchup at dinner. Malcolm proceeded to call the police and tried to get them arrested for it.
  • Greg recalls having a pet inchworm named Squirm. He would always let him out so he could exercise. Things were going well until Manny started walking, which promptly brought an end to Squirm when he stepped on him.
  • Greg finds out that Susan had a bunch of replicas of his old stuffed monkey Tickles, and that she'd replace them every time one was lost or destroyed so Greg would always assume it's the same one. In fact, he remembers the time Tickles exploded in the washing machine, only to show up on his bed good as new.
    • Manny found her stash of back-ups for his doll Rexy. Greg now understands why he suddenly started sleeping with ten of the same dinosaur dolls.
  • Susan finally allows Greg to use her phone. The problem he has is having to share with Manny, who likes to take pictures of his potty after he uses it.
    • Greg starts to use the phone more and even downloads some games for it. But then when he uses it on the toilet, he gets a surprise call from Aunt Veronica, prompting him to drop it into the toilet.
  • When Greg joins the yearbook club, he spends his time taking photos of random people doing random things like throwing out their lunch. He gets tired of waiting and tries to bet Jamar Law into getting his head stuck in a chair a second time.
  • Greg decides to edit some of the pictures that he took. For instance, when he takes a picture of a teacher giving out a lesson in class, he changes the letters on the chalkboard to read "ME NOT NO HOW TO SPEL". And when he takes a picture of Leon and a friend playing basketball, he shrinks Leon's head by 75 percent.
  • As his grades are falling, Vice Principal Roy tells Greg he has only a few weeks to improve himself or he'll be forced to go to summer school. Greg is terrified of this, not just on the prospect of losing his vacation, but because of some other stuff:
    • Apparently, Greg's school turns off the AC during the summer as a way to save money. So all of the boys will usually take off their shirts for the duration of class.
    • Not only that, but the summer school is also apparently low on teachers willing to do it. Rumor has it that the English teacher in the summer is the janitor!
  • Greg once planned to do a science fair project on metamorphosis. His plan was to collect dozens of caterpillars and when the judges came to see it, he'd open the box and butterflies would fly out. Despite working really hard on it, it was all for nothing because he left the box on a heater in the Science room, frying the bugs alive.
  • A kid named Liam Nelson is voted Best Looking for the yearbook, even though he is shown to be much uglier compared to the rest of the school. Greg is surprised until he remembers that Liam was the one in charge of counting the votes.
  • Rodrick did a science fair project to see how music affected plant growth. They all died, which he presents as proof that music is harmful to plants, despite the more likely reason being that he never bothered to water them (which Susan points out to her oldest son).
  • At the end of the book, Rowley and Greg finally make-up and become friends again. He claims that the drama between will likely be done for a long time... or at least until the yearbook comes out and Rowley finds out Greg shrank his head.

    The Long Haul 
  • Greg's story of visiting his Aunt Loretta at her nursing home. Her roommate grabbed him and refused to let go until she was bribed with a muffin.
  • Manny bringing his potty in the car anytime the ride is longer than 15 minutes "just in case."
    Manny: PUSSSHHHH!
  • Greg proposes that the family rent an RV for the road trip. Not only would it help fit all their stuff, but they would be able to avoid each other more.
    We could spend WEEKS on the road without bumping into one another.
  • One year, Greg's class was given an assignment where they would be given a cutout of Flat Stanley, who they would mail to a relative to take a picture of Stanley in another part of the world. Susan sent Greg's Flat Stanley to a cousin of hers that lives all the way out in Seattle and who hoards things like magazines and newspapers—it's no surprise that Stanley did not return.
    • Greg tells the story of Flat Stanley and how he would be unlucky to have a brother like Rodrick and likely would not last a full day. It then cuts to an illustration of Rodrick forcing a Flat Greg through a paper shredder with the latter screaming.
  • Susan has been trying to teach Greg and his brothers Spanish since they were little. Greg acknowledges that his mom raises a good point about how being multilingual has a lot of benefits, but it's clear (even to those who don't speak Spanish) that Susan doesn't understand the language nearly as well as she thinks she does—to name just one example, Susan tries to say "Tengo hambre" ("I'm hungry") but ends up saying "Tango hamburgers." Greg claims that it wasn't until he started taking Spanish in middle school that he finally realized that all the Spanish words/phrases she was feeding him were incorrect.
    • Another example is that Susan taught Greg that "Te amo" means "What is your name?", when it actually means "I love you"note . The "te amo"-thing apparently led to some pretty embarrassing (in hindsight) moments for Greg, such as one incident where he told the waiter at a Mexican restaurant that he loved him.
    • This book really showcases Susan's obsession with education, and Greg shows how, ever since he was little, she insists on turning pretty much any situation into a "teaching moment." Greg recounts being scratched by a cat when he was little, and rather than be concerned that her son got hurt, Susan wanted to make sure that he could spell the word "cat."
  • The Heffleys playing Alphabet Groceries (a game where people think of food that starts with every letter of the alphabet). When it's Rodrick's turn, he is unable to find one that starts with "B."
    • Manny uses nonsense words like "bapple" and "zapple". Greg and Rodrick call it cheating, but the parents allow it because they want to encourage Manny to properly use the alphabet.
  • The next game they play is I Must Confess, where one player reads a card and the others get a point if they did it. When Frank and Rodrick are neck-and-neck with nine points each, Susan pulls a card asking if anyone ever toilet-papered someone's house. Rodrick jumps for joy and reveals that he and his bandmates toilet-papered the house of a neighbor who called the cops on them for playing music too loud. The result? They pull over immediately and force Rodrick to call the neighbor and apologize.
  • When Manny lost his favorite pacifier, Frank quickly had to run out and get a new one. He came home with a gag gift that looks like Manny had a big mouth. This still worked.
  • Greg talks about reading:
    • He explains how whenever Rodrick had to do a book report for school, he just watches the film based on whatever book he's assigned to. When he was assigned to do a report on The Lord of the Rings, he wasn't careful about checking the title and had accidentally checked out a wrestling movie called "Lords of the Ring." Greg figures that Rodrick's English teacher is going to be pretty confused when she sees his final copy.
    • Greg mentions that when he was in elementary school, his class had to write to an author and all the boys chose Mik Davies, the author of the Toilet Humour series Underpants Bandits. But the teachers hated the books, so they were forced to pick someone else. Greg randomly picks a random author he found in the library and got this back:
      Dear Mr. Heffley: We regret to inform you that the author to whom you have written, Mr. Hawthorne, passed away more than a century ago. As such, he will not be able to respond to your letter.
    • In that same year, Greg wrote this letter to Mik Davies as fan mail:
      Dear Mr. Davies, I'm just writing to tell you, don't listen to these people who say your books are garbage because they don't know what they're talking about. I know a bunch of kids (including me) who think your books are great. As far as the "rude humor" goes, I find that stuff hilarious, so please don't change a thing. In fact, I would encourage you to put MORE bodily functions and things of that nature in your books.
    • To Greg's disappointment, all he gets in return for this is a form letter advertising the next Underpants Bandits book.
  • When Rodrick fails to get the proper groceries meant for dinner, Susan gives Greg money and tells him to go to the vending machine and buy the healthiest things in it.
    "And that's how we ended up eating sugar wafers and breath mints for dinner."
  • One incident, which was a result of pure coincidence, led Greg to briefly think the characters in the preschool shows he watched could hear and talk to him. Susan had to sit him down once she walked in on him trying to have conversations with them.
  • At the county fair, Susan stays back with a sleeping Manny while the other boys go on their own. They immediately gorge on the deep-fried butter now that she wasn't around.
  • Rodrick defends keeping the pet pig by saying they could get bacon from it every day, not unlike eggs from a chicken.
  • The pig starts needing to pee. So they decide to put it on Manny's potty, and it knows exactly what to do.
  • The pig bites Greg and he becomes worried about it, fearing he might become a were-pig soon which could ruin his love life.
  • After the pig bites Greg, Susan can't find an ER-doctor, so she ends up taking him to a veterinarian's office, where he gets weighed on the scale for dogs and his species is put down as "human".
    • After Greg gets his temperature taken, Rodrick tells him that animal thermometers go somewhere ELSE and that they probably don't bother cleaning between animals. Greg freaks out as he realizes he had it in his mouth... but a second later realizes Rodrick probably isn't a reliable source, given that he's unknowingly eating gerbil pellets at the moment.
  • Rodrick used to run away from home a lot when he was younger. And yet he always turned right back around when Susan told him his favorite show was on.
  • Manny is angry that they got rid of the pig and tries to go to the petting zoo where they dropped it off.
    • At the vet, Manny keeps trying to run out the door, forcing his parents to buy a leash just to keep him close.
    • At a diner, Manny goes to use the bathroom. Since he can't take the leash off, Greg has to hold it outside while he takes care of business. It isn't long before Greg notices that he was taking longer than usual. When he finally opens the door, he finds out that Manny had ripped off the leash, jumped out the window, and tried to hitchhike his way back.
    • At the supermarket, the family locks themselves out of the van. To get them back, Frank lowers Manny through the sun roof. He gets the keys, but instead of opening the doors, he turns on the engine. He attempts to drive the van all the way back, and is only stopped because he's too small to hit the gas pedal.
  • Frank is cut off by a long line of cars going through a red light. He decides to quickly cut one off and enter the line, only to realize that the cars were part of a funeral procession. They use the GPS to find the closest cemetery to get everyone off their tail, which turns out to be a PET cemetery.
  • A flock of seagulls attacking the van after Greg fed one a cheese curl.
  • At the water park, Rodrick proposes that he and Greg play hide-and-seek. To avoid someone just going underwater for long periods of time, the hider has to hold a piece of paper to stay halfway above the water at all times. Greg starts, but when he jumps in the pool, everyone runs away from him. Turns out Rodrick wrote "I'm not waring [sic] a bathing suit" on it.
  • The family is driving through an area of woods where hunting is allowed, and are startled by the sound of a loud bang. It turns out a can of cinnamon roll dough exploded, thanks to it laying on one of the car's heater vents. It's night at the time, and when the back of Rodrick's head ends up covered in dough, he freaks out, believing it to be his brains. And then he sees Manny licking the substance off his fingers...
  • Greg continuously bumping into the Beardo family wherever he goes.
    Greg: I don't know what the odds are of running into the same people again and again, but this was starting to get ridiculous.
  • The Heffleys find the Beardo's motel room. since they believe they stole their stuff from the water park, they break into it and try to find it, but not before using all the luxuries they haven't had for so long. Frank uses their bathroom right as they come back, however. So everyone gets to see Frank, with no pants on, running out of the room as Mr. Beardo chases him.
  • Everyone's shock at Manny's suddenly being perfectly fluent in Spanish.

    Old School 
  • While Susan is going around town getting signatures for her electronic-free weekend, the boys try their hardest to pretend they don't know her.
  • "In fact, the way we're headed, I'll bet a thousand years from now human beings won't even have SPINES." [picture of Greg slithering down a staircase like a snake]
  • Since the events of the last book, the pig has practically become a Disney character, wearing pants and walking on its hind legs. There's even a scene where the pig goes out for a night and returns visually tipsy, implying that he went out to a bar.
  • Greg on sharing his room with Manny:
    Greg: "It's not dignified to share a room with a person who doesn't wear pants after dinner."
    • For context, Susan decided to experiment with Manny to get him potty trained. She does this by making him wear no pants after dinner so if he had to go, he'd run to the toilet. But instead, he prances around all night before unloading behind the recliner as Grandpa is watching TV, much to his confusion.
  • With Grandpa living with them, Frank now makes sure his kids don't mess up and gets salty over every little thing they do. Greg forgets to cap the toothpaste tube, so Frank tells him that if he was a kid growing up in frontier times and it was his job to tighten the bolts on the wagon wheels but he forgot to, then the wheels would fall off and the family would get eaten by Savage Wolves. Despite Frank clearly overblowing things, Greg does end up feeling bad for not doing it properly.
  • Greg and Rowley hear stories from parents about playing Kick the Can and try to see what the fuss was about by playing it themselves. The game lasts thirty seconds.
    Greg: Wanna go inside and play Twisted Wizard?
    Rowley: Yeah.
  • Rodrick went on a field trip to Hardscrabble Farms when he was Greg's age. He sent home a pile of letters that all repeated the phrase "Help help me get out of here". The message, the writing, and the amount of letters make it sound like Rodrick's in a horror movie.
  • Rodrick was driving back home from his work with his company mascot costume to wash it. Due to traffic, he moves into the carpool lane, which requires a minimum of two people to enter. How does he try to escape trouble? By making it look like the mascot was in the passenger seat next to him. The police caught him pretty quickly.
  • While the family gets home from Rodrick's work, they come to find Grandpa having a party with dozens of elderly women. As punishment, Frank gives his own father a time-out.
    • Greg finding two stragglers in his closet.
  • The town park attempted to build a cell-phone only pathway due to too many collisions from people not looking where they're going. They scrapped the project right before they got to the footbridge over the creek. The accompanying image shows a man falling into said creek.
  • When electronic-free week rolls around, Susan takes it dead serious by unplugging everything in the house that runs on electricity.
  • The entire series of events at the park clean-up.
    • Greg attempts to sell his "NRG Fitness Water" at the clean-up, only for his mom to tell him that she shouldn't profit off of volunteer work. Later, when the Girl Scouts come over and take control, they put up a booth to sell cookies. Susan is one of the first people in line.
    • Tired of the Girl Scouts working everyone to the bone, Greg sneaks away to a creek. He is soon joined by his homework buddy Frew and a juvie on community service named Billy. Eventually, the Scouts catch them and the three book it, starting a chase with all of the Girl Scouts in pursuit.
      Greg: I didn't know if the Girl Scouts actually had the authority to arrest someone, but I wasn't gonna stick around and find out. For all I knew, that was something they needed to do to earn one of their badges.
    • The reason Billy was arrested and given community service? Stealing a pack of sour gummy worms.
    • After losing them, the three think of their next course of action. Frew suggests that they could go on adventures across the country and even join the circus. Billy and Frew then begin to argue on who will get the money for the movie rights to their story if they became famous.
    • The three are eventually found by Susan. It turns out that she had put a tracker on Greg's shoelace to know where he is at all times, and was forced to break her "electronic-free" rule to track him down.
  • Greg notices Frank has security cameras and thinks there is one in Manny's stuffed duck, so he stands in front of it holding a sign that reads "I know you are watching me".
  • Greg complaining about the baby wipes being reserved for Manny, claiming that it's one of the reasons he hopes to be rich one day.
  • One of Greg's cabin mates at camp is Julian Trimble, a boy who is overly attached to his mother and used to always make a scene when she left him at school. Greg initially assumes Julian was finally beginning to mature. But then he remembers seeing Julian's mom speeding away from her surprised son with a look of relief on her face, suggesting that she tricked him.
  • The boys play a game of trust fall, where one person intentionally falls and the rest of the group has to catch them. Jordan Lankey falls while everyone else is working out where to stand. Jeffery Swanson is so heavy that Rowley and Gareth Grimes smash their heads together, leaving Gareth's tooth stuck in Rowley's forehead.
  • Hardscrabble Farm deals with leftovers by putting all food not eaten into a big pot to be served as a stew, much to everyone's disgust. For example, Jordan ends up getting a bowl of stew with a whole taco shell inside.
  • The boys catch a fish but don't want to eat it, so they put it in the toilet.
    • Made even better when Rowley's dad goes to use the toilet and is heard screaming.
  • Everyone is gathered around to receive mail from their families. Greg gets a really sweet letter from his mother and a not so sweet one from Rodrick:
    Rodrick: Dear Greg, I found your candy bars. Here, you can smell the wrappers. Har, har, har. [Candy bar wrapper taped to the bottom].
    • He also gets a letter that appears to be from the pig, which he prays is a sick joke.
    • Some kids didn't get any mail. So to alleviate, they get other kids to read their letters to them.
  • Julian is fed up with camp, but kids cannot go home unless it is a medical emergency. In response, Julian is found in his cabin after eating half of a stick of deodorant. His mom is called to take him home, by which point he's already made a full recovery.
  • Rowley returns after what happened at the trust fall. He even tries to give Gareth his tooth back in a jar.
  • The cabin is building a campfire for their night outside. Rowley throws on a bunch of leaves for kindling, not realizing it was POISON IVY. Both he and his dad are forced to go home.
  • The cabin is forced to build a fire on their own. Greg uses a manual his Grandpa gave him and they use Emilio Mendoza's glasses to start a fire. In celebration, Greg gets carried away and high-fives a cabinmate with the hand with which he's holding Emilio's glasses, shattering them. Emilio is forced to walk his way back hitting just about every tree on the way.
  • The Deodorant Heist.
    • After what happened with Julian, all of the boys' deodorant is confiscated in fear of copycat incidents. It isn't long before the boys begin to smell. So Greg's cabin decides to see if they can steal some off the girls. An argument breaks out on whether or not girls use deodorant.
    • The boys manage to reach a girl's cabin and try to climb through a window. Unfortunately, Graham Bertran falls trying to hop in and they end up getting caught. Everyone tramples one another to escape.
    • Back at the cabin, they think the mission was a failure. However, one of them managed to quickly grab a bag before leaving. They open and look for deodorant, only to find out that the clothes were really big for a middle schooler. It turns out the bag they stole belonged to the cabin's CHAPERONE, and she arrives just as they hold up her undergarments.
      • The reason that the chaperone knew what cabin it was was because the group had forgot Emilio, who was still stumbling around in the dark outside the girls' cabin.

    Double Down 
  • Greg's nightmares:
  • All of the family's lies:
    • Greg: When he was in elementary school, Greg was asked to take his apple core home to prove he'd eaten his apple, but he forgot and threw the apple away. He lied that a bully stole it. Susan then asked for details, so Greg lied that the bully was a boy named Curtis Litz, who was a foot taller than him, with a unibrow and a mole on his chin. She then handed Greg a paper and pen to write a note to Curtis so Greg wrote a note not to take the apple again as he needed it for his nutrition. He then wrote back a fake letter from "Curtis", saying that the apple was delicious and he wanted another one, adding a rude drawing of a butt to show how bad Curtis was. Then, Susan went to the school, but there was no Curtis Litz, so Greg said he must be homeschooled.
    • Susan: That broccoli tasted like candy. Later, that touching the gingerbread house before Christmas would make it turn into a million spiders, which backfired when Manny sprayed it with bug spray.
    • Frank: That the ice cream truck only played music when they were out of ice cream.
    • Grandpa Heffley: That ice cream trucks were driven by clowns who spanked children who were caught outdoors. (Greg actually believed this.)
    • Rodrick: That if your belly button came untied, your butt would fall off; that the outer ring of the toilet was for girls and guys had to lift the seat even when they sat down; that if a person wore camouflage, they were invisible; that you could plant money to grow a money tree; that, when you get older, you lose your child limbs and the adult ones grow (just like teeth) and that there's an arm fairy and a leg fairy; that monsters lived inside the stairs and if you went up them too slow, a monster would grab your ankle; and that if you burped indoors, George Washington's ghost would haunt you.note 
  • The students were bored now that there's no Cheese Touch, so they try to start up the Roast Beef Touch with a piece of roast beef, but it didn't work.
  • Greg and Rowley read horror books by an author named "I.M. Spooky". They wonder if that's his real name, a pen name, or even the name of a group of people. Greg says that with a name like that, you pretty much have to be a horror author.

    The Getaway 
  • Greg ending up on a nude beach.
  • Greg hates spiders and says that if he was a character in Charlotte's Web, "it would've been a very short book."
  • Greg gets his snow boot stuck in a puddle of slush, which gets his foot wet. So when he arrives at the airport, his sock is still damp, so he decides to dry it using the hand dryer in the bathroom. This causes the sock to start smoking and then go flying off until it lands with a splash in a urinal. What adds to the hilarity of this moment is that the man who is standing beside the other urinal is shocked by what he sees next to him.
  • Any time Greg decides to let the pictures speak for themselves:
    • When trying to find a charging place for his phone at the airport, he says the only one available was in an "awkward place", but he felt what he did what had to be done when his phone is at 15%. The picture shows the outlet in the entrance to the lady's bathroom.
    • A combination of being nauseous from the flight and the family with Greg deciding to start feeding their baby results in Greg using the vomit bag after seeing the white paper bag in front of him and seeing the picture and realizing exactly what it's for.
    • Towards the end of the flight, a string of coincidences leads to the aforementioned family putting their baby in Greg's seat. Greg ends up going back to his seat because of a wheel on the beverage cart breaking meaning he can't kick Rodrick out of class. He says he got two hours of sleep and not to ask him how, as the picture shows him sitting his seat, holding the baby as the parents sleepily look at him in confusion.

    The Meltdown 
  • The fact that Greg didn't find anything out of the ordinary about Rowley showing up at his house dressed as a member of the Queen's Guard.
  • Greg and each of the kids in his grade have to a project on a specific country for their International Showcase—Greg ends up being assigned the country of Malta, which he's never even heard of. He ends up completely forgetting about the project until the day it's due (hence why Rowley was dressed up as for the project, you're supposed to dress in the clothes from your country), so he has to scramble a bunch of random things together to try and salvage it. He ends up getting nothing right about the country of Malta—the only thing he's sure about is that Malta's located near Russianote . Because of this, he puts together the warmest clothing he can find from the lost-and-found and mish-mashes cafeteria food together to create what he thinks could pass for a Maltese dish. He also comes up with some non-facts about Malta, pointing out that no US presidents were born in Malta and that it has the same number of letters as "Fudge". It gets worse when the students' parents come to the school to check out the International Showcase—Greg discovers that there's some kid in his grade whose parents are actually from Malta, and when they come by to see what Greg did for his project, they're clearly offended/disappointed that he obviously did no real research on their home country. Greg thinks he's in the clear when a fight at another table breaks out...but later on, he has to do it again.
  • Greg's mom walking in on a rather...interesting scene unfolding between Greg and Rowley in Gramma's basement.
  • In the climax of the book, Greg orders some others to get hot chocolate to pour on the enemies trying to climb the snow wall; however, they pour hot chocolate powder on the invaders, which only irritates them.

     Wrecking Ball 
  • Greg thinks that his last words will be "really lame."
    Greg's grave: Does this have chickpeas in it? Because I'm allergic to chickpeas.
  • When Greg was little, his mom would read him a series of books called Preston Platypus, about a character who constantly worries about various situations that turn out to be not so scary in the end. Young Greg was disappointed with the boring endings and drew his own ending to Preston Platypus Goes to the Zoo, showing Preston getting shoved into a lion pit. When Susan saw it, she took Greg to see a counselor.
  • One that counts as Black Comedy, but Rodrick, Greg, and Manny celebrating getting an inheritance from their dead great-aunt while their parents have disapproving looks on their faces. The illustration even shows the boys throwing their french fries around like confetti.
  • When Greg was little, he thought that grout was some kind of monster that lived in the house’s bathroom pipes (he was in bed and overheard Susan saying "The grout in this bathroom is really nasty!". He once tried to stop it from coming out of the faucets by blocking them with balloons so it couldn’t pull him down the drain. It backfires, and Rodrick ends up beaning him with a water balloon. Then, when he fesses up to Susan, she thinks that it's hilarious and shows him what the grout is (the grit between tiles) and tells him that if he stops thinking about it, it'll go away. Cue Young Greg thinking that's exactly what the Grout would want him to think and him wondering if the Grout is disguised as Susan.
  • The family hires a plumber to fix up the bathroom. Unfortunately, Greg doesn't know about this until he walks past the room, getting a full view of his Plumber's Crack. The best part is Manny trying to pay the plumber at the end of his work... by swiping Mom's credit card up his crack as if it's a card reader.
  • One time, Rodrick fell asleep in the hot tub overnight, and ended up looking like a prune for two straight weeks. His class pictures were also taken during said two weeks. You do the math.

    The Deep End 
  • Greg talks about how Thomas Crapper invented the toilet, and that he hopes he gets paid if someone were to name a bodily function after him. Cue to a diagram where a guy tells his roommate that he needs to "Take a Greg."
  • Susan tries to get Manny to feel like a real driver during the family's trip in Uncle Gary's RV by seating him in front of the wheel. This backfires when Manny angrily curses out the driver in front of them as he lays into the horn, to Susan's obvious embarrassment.
  • It's this book's misadventures that finally seem to make Greg consider he and his entire family are collectively a Cosmic Plaything, even invoking the idea it's part of God's sick sense of humour. Why? Because when a skunk alarm goes off, they hole up in their RV, only to discover the skunk is waiting for them inside. No prizes for guessing what happens to the Heffleys.

    Big Shot 
  • Greg comes second-to-last in a relay during his school's field day. He then defends himself by pointing out that he can run when properly motivated... like the time Rodrick angrily chased him down with a dog poop-covered shoe after Greg laughed at him for stepping in it.
  • Greg's basketball team ends up taking their basketball coach Dhruv Patel's words about fighting for honor during a particularly disastrous basketball game against Slacksville way too literally; Yusef Meskin ends up throwing a rough elbow towards a rival player, Ruby Bird tackles their center... and the Woodley Brothers begin beating each other up for no real reason. Also, during the first game, after Coach Patel's speech, as Greg and his team are charging out of the bathroom, the father changing his baby's diaper charges out with them.
    The Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book 
  • Two "annoying catchphrases" are "Wubba dubb, my tubb?" and "Rat-a-tat tat and chicken fat!"
  • On the inkblots page, Fregley sees one inkblot as "Two turtles playing tennis!"
  • Rodrick's activity page:
    • One fill-in-the-blank question asks "Who is awesome?" with the answer being "RODR_CK." A note reads "Hint: I."
    • There's an "intelligence test" maze that's actually impossible.
    • One activity tells you to hold the book in a mirror and read the phrase. The phrase is "I AM A MORON."
    • He demands that the following question be answered with yes or no only: "Are you embarrassed that you pooped in your diaper today?"
  • The nonsensical excuse maker.
    Greg: The toilet injured my lunch!
  • The various kids' comics are all funny, but best of all is the blurb at the end of Greg's The Amazing Fart Police: "Next Week: The Fart Police Invade A Burrito Factory."
    • And the comic of that one where a duck actually crawled into the man's pants.
  • The Creighton the Comedian comic:
    Creighton: OK, here is my first joke: Knock-knock.
    Person 3: Who's there?
    Creighton: "Creighton" is here. Ain't that funny?
    Person 2: No, it's not funny. It's not even a real knock-knock joke!
    Creighton: Oops, I thought it was funny.
    Creighton: OK, I got a good joke. One time... this chicken... and then all across the road... Oops, I think I muffed that one up.
    Person 4: These jokes are terrible!
    Creighton: OK, now I'm gonna do something called "Wacky Headlines."
    Person 1: Ooh, I love this kind of stuff!
    Person 3: Me, too!
    Creighton: Oops, I thought they were "wacky."
    Person 1: You're the worst comedian ever!
    Person 3: Boo!
    Voice Offscreen: Next!
  • Creighton the Dinosaur is asked to sing a song.
    Creighton: You should smell this costume's feets, I ain't washed it in six weeks.

Movies

    Diary of a Wimpy Kid 
  • The entire opening. Greg accidentally knocking over a chair while preparing for school (Rodrick's prank from from the first book). Cue Frank ambushing what he thinks is a burglar:
    Frank: FAAAHHH! (notices Greg, annoyed) What are you doing?! What's going on?!
    Greg: Getting ready for... (looks out the window and notices that's it's dark with an owl hooting, realizing far too late that he walked into Rodrick's trap) ...school.
    Frank: Are you insane? School doesn't start 'til next week! And FYI, school doesn't start at... (points to a non-existent watch on his right hand) four o' clock in the morning! You woke up Manny, and if he doesn't go back down, you... (notices Susan coming down with Manny, annoyed) (cheerfully) Good morning!
    Susan: There is no way he is going back down. I just wanted to sleep 'til six.
    Manny: Bubby!
    Frank: Go to bed! I got him!
    Susan: Greg, what are you doing downstairs making all this noise?
    Greg: It was Rodrick! He woke me up! He changed my clock!
    (cut to a perfectly asleep Rodrick having covered his tracks)
    Greg: But I swear, he was just—
    Susan: (in a "I'm so done" tone) Go to bed.
    Frank: (smells something foul, disgusted) What is that smell? I can't even identify it...
  • At the start of the movie, when Greg introduces the audience to Rowley, we get a Cutaway Gag of Rowley saying, "GERONIMO!" as he jumps into a ballpit. The next cutaway shows Rowley sitting on Santa's lap, listing everything he wants for Christmas. Greg sure wasn't kidding when he said Rowley wasn't "middle school ready".
  • Rowley grabs onto Rodrick's leg to let Greg escape. Rodrick's response?
    Rodrick: Let go, baby hippo!
  • The scene where Greg pees on Rodrick. The context is that Rodrick locked Greg in his room, threatening to "literally kill" him if he escaped, but then Greg had to pee, which escalated to a Potty Emergency after he saw a man watering his lawn, a sprinkler, and an aquarium. He left to find Rodrick no longer outside his bedroom door, but when Greg is using the toilet, Rodrick jumps at him, causing Greg to turn around in surprise but he doesn't stop peeing. Even worse, Susan walks in and assumes Greg peed on Rodrick on purpose and makes him clean up.
  • When Rodrick freaks out Greg and Rowley with a totally not made-up Urban Legend. It, needless to say, doesn't make a whole bunch of sense.
    Rodrick: But they forgot to turn off the ovens. So the house burned down... with everyone in it.
    Rowley: Wait. How'd the trees get there?
    Rodrick: ...and then, they planted trees!
    Rowley: Oh.
    • A somewhat easier to miss one involving how Rodrick segues into the story; he states that the house was torn down because of it being haunted. Seconds later, in his tale, he states that it burned down. In-universe Canon Discontinuity much?
  • The flashback of Greg warning Manny about the "Potty Monster".
    Greg: Don't look down, Manny. The Potty Monster doesn't like it when you look at him.
    [A dramatic sting plays, Manny gets an Oh, Crap! expression and looks down beneath him screaming]
  • The "It's Awesome to Be Me" film shown in school. An unpopular kid makes friends by breakdancing. Especially since he's clearly played by another actor during the breakdance sequence.
    • When the clip is over, Fregley is shown crying as if it was an emotional movie.

    Rodrick Rules 
  • When Rodrick hears about the talent show on the news:
    Rowley: (to Greg) Hey, Greg! Maybe we should—
    Rodrick: Can it, Chunky Cheese!
  • Rodrick panicking about whether his parents will find out about the door he and Greg replaced to cover up their secret party:
    Rodrick: Does [Dad] know about the D-O-R-E??
    (Beat)
    Greg and Rowley (looking puzzled) Huh?
    Rodrick: The door!
  • Early on, there's Greg and Rowley's hilariously terrible attempt at making a viral video.
  • "I'm a little birdie! I'm a little birdie - ow, my knee bone!"
  • Rowley's magic show at the climax.
  • This exchange:
    Rodrick: We have to keep [Mom and Dad] away from the bathroom.
  • "WHAT WAS GENERAL GRANT DOING ON THE THERMOSTAT?!"
    • Frank then follows it up by scolding the boys for seemingly touching his figurines in Steve Zahn's hammy way:
      Frank: LOOK— DON'T— These-these are off limits! NO TOUCH! They are not toys, THEY'RE FIGURINES!
  • When Frank discovers photos of Rodrick's party, he shows one of the pictures (in which Rodrick is clearly present) he asks Rodrick about it, leading to the following exchange.
    Frank: Can you explain what you're doing in this photo?
    Rodrick: That's not me.
    Frank: (skeptically) That's not you?
    Rodrick: Nope.
  • Greg and Rowley getting spooked by the horror film "The Foot." Then Manny crawls into their bed looking for candy, which scares them into thinking it's the Foot attacking them.
  • The chocolate scene, which is also in the theatrical trailer.
  • Rodrick's advice to Greg, such as not being good at something one doesn't like to get out of it and lowering others' expectations.

    Dog Days 
  • Greg has been playing video games all day, but when his father gets home, Greg shuts off the television and goes outside to get wet from the sprinklers. He then comes back inside with a football just as Frank is entering the kitchen, to make it seem as though Greg is sweaty from playing sports outside. His father is initially fooled, but he then goes into the living room and turns the television on, revealing on the screen the video game that's still on.
    Frank: (turns his head around and gives Greg a subtle Death Glare) You played video games all day.
    Greg: Me? No... I've been playing sports. (holds up the football hopefully, causing Rodrick on the couch to snort in disbelief)
    Frank: Okay, that's it! No more video games for the rest of the summer!
    Greg: (stammers) You can't do that!
    Frank: (going towards the TV set) Oh, yeah, I can! I will! I AM! I'm unplugging it! (looks behind the TV set for the game input cable) Does the DVD or the cable box go into... Does the DVD player go into cable— (Rodrick starts chuckling, causing Frank to stop talking and stare at him) You think this is funny?
    Rodrick: It's amusing. (smirks)
    Frank: (laughs sarcastically) Well, hey, how about then, um, no video games and no TELEVISION for the rest of the summer? Does THAT make you laugh out loud?!
    Greg: Dad, no!
    Rodrick: (now staring at Frank in horror) I stopped laughing! I stopped! (Frank, now sporting a Slasher Smile, yanks out all of the TV's input cables. Greg and Rodrick gape at him in shock as the TV goes blank.)
    Frank: (Beat, as he has a big grin on his face) HA! GUESS WHO'S THE LAUGHER NOW? ME! I'M THE LAUGHER! I'M THE LAUGHINGEST LAUGHER THAT EVER LAUGHED! (laughs maniacally as Greg and Rodrick stare at him as though he has lost his mind)
  • The scene where Rodrick tries to get the attention of Heather Hills by pretending he's drowning when she's doing lifeguard duty. She either doesn't notice him or simply doesn't care, and an older man who isn't in particularly good shape dives in to rescue him instead. Rodrick is understandably freaked out, but it doesn't stop there. He then proceeds to perform CPR on poor Rodrick. It really is funnier than it sounds, though.
  • When the new family dog Sweetie chews up the meatloaf, Greg and his dad get Sweetie to let it go. Rather than make a new meatloaf, Greg and Frank put it back on its plate, and the rest of the family doesn't notice; in fact, Rodrick thinks this meatloaf tastes better than usual.
  • In the climax, Rodrick decides to serenade Heather... very poorly. Which song does he sing? "Baby". And it culminates in the two together... because her attempt at maiming Rodrick leads to them crashing to the floor together, covered in chocolate.

    The Long Haul 
  • From the trailer:
    Mom: I need to file a missing persons report—
    (she turns around and sees Greg and Rodrick on the TV being interviewed by a reporter, Jill)
    Jill: What do your parents think about you guys coming to the expo to play video games?
    Rodrick: Oh, they have no idea. (laughs)
    Greg: Frankly, Jill, they're a little slow.
    Mom: Actually... I'd like to report a double murder.
  • Some gems in the second trailer:
    • Greg throws a cheese chip to a seagull through the Heffleys' car's open sunroof. Greg's mother disagrees with Greg feeding it. His response?
      Greg: There's only one. (Beat, then a sudden flock of seagulls swarm the car and attack the Heffleys)
    • Rodrick's incompetency comes to light yet again...
      Rodrick: I got us... a microwave pizza. (places pizza in what appears to be a microwave and presses numbers on it)
      Frank: Rodrick... that's a mini safe.
      Rodrick: (shakes the safe in a futile attempt to get the pizza out) ...And they disguised it as a microwave.
  • All the "Diaper Hands" jokes. It started with Greg falling into the ball pit and accidentally getting a diaper stuck to his hand. Someone filmed him yelling "It's a diaper!" and put it on YouTube and it became a meme where he was known as "Diaper Hands". This led to a few jokes.
    • Greg saying that he'd better do something or he'd be known as "Diaper Hands" for the rest of his life or possibly even longer. He then imagines his tombstone reading "Here lies Greg "Diaper Hands" Heffley."
    • When Mr. Beardo falls into the trash, he also gets a diaper on his hand.
    • When Susan comes in to pick Rodrick and Greg up from the video game convention, she shouts Greg's full name and tells him how she thought he would've grown up a bit since the Diaper Hands thing. The video game player (Digby) then recognizes Greg as a "celebrity" and then the whole crowd chants, "Diaper Hands! Greg Heffley!", much to Greg's dismay.
  • Manny winning the pig.
    Man: Can you see that pig right there? How much you think that pig weighs?
    Greg: Honestly, [my brother] just wants a lollipop.
    Man: Oh. Well now, I'm still gonna have to have a guess.
    Greg: He can only count one, two, three.
    Manny: Four, five, six.
    Man: Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit! Ol' Wilberta there weighs exactly 456 pounds, on the nose! How about that? (hands Manny the pig)
    [...]
    Greg: We can't take this pig.
    Man: You're saying that you're not gonna let the little one keep it? A boy needs a pig.
    Other Man: You're saying folks that live on farms ain't normal?
    Greg: That's not what I mean. We just don't have anywhere to keep it. (to a woman with a baby bottle and something wrapped in a blanket) Ma'am, you wouldn't let a pig inside your house with your baby, would you?
    (She reveals that another pig is wrapped in the blanket.)
    • Later, Greg puts the pig in his bag and tells it, "Please don't poop."
    • And when they tell the rest of the Heffleys...
      Manny: I won a prize!
      Susan: What? You did, sweetie? What did you win?
      (Manny opens up Greg's bag to reveal the pig)
      Susan: Oh, my gosh. A pig. An actual pig. An actual living pig.
      [...]
      Rodrick: I think it's great we have a pig. Cause now we'll be able to get bacon from it every morning.
  • When the Heffleys' van is broken, they roll down the hill, with Greg riding in Frank's boat. It then becomes detached and lands in Meemaw's pool.
    Greg: (to Frank) You said you wanted to get your boat on the water this summer.
    • Speaking of Frank's boat, Greg suggesting earlier on that they take it so the kids can learn how to "fish for...you know, fish".

Top