Calvin breaks his dad's expensive binoculars and panics over how his dad will react when he finds out.
Tropes
- Accidental Aesop: In-universe. After breaking his dad's binoculars, Calvin gets his own pair of cheap kiddie binoculars from his dad. Calvin wonders if he can get a set of power tools if he breaks his dad's.
- Foreshadowing: After calming down, Calvin's dad reasons he can't be that upset about Calvin breaking his binoculars, because in ten years Calvin will probably be wrecking his car. It ended up not taking nearly that long, but a future arc would have Calvin accidentally roll the car into a ditch.
- Idiot Ball: Calvin was told to be extremely careful with his dad's binoculars. So naturally, he starts playing with them by tossing them to himself while he's running down the sidewalk.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Usually, when Calvin does something bad, he either brushes it off as not being that big of a deal, or tries to blame some fantastical culprit that no one other than Hobbes ever believes exists. This time, however, Calvin knows how badly he messed up and how furious his father is going to be, and he's terrified, as well as genuinely guilt-stricken over what he did.
- Reduced to Dust: Hobbes asks to see the broken binoculars, thinking maybe the damage could be repaired with glue. Calvin shows Hobbes a box filled with powder. How he managed to turn a pair of binoculars into a pile of dust is never explained.
