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No. 603: How old is 'old', anyway? Domestic rats typically live 2-3 years

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How old is 'old', anyway? Domestic rats typically live 2-3 years

First | Previous | 2022-04-26 | Next | Latest

Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/itoons/?comic=603

Strip by: Conor

{Pastis is seated at a desk, drawing, while Rat stands nearby holding some indeterminate object.}
Rat: If the choice was yours, how would you choose to die?
Pastis: I don't know... I guess I'd choose to die from old age.
{Rat stands on top of the desk and brandishes a baseball bat at Pastis.}
{Pastis has seized the baseball bat from Rat and looks furious.}
Rat: You look pretty old to me.

The author writes:

While I first encountered this particular question and 'loophole' answer when reading Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles as a child, it dates back at least to the late Middle Ages and Francis I's court jester Triboulet. (One might readily presume it's far older than that, too.)

Original Pearls Before Swine strip: 2012-03-29.