The first panel seems ready to get a little more topical / political than Wrong Hands usually means to get into. But then IDU the second panel. Are the free raisins just something inconsequential, that you would probably drive right past? Or is the situation there rather suspicious? No grape vines, so we’re not talking natural sun-dried raisins. Will they just be rabbit pellets?
Comics I Don't Understand 
I’m a little lost too, though the second panel reminds me of the saying “the standard you walk past is the standard you accept.”
I think the humorous “incongruity” is supposed to be between something that is “free” (meaning everyone would want to cash in), and “raisins“, which is a food that many people (and some cats) seem to think is universally detestable:
P.S. Here’s another example:
As someone with a deep aversion to raisins, I found this comic (and the examples posted by fellow CIDUers) to be both funny and relatable. Raisins are the devil’s candy. (“Ted hates Raisin Bran. He picks the raisins out with his spoon and flings them at the cat.” – Georgette on “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”)
Not a lot of middle ground on raisins, they seem to be either loved or hated… or loved by children whose parents won’t give them dessert that’s not a Chunky bar.
I worked at the cafeteria during all of my time in college and we had these little Otis Spunkmeyer-branded ovens that could bake cookies from refrigerated Otis Spunkmeyer-branded dough in about 10 minutes. We kept them out on a counter where the patrons could see them working (they had windows so you could see the cookies baking inside), baking cookies all though the evening shift and then placing the freshly-baked cookies on trays in front of the ovens, where they were usually swarmed by kids wanting their cookies right out of the oven (where they were hot, really soft, and fell apart easily). Sometimes kids would even wait in front of the ovens for the cookies to finish baking. Chocolate chip was, of course, the most popular flavor, but we also had peanut butter, sugar, macadamia nut, and… oatmeal raisin.
Working these cookie ovens was the responsibility of the student worker assigned to the “beverage” station, which wasn’t a set area but a role where you would roam the cafeteria floor mostly refilling the ice in the soda spitter and restocking desserts. One of my best friends took a liking to this role and was regularly assigned to it. He did not, however, like dealing with the cookie ovens and the swarms that surrounded them. Thus, he figured out that oatmeal raisin was not only the least popular of the cookie dough options, it also looked almost exactly like chocolate chip to the patrons while in the oven. He would always have oatmeal raisin cookies baking when the dinner rush began, finding it quite funny when a crowd gathered to get what they thought were warm gooey chocolate chip cookies dissipated in disappointment when the oatmeal raisin cookies came out. Yeah, it’s a tacky thing to do… but you do silly things when you are 19.
According to Wiktionary, a hill to die on means “An issue to pursue with wholehearted conviction and/or single-minded focus, with little or no regard to the cost.”
In the first panel, people are willing to defend their beliefs at any cost. But free raisins? Nah, I’ll pass.
Definitely not in tune with this comic. I love raisins. I’m often not particularly interested in listening for very long to others’ beliefs, political or religious or dietary. So I’d drive past the first, and stop for the second.
And how about “craisins” [cranberry based]?
Oh no! Once you accept craisins you will be stuck with cremains!
I prefer oatmeal raisin to chocolate chip. I love chocolate, but not mixed in with other things – chocolate-covered nuts (etc) spoil the texture of the nut and the flavor of the chocolate, for me. So chocolate chip cookies are boring bland cookies with messed-up chocolate mixed in. I’ll take your oatmeal raisin cookies! much more complex texture and usually flavor (cinnamon!) and chewy sweet bits mixed in. Raisins by themselves are sugar bombs, I use them to sweeten oatmeal too.
Raisins are all right. I generally enjoy raisin bran, although in my experience the regular seems to have a lot of crumbs and it’s difficult to get an even distribution of raisins from serving to serving.
I’ve found DIY to be better. I get the store-brand bran flakes and the canisters of raisins at Aldi. I mix the bowls at consumption time.
On the other hand, chocolate chip cookies are much much superior to oatmeal-raisin.
When I was in Junior/Senior High, the desserts with the school lunch varied widely in desirability. At top would probably be ice cream bars or cups, and near the bottom would be boiled raisins. Stewed prunes were probably the nadir.
The problem with “craisins” (name aside) is the added sugar…
I love raisins; I thought panel two referred to bunny poop. Sorry to anyone I gross out.
@ billytheskink – Here’s another Garfield strip that you might appreciate:
P.S. Jim Davis must really hate raisins:
P.P.S. @ Susan – Here are a few more strips that I think you will like:
I don’t understand how one would confuse an oatmeal cookie for a non-oatmeal cookie without just plain not looking at it. Same with raisins and chocolate chips, really… and furthermore since ~nobody ever puts chocolate chips in oatmeal cookies you always get both visual cues.
Here’s a Brevity Bran strip that I didn’t want to include with the others above, because it just didn’t seem to be funny at all. However, one of the editors pointed out that CIDU doesn’t have a category for “anti-LOL”, so perhaps someone else can figure out what the authors were thinking of (or which hallucinogen they were taking) when they drew this:
Pepperidge Farm and Kashi both make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and Betty Crocker sells a mix so you can make them yourself. No raisins.
I gather he’s discovered that they make bigger boxes so he doesn’t need to buy so many of the single-serve?
Brian’s solution has to be the right answer, but I have never seen miniature cereal boxes sold in uniform triplets, only in 8-packs with a mixture of types. In addition, rather than making the strip funny, it makes the guy seem tragically stupid. Even if one accepts XKCD’s “lucky 10000” theory, there is no way that anyone in America could reach adulthood without knowing that cereals are primary sold in large boxes.
Yeah, I didn’t find any packs of individual servings boxes that were all the same, just assortment packs.
People don’t like raisins? Raisins are sweet – like candy – but parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents will give them to one to eat without an argument and without saying things like “Dr. Siegel will be making a lot of money if you eat these.” (My maternal grandmother used to say this to us about everything sweet we ate – my paternal grandmother would offer seconds without a warning – Dr. Siegel being our dentist.)
Being a Type 2 Diabetic who can’t eat the really good sweet things, I keep a container’s worth of raisins (transferred from cardboard container to plastic one so I don’t end up sharing with ants) in our pantry closet for when I need something sweet to eat. Also good when having morning blood glucose lows – bring small, sealed, 1/2 cup container of raisins up to bed at night. Can easily eat them without needing anything to wash them down and they are already measured. Or if not needed will sit well until the next morning.
I thought children love raisins?
@ Meryl – With respect to a dentist profiting from a child’s desire for candy, you might enjoy watching the charming movie “Ernest & Celestine“.
P.S. You may be correct about children liking raisins (as opposed to adults). I cannot recall a case of a kid reacting negatively to them, so it may be that the popular aversion develops later.
Naw, kids hate raisins — what’s the worst thing you can get for Hallowe’en? (And if your answer is “an apple with a razor blade in it”, you are clearly a parent, not a kid.)
Well of course it depends on what you are comparing them to! If your baseline is chocolate, then raisins don’t have a chance. But if you put kohlrabi, olives, and raisins on the table, then the results will be different.
I think this is the point that most adults miss: it isn’t about what you are comparing them to, they don’t fall on a spectrum — they are a different category entirely! Put them on the table with kohlrabi and olives — that’s where they belong! None of those things are (to a child) edible! And handing out olives for Hallowe’en would be just as demented!
Also I can’t remember anyone ever being upset about getting chocolate-covered raisins at Halloween.
Again, chocolate-covered raisins are a different class. As kid, I never minded raisins, but I never excited about them either.
A RAISIN is the worst thing you can get for Halloween?
Ignoring Charlie Brown’s rock, how about:
A Mary Jane (New England thing, a candy that is mostly molasses)
Candy Corn
A toothbrush (my sister the dental hygienist did it every year)
It’s time for me to admit a (poorly concealed) secret: not only do I like raisins (I have even been known to add them into the mix for home-made chocolate chip cookies), I also like candy corn (but cannot get it over here).
Yup, both Mary Janes and candy corn are at least in the category of “candy”, unlike raisins. So, that leaves the other category comprised of rocks, toothbrushes, and raisins. Of those (and understanding that of course receiving anything not in the category of “candy” is a massive, massive disappointment (including money, because you can’t keep it, you have to give it to UNICEF)), I would rate raisins at the bottom: rocks are cool; even a toothbrush represents a tangible manufactured thing of some value; a raisin is worth nothing, you can’t even eat the damn things…
😉
Francis Colburn used to tell the story of a new preacher that came to town. He was kind of Fundamentalist and folks were a bit scared of him, but he and his wife had the sweetest little daughter, about 6 or 7 years old, so pretty and well behaved. Everybody liked her. Well, come Halloween, the neighbors Walt and Phoebe knew that all the kids would come around so they got a basket and picked the biggest, best-looking apples off of their apple trees and polished them up. The last kid who came to the house was the preacher’s daughter, looking so beautiful with her golden hair and holding out her little bag, and Walt took the biggest, shiniest apple he had been saving just for her and dropped it into her bag, and she said, “You son of a b*tch, you broke my cookies.”
Mark in Boston:
A RAISIN is the worst thing you can get for Halloween?
Ignoring Charlie Brown’s rock, how about:
Being a farm kid, I never got to go trick or treating. But had I done so, I think my top two worst things to get wouldbe : a religious tract, a can of sardines, or a can of salmon.
(I find seafood disgusting. And I find religion, uh, at least problematic….)
I don’t mind raisins in the wild, and rather like them in cookies and muffins.
Never give out anything that would make a good projectile.
@ billytheskink – “…you do silly things when you are 19…”
And several years thereafter… every time I get an e-mail from the Alumni Association, I am reminded of the incredibly wide variety of asocial, intolerant, and just plain dangerous behaviors that were considered “normal” at the college I attended.
Anything unwrapped that one likes is the worst thing to get for Halloween.
I like candy corn – especially the newer part chocolate candy corn. I recall liking Mary Janes – though I have always tended to be a chocolate person in my candy preferences. Mom had to check all of our candy and if not wrapped – not eaten (and unlike Robert – it never occurred to me to eat the unwrapped candy before getting home). No one ever gave us fruit or such that I remember.
Actually the worst thing to get for Halloween (in my opinion based on my life) is a birthday cake! If only I had waited another 2 hours to be born I would be a Nov 1 baby not a Halloween baby.
From the age of 3 – I never had a birthday party which was not a costume party. I never had a birthday cake which was not the same exact cake – orange inside, chocolate frosting, plastic fence & pumpkin, and a fuzzy cat. I did not get dinner on my birthday – “I’m sure you don’t want anything to eat as you have been eating candy.” (When I was in college – lived at home – I came home once on my birthday and my mom said “I didn’t know you be home. I saw a wonderful cake for you – I would have bought it for your birthday.” Me – “Let me guess, chocolate frosting, plastic fence….” “How did you know – that was it exactly!”)
Robert and I learned if we were home to go to a Chinese restaurant for my birthday as they did nothing different for the day. One year we had coupons and went to a fancy restaurant – a dance band playing, French food… Problem was our dinner was served by a female football player covered in dirt and the table was bussed by a science experiment gone bad and covered in blood.
Until the pandemic we solved this by going to Lancaster, PA for my birthday – yes, sometimes even just for the day, but more likely a weekend or few days. While there is still Halloween decorating around, if one eats in the local restaurants (non- tourist oriented) it is just a normal night. And there is a booth at one of the farmers’ markets which sells chocolate candy corn all year by weight so I can get 1/8 of a pound and have just a little bit of it.
And I have always liked raisins – sweet and not candy so was allowed to have it.
Have had same in the house straight through the pandemic for a small snack.