Pickled vegetables is a comic strip by Brian Crane that has been published since 1990 and is about an elderly couple named Earl and Opal Pickles. The comic often contains humorous observations about life, marriage and aging. Earl and Opal argue with each other, but they still love each other, as well as their family and their pets.
After more than three decades Pickled vegetables has many strips dedicated to relatable scenarios about the main characters’ ages. Whether it’s Opal having to deal with losing her glasses or Earl learning that as he gets older he tends to repeat himself to his grandson Nelson, there are countless funny strips that are enjoyable for all ages.
10 Earl thought about wasting time
Release date: June 22, 2018
As people get older, they tend to reflect on the time they’ve spent in their lives and how much of it they’ve spent doing something worthwhile or meaningful. Earl was no different in this strip, as he remarked to Opal that many things he’d dedicated his life to were, in hindsight, not a good use of his time. When Earl asked Opal what she was doing, she amusingly replied that she was wishing people she didn’t know happy birthday on Facebook.
Most people can relate to Earl’s reasoning in this strip, even if they aren’t necessarily his age. In fact, Earl and Opal’s perspectives are understandable. Earl was thinking about the importance of time in a long life, while Opal had reached a point in her life where she no longer remembered or recognized every single one of her Facebook connections, but still wanted to make the effort to make a kind gesture.
9 Earl humorously reflected on his own mortality with Nelson
Release date: March 27, 2007
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When people like Earl reach their seventies, they may begin to think about how long they have left to live. Earl humorously addressed the issue in this comic strip while talking to his grandson Nelson. When Nelson asked Earl how long he had left to live, Earl took the question in stride and replied that he could live another ten years or die at any moment, to which Nelson asked his grandfather how he knew.
Earl had definitely earned the privilege of relaxing on the couch at his age, something Nelson didn’t seem to appreciate. Still, Earl had no problem being open about his own mortality with his grandson, and approached the subject with a dark sense of humor. Earl also seemed resigned to every possibility he brought up with Nelson.
8 Nelson pointed out Earl’s aging appearance
Release date: July 16, 2022
What Nelson often fails to understand as a young child is that the differences between him and his grandparents are due to age, and Nelson will one day experience the same changes. In this comic, Nelson innocently focuses on several of Earl’s physical features that result from Earl naturally aging into his seventies.
Earl’s bald head, large nose, and potbelly were age-related, and Nelson assumed these were parts of Earl’s appearance that he didn’t like. Earl took Nelson’s unintentional insult with humor, however, and instead drew attention to his bushy eyebrows. Still, Earl is not an outlier when considering other people his age, as many people who reach their seventies struggle with baldness, a large nose, or weight gain.
7 Earl told Nelson the same story over and over again
Release date: February 10, 2014
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When Earl remembered his own father, he admitted that one of the signs of his father’s aging was that he kept telling the same story, to which Nelson pointed out that Earl had told this story to Nelson many times before. This comic captured several sides of aging, juxtaposing Earl’s perspective on his own father’s age with his inability to recognize that he was repeating the same behavior.
Nelson will likely experience the same thing when he gets older. Perhaps he will tell his own grandchildren that Earl is repeating the same story, only to have Nelson’s grandchildren have the same reaction as Nelson here. The fact that Earl’s story repeated itself across generations shows that both Earl’s, his father’s and Nelson’s experiences are universal to all people.
6 Nelson had more energy than his grandparents
Release date: June 8, 2022
The relatable humor in this underrated comic strip comes from the energy difference between Nelson and his grandparents, Earl and Opal. Earl had played with Nelson at the park earlier in the day, but Nelson wanted to go back because he felt the two of them weren’t spending as much time at the park as he would have liked. Earl’s reaction was baffled and confused as to where Nelson gets all his energy from.
Opal and Earl represent the vast difference in energy levels between older and younger people in this comic, as both groups have no problem playing in the park, but Nelson finds the opportunity to do so endlessly entertaining. Earl, on the other hand, clearly needs a break after a while.
5 Nelson thought Earl’s ears would get bigger
Release date: May 12, 2017
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As we age, our appearance changes, for example our nose and ears get bigger. In this comic, Nelson asked his grandfather if his ears were getting bigger – a common phenomenon among people Earl’s age. The reader never finds out whether Nelson was right or not, because Opal dismisses Nelson’s comment with a joke: Earl’s ears only look bigger because his head is getting smaller.
Earl may have been insecure about his ears, as he denied the claim that they had grown larger. Or he may not have noticed the size of his ears at all, as they grew so slowly that they appeared normal to Earl. This comic was another example of Pickled vegetables and points to a change that everyone has to go through as they age.
4 Earl had to get up repeatedly in the middle of the night
Release date: January 13, 2008
As we age, our ability to sleep through the night decreases, especially if we have to tend to our bladder during bedtime. Earl had this problem doubly because not only did he have to get up several times in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, he also had to tend to the similar needs of his dog, Roscoe.
So Earl was exhausted the whole next day because Roscoe had to go out and Earl’s bladder capacity was limited due to his age. Roscoe’s goggle-eyed look in the last two pictures may have indicated that he was unaware of Earl’s problems sleeping through the night. Whether Opal was really being sympathetic or just sarcastic was a matter of interpretation.
3 Nelson assumed Earl had always been bald
Release date: June 14, 2015
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Nelson often portrays himself as a good kid at heart who is prone to accidentally making insensitive remarks towards his grandparents. This comic was no different, with Nelson assuming Earl wouldn’t have been able to participate in Crazy Hair Day at school, assuming Earl had always been bald as a child. Despite Nelson’s sympathetic look in the third panel, Earl couldn’t help but protest.
Earl was not able to respond until Nelson had already left, pointing out that he had not always been bald. Here Earl was confronted with another aspect of aging – the loss of his hair. Since Earl had been bald for as long as Nelson could remember, it was probably a surprise to the child that his grandfather once had hair.
2 Opal lost her glasses and other items
Release date: July 23, 2006
The frustration of misplacing an important item and then having to search all over your living space for it is something that most people experience and that only increases as we get older. Opal was looking for her glasses in this strip and then revealed that she was also looking for her purse and car keys, which she was only able to find after finding her glasses.
Finding lost items can be difficult enough, but as you get older, the process can become even more annoying. Instead of losing just one item, Opal had lost three, leaving Earl and Nelson to fend for themselves. Earl instead made a joke to Nelson, saying it was a good thing women her age didn’t have children, as the children would also get lost.
1 Earl felt the need to lie on the floor
Release date: June 11, 2017
This strip was able to find some humor in a typically grim worst-case scenario. When Nelson found Earl lying still on the floor, he and the rest of the family immediately assumed that Earl had fallen and couldn’t get up. As they all panicked, Earl politely informed them that he just enjoyed lying on the floor, as it felt good to be on his back. After his family left, presumably in anger, Earl mused that he wanted a ham sandwich, since he was the only one other than Roscoe who hadn’t panicked.
At Earl’s age, it would make sense for relatives to be concerned about his safety, especially when falls could occur. While this comic managed to defuse a serious situation in a humorous way, it also showed the Pickles family at their most compassionate and concerned for Earl. A hilarious joke combined with a heartfelt portrayal of the concerns families have towards their elderly relatives, this strip was Pickled vegetables at its best.
