Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened

As a child, Allie’s mother takes her, her sister, and their dog out for a walk in the woods to teach them what she knows about wilderness survival. After several hours, they are all tired. Her mother realizes they are lost but pretends it is intentional. She makes Allie and her sister gather pinecones as they wander in various directions in an attempt to find their way home. When that doesn’t work, she has everyone yell for help as loud as they can.

Allie and her sister, not realizing they are lost, want to go home, so they try to convince their mother to take them. Allie decides to use a recent viewing of the horror film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to scare her mother into taking them home. She describes a character from the movie. A twig snaps, and her mother begins crying. She tells the children that they are lost, and Allie’s sister begins howling that she doesn’t want to die.

Allie’s mother decides to trust in the dog to find their way home. They follow the dog until they come to an old logging road, from which they see a house with its lights on. Allie’s mother uses the phone of the couple who live there to call their father, who comes to get them.