Patches #2

When Patches needs quick cash to buy Yu-Yue a birthday gift, he jumps at an "easy money" scheme selling Paul's Perfect Perfume door-to-door—only to discover that peddling the notoriously foul-smelling cologne is anything but a snap. With his feet aching and his sales prospects zero, Patches finds an unexpected ally in his father, who helps him scrape together enough to buy Yu-Yue a proper present instead. But a mix-up at the post office leads to a hilariously awkward mix of gifts that lands in the wrong hands, turning Patches' good intentions into comic chaos.

Sandy Smyth's birthday on Friday the 13th starts off rough—a series of mishaps from a tumble with Sue to a ruined suit courtesy of Spiderlegs' cleaning fluid experiment—but his run of bad luck takes an unexpected turn when he finally makes it home. This 1945 humor story from *Patches* #2 delivers the perfect payoff to a day that seemed cursed from the start.

Sandy Smyth talks big about his skiing prowess to impress Sue, but when she invites him to tackle Lookout Mountain's treacherous slopes, he's desperate to back out—until a stranger returns his abandoned skis and he's forced down Dead Man's Run, a notorious run featuring a two-hundred-foot chasm. What starts as a bluff turns into an accidental stunt that leaves everyone—including Sandy himself—stunned by what he's pulled off.

When Sandy's jalopy breaks down en route to George's garage, a desperate push from Spiderlegs lands them in trouble—and with a busted vehicle that'll cost $29.50 to fix, the two need to find fast cash. A pet-sitting job seems like the perfect solution until the animals prove far more destructive than expected, leaving Sandy scrambling to scrape together enough money to finally get his car repaired.

Patches schemes to skip his final exam to avoid studying, but a convenient "illness" turns into a house call from the teacher—and a surprise exam at home that forces him to face the music. When he somehow passes anyway, he's ready to celebrate with Yu-Yue at the big stage show, only to discover that cheating fate has its own way of catching up with you.