Dustin's comment that he made the mistake of telling his grandmother that he likes dragons, thereby ensuring that she would send him a new dragon every year, made me laugh. It's SO the kind of thing that really happens!
I'm obsessed with unicorns. So what happens? I mention to my mom that I love unicorns, and she starts buying me every cheap plastic, badly-put-together unicorn she can find anywhere. (Um, great.) And then she starts doing the same with horses. HORSES! I mean, horses are okay, but they're so not the same thing . . .
My brother's crazy about dragons. Therefore, he keeps getting dragons from everyone, and not always the quality variety, either. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to mind overmuch.
My little sister keeps going through phases where she likes something a lot, her current obsession always ending because people (most noticeably our mom) overload her so much with that current obsession that she grows sick of it. In the past few years, I can remember her loving ballerinas, dogs, purple jewelry, humongous stuffed animals, cherries, etc., and now she doesn't even like any of them anymore.
And then there's my grandmother, who seems to have mistakenly decided all of her grandchildren love historical fiction, even though all of us in MY immediate family are sci-fi/fantasy nerds. We tend to be routinely baffled by her choice in presents!
Anyway, I got that was a great little detail about Dustin, and it made me laugh with recognition. He seems lucky to be getting really pretty dragon statues -- I mean, all the ones in that first panel are beautiful!
Oh, and by the way, I still don't like Jess. The Evil Girlfriend must go DOWN!