Several themes are common across time and locality in the games that young, housebound children play. One of the most pervasive are the “floor avoidance games” in which they pretend the floor is mined, a deep pit full of hazards, or hot lava. Usually this is a thinly veiled excuse to walk around on furniture (frequently circumscribed by elaborate rules) and cause problems for adults. Most people reading the comic will surely identify with this experience, and perhaps remember the unjust punishments meted our by parents who really didn’t want a muddy Trax print on their inherited end table.
Today’s comic looks at this common childhood game through the lens of an adult mind still clinging to its younger days. This selective combination of an older person’s scientific knowledge and a young person’s playfulness creates an image that serves well as a remedy for the reader’s fears and anxiety about the banality of their adult life. It seems to say, “it’s okay to act like a child if that’s your only method of momentarily relieving your inhibitions - just discuss mature subjects while you are doing it in order to assuage your guilt.”
Note: this subject has been discussed before: http://xkcdexplained.com/post/238332962/grownups
