Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for October 13, 2022

Your ego needs a mute button.

How do you erase what you just said?…..

That should give Calvin time to escape…again.

Lego my ego

How many times has Moe repeated grade 1

Your mouth is writing checques your backside can’t cash eh?

During gym class, your bluff will be called. That’s a guarantee! ;D

Shouldn’t there be a teacher in with the gym class ?

Gym teachers believe that violence BUILDS CHARACTER

Is this the moment Calvin decided to never answer a question at school?

Eh, it’s not like you had anything to lose — he was going to pound you anyway.

I refused to join the school cadets, that almost every other boy was in.

Among other reasons, I knew it would give ample bullying opportunities for the people who, without irony, called themselves my ‘mates’. I was already getting bullied enough, I quite simply didn’t want more.

Calvin will see Moe try, of course. More importantly, he will be feeling it.

Wouldn’t it be great if the gym teacher is a huge brute who pounds MOE into a pulp??

When Moe last appeared, about three weeks ago, I mentioned that Watterson claims to have based Moe on every school bully he knew and compared it with a comment by someone on a website about Brom Bones in the Disney version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Someone claimed that Brom reminded him of every bully who had made his childhood a misery. Someone replied, “I understand how you feel. I didn’t like him much either. Nonetheless, in love versus greed, he is much more likeable than Ichabod.”

I also mentioned that I have recently been reading a sequel to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow called Horseman. I wrongly credited the author as Christine Heady which would have been appropriate but I have since seen the book in the library again and I see the author is called Christina Henry. The book is set thirty-two years after The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Brom and Katerina are still happily married and “like newlyweds”. They have a fourteen-year-old granddaughter called Bente who is the narrator of the book.

Washington Irving spent his childhood in Sleepy Hollow near Tarrytown. He seems to have based Ichabod partly on his schoolteacher there so it can be seen as revenge on his schoolteacher. He also based Ichabod partly on another schoolteacher whom he knew as an adult who had married a heiress for her fortune as Ichabod tries to do.

The Headless Horseman legend of Sleepy Hollow derives from the Battle of White Plains which was fought near Sleepy Hollow and the headless body of a Hessian trooper was buried in Sleepy Hollow cemetary. Brom Bones was based on a local hero of the Revolutionary War called Abraham Marling.

One of the nice things about getting old is that the synapses slow down. This allows the brain to send signals to the mouth before the mouth has a chance to operate on its own.

Old School. The only way to get rid of the bully is to bully the bully. I got bullied in HS and the only way I could get rid of the kid was to stand up for myself. When I did, I stunned him. Never had a problem after that. Moe needs his rear end kicked. Maybe not by Calvin, but someone needs to stand up to the jerk. When everyone else sees that, the one who stood up to him gains enormous respect and Moe goes down for the count. No one pays attention to him anymore. That’s how you solve that problem.

I remember when we had all those commercials for call waiting…

The only reason for GYM, was to let the teacher look at boys showering.

It’s like texts.. can’t take them back ;-)

You might as well run your mouth now, it isn’t going to get any easier while he’s sitting on your chest in gym class.

Engage brain before starting mouth.

As long as Calvin follows through he will come out ahead. Bullies don’t want to risk being humiliated.

great comebacks will occur in a few days… stupid comebacks occur immediately

Somewhere along the line, TV and movies got the idea that “good guys” “mouthing off” was a smart idea. In really life, it is about the dumbest thing you can do. You should defend yourself but cracking wise is not effective.

Well there you go again Calvin, letting your mouth write checks you @ss can’t cash.

Where is Spaceman Spiff and all of Calvin’s other heroic figures when Moe shows up? Surely one of them knows the ol’ knee to crotch maneuver?

A long time ago, I realized that bullying is just stupid, no matter who does it or how they do it. If we approach it that way, we might just end bullying.