Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for February 01, 2023

Calvin should be more concerned with finding a safe place to hide than taunting his tormentor.

Not if you are fast.

Better than nothing. Plus, maybe a good enough excuse to escape school?

See you in the playground’s asphalt, Calvin.

“You and who else? And you better bring a lunch.”

i am currently unable to play on the internet playground, reddit, because i taunted The Bully. : (

I was sent to a boarding school, due to bullying at the State school I was at (Queensland, Australia)

Where I was then bullied again, only now there was no escape for months at a time.

Absolutely the worst place for an autistic kid to be, or for that matter anyone who isn’t ‘normal’ in all senses of the term (socially, sexual orientation etc)

I’ve heard that, given panic, some can run really fast.

Well, Calvin could say something squirrel related like, “You don’t have the acorns to come after me, Moe!” Hmm, on second thought…

Calvin can content himself with the idea that Moe’s future includes being a high school dropout and possibly a juvenile delinquent.

It works for the Roadrunner. “Meep-beep” is roadrunner speak for “catch me if you can”.

The Count always liked “Up your nose with a rubber hose”.

Interesting facial expression there in the third panel!

Stand near the teacher for the whole recess Calvin. It may be boring but you won’t get beaten up.

You’ll have to catch me first… because you run slower than your brain thinks.

Where and when I grew up in Brooklyn, we had three kinds of kids: bullies and runners and those that could do neither: lumpers. We just took our lumps.

I got sufficiently angry one day and decided to fight back. I had my recycled lunch beat out of me. However, the bullies ignored me after that. I guess even though I lost, I was too much trouble to pick on.

Hopefully Moe grew up to be incarcerated and died an early death by violence while imprisoned.

In high school, when I was threatened with the_wait until I get you after school_, I couldn’t take sweating it out for hours, so I usually just jumped the guy right then. Figured if it was worth a fight, why wait? That ended up with both of us in the principal’s office, but after school was a nice quiet walk home. [Small town school, no buses.]

I loathe a bully. I have no tolerance for bullying, physical, verbal or otherwise.

Time to learn a martial art.

Take the squirrel route. Scamper to a tree and taunt from a high branch.

Given Moe’s intellectual capacity and Calvin’s reluctance to learn, both of them will probably wind up working for Susie someday.

“All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies, and whenever they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, digger, listener, runner, prince with the swift warning. Be cunning and full of tricks and your people shall never be destroyed.” – Watership Down

School administrators don’t like dealing with bullies, because bullies are their tool for hammering round pegs into square holes. All the kids who stand out make the administrator’s job more difficult, so let the bullies make them conform.

Where are the playground monitors/teachers? I know bullies are around but really!

Just show him your tail, show him your tail.

Unfortunately, real bullies aren’t all big, dumb and violent like Moe – lots of bullies are smart, charismatic, popular, and way more subtle in the way they torture people, and worse because of it. I know from experience.

If Calvin really can run like a squirrel, Moe will never catch him, and with Moe as his “trainer”, he’ll probably win a track scholarship some day.

When’s the last time your cat or dog actually caught a squirrel?

Strategy i came up with: Run then slow down just enough for them to catch up to you without catching you…then drop and roll up in a ball, they trip over you going full steam and break some bones when they land. Worked every time.

Squirrels are experts at trash talk. They can do it while running and chewing gum.

This is the perfect time to be a track star.

I would like to see Calvin learn Karate or kick boxing.

Calvin doesn’t need a good taunt, he needs a 6 foot, 200 pound ‘aunt’.

Not to worry, in due time he’ll be someone’s bïtch in the Big House.

With Moe, it is a good strategy to run like a squirrel than taunt. Keep the theatrics for Susie, not Moe.

To quote Daffy Duck: I think you’re really tough, don’t I?

“It’s hard to come up with a good taunt when you strategy is, “run like a squirrel.”

If you ever thought that bullying is an insignificant problem, count the number of responses. Bullying and their victims are school shooters in training. Contact your school board. Demand zero bully tolerance policy.