Frazz by Jef Mallett for April 09, 2021

y mom was awesome about lunches. We got a variety of sandwiches, including baloney, ham, meatloaf, cheese, cream cheese and black olives, and yeah, the occasional PB&J (or better yet: PB& honey). Not only that, she knew which of the 6 kids wanted pickle, mayo, ketchup, mustard and in what proportions (and who wanted creamy or crunchy PB). No tomato: The bread would have turned truly awful.

AND a piece of one of the three standard fruits. AND 2 cookies wrapped in a napkin. AND enough small change to afford two half-pints of milk. And all before 8:30 am so we could catch the bus. Or 7:30 for the band kids.

Be thankful for what you have. Be thankful for what you get.

Be thankful in all things.

The kid’s happy with what he has; it might have been a request.

I knew one kid who bought his lunch for six years. Every day it was tomato soup and grilled cheese. Six other options that varied every day on a two week cycle… ts&gc. ts&gc. ts&gc. … more than a thousand times.

You can change the jelly flavour for variety if you want.

Just try to bring a PB&J to school nowadays, you’d be lucky to get through the door!

I brought a bag lunch to high school. We were taught to make our own and my mother encouraged us to bring back the bag if it was still intact. She was a recycling visionary or had lived through the depression, or both.

Lunch critics.

I worked summers in college at a steel mill and one kid brought a bagged lunch. We worked outside and brought our lunches with us. When he went to eat, there was a hole in his bag and a BIG bite out of his apple. Those rats were HYOOGE. The regulars laughed and showed him their lunch pails.

What’s a squirrel tree?

in elementary school he ate a smushed grilled cheese cut into quarters every day

Canned tuna used to be cheap, so I got tuna fish sandwiches every day, 1st through 8th grade. The high school had a cafeteria. The food wasn’t great, but I never complained.When I got married I told my wife that a tuna fish sandwich would be grounds for divorce.

I’m surprised they allow the PB in school. Many don’t anymore due to allergies. Then again, this is comics Michigan.

what school allows peanut butter?

For years I lived on tuna sandwiches with tomato, a piece of fruit and three cookies for lunch. That was my routine and I didn’t want it disrupted.

Meanwhile, Calvin is feeding leftover monkey brains and mouse legs to Hobbes.

" The early boa constrictor gets the mouse."

Before my dad retired, he brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch every day and ate it while he went for a walk.

Every morning, I make my six year old daughter’s lunch for school. Every morning, I ask her what she wants, and every morning her answer is one of two things: Baloney sandwich with “mixed up cheese” (Colby jack) or a VERY specific Oscar Meyer Lunchable. I’ve bought different types of lunchable, offered her turkey, ham, roast beef, cheddar, swiss… nope. She is a child of habit – as most kids are.

How do you keep the jelly from soaking the bread?

She isn’t the one eating it, so why does it bother her so much???

Should be jam, not jelly. And hopefully a good peanut butter (just peanuts and a little salt).

Maybe this kid has been spending too much time with the pretentious Calvin-Head? She doesn’t know that some kids are lucky to get half that much food for their school lunches? (crickets) Yeah, this is why I read this once every three weeks at best. Sorry, “Jef”. But you really should stop being such a misanthropist. (You’re missing an "f " by the way.)

Hardly a healthy meal.

Whatever this strip is, it is certainly NOT a primer on proper kids’ behavior.