Every year my wife gets out the Charlie Brown DVD series. In October we watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Every year I’m horrified by Lucy’s behavior. You’ve probably heard about her pulling the football away as Charlie runs up to kick it, resulting in Charlie falling and breaking several vertebrae, shattering both legs, and waking up from a coma several months later to find he’s a paraplegic. That’s one level of mean. But Lucy kicks it up a notch. In one scene, Charlie gets an invitation to a Halloween party in the mail and is so happy he does an excited dance.
“There are two lists, Charlie Brown: people who should be invited and people who shouldn’t. You must’ve gotten put on the wrong list by accident.”
Ouch. So she’s good at psychological harm as well. Charlie is the perpetual whipping boy, getting rocks while everyone gets candy, having people laugh at him and his costume. But Lucy seems to get her jollies by systematically tearing him apart. Maybe I thought this was funny as a kid, or it just flew over my head. But now I can hardly watch her. She dresses up as a witch for Halloween but I think her costume idea was one letter off.
So I’m posing the question to my readers: do you remember the worst bully from your school days? Was it better to be punched in the face or the psyche? Chime in and let’s see who has the worst scars!
P.S. 