Pinny, the Catholic school kids that I’ve known report a tradition of the teaching nuns enforcing discipline by striking unruly students across the back of the hands with a ruler. In the pictured scene, evidently it got way out of hand.
That was my take. I went to Catholic elementary for two years. The 3rd/4th grade teacher (it was a small school) was just right out evil. She had favorites who could do no wrong and targets that she would berate for the smallest infractions. It was pretty bad. They replaced her my second year, but I had moved on to 5th.
Thanks, Mitch4. Now that you mention it I have heard about nuns and 12-inch rulers, but when I read the caption I kept thinking “ruler = king” and, after that, nothing made sense to me.
Comics I Don't Understand 
The kangaroo expressions are excellent!
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I don’t get the reference to the “unfortunate ruler ‘accident'”
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Pinny, the Catholic school kids that I’ve known report a tradition of the teaching nuns enforcing discipline by striking unruly students across the back of the hands with a ruler. In the pictured scene, evidently it got way out of hand.
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That was my take. I went to Catholic elementary for two years. The 3rd/4th grade teacher (it was a small school) was just right out evil. She had favorites who could do no wrong and targets that she would berate for the smallest infractions. It was pretty bad. They replaced her my second year, but I had moved on to 5th.
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Someone once told me that ghosts are depicted wearing sheets, because their sheet is supposed to be their burial shroud.
I have no idea how correct that is, but it’s an interesting theory nonetheless.
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Thanks, Mitch4. Now that you mention it I have heard about nuns and 12-inch rulers, but when I read the caption I kept thinking “ruler = king” and, after that, nothing made sense to me.
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@ Pinny – I had exactly the same problem with “ruler”. I’m just glad I wasn’t the only one.
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Would “yardstick” have been a better choice of word?
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Yardsticks weren’t the traditional weapons of the nuns. A one-foot ruler to smack palms with.
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Same problem with ruler – so the rest of you are not alone. I guess it really was a CIDU.
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