Toilet Humour II

In today’s For Better or For Worse, we are still on the subject of the Patterson toilet. I would like to say I was distressed the artist seemed to be unable to find a toilet as a model and that continues with tomorrow’s strip also, since the artist seemed to be unaware that toilets connect to the water source of the apartment and don’t just drain into the floor. It’s just another indication the artist doesn’t care. I dropped off a Michael snark, which was the easiest to do. Jeremy Jones worked off the use of snake as a slang word for penis. Constable Paul Wright floundered without much to do with this one.

Then I launched Howard into his next defence witness, Warren Blackwood. I was trying to think of situations where Liz had tried to intentionally stir up trouble and there was none better than the Constable Paul Wright and Warren Blackwood confrontation from last December. Honestly, Liz is lucky both men took the situation so passively. They both had good reason to be very angry with Liz. Paul for Liz ditching a meeting with his family to go off with another guy, and Warren for having taken the time to transport Liz only to have her shove this other guy in his face.

After that, I looked over the Warren strips to see if there was another occasion which merited the same consideration and it occurred to me the graduation did. Let me run this down for you.

In 2002, Liz breaks up with Eric.
After summer break, 2002, she’s on the bus and meets Warren. Nothing happens.
April, 2003, she’s on the bus and meets Warren again. Warren takes her on the helicopter ride.
May, 2003, Warren graduates from helicopter school and takes a job. That is only 2 months of dating.
May, 2004, Warren reappears in time for Liz’s graduation.

For the very first time at the graduation, Liz and Warren appear as though they are more than just friends. She hugs him. Her parents are dumbfounded and really they should be, because when I read all the Warren strips back-to-back, there is virtually no development of Warren as a boyfriend. When Liz was considering men to take to Anthony’s wedding in 2003, Warren’s name did not even come up. In fact, April told Anthony, Liz had broken up with him. If had been Anthony, I would never have invited her to my wedding. Inviting ex-girlfriends whom your future wife clearly hates, is in excessive bad taste. But then I thought, what if Elizabeth returned the favour and invited Anthony to her graduation, but then invited Warren to show up in his helicopter to show Anthony up. It’s not out of the question for her to do that, since (1) her behaviour toward Warren was so different than it had been before and (2) she had already taken Dennis North to Anthony’s wedding to show him up.

When I was trying to form a defence for Howard, my thought was it would be necessary to show that Elizabeth or Anthony had deliberately set up situations where an emotional and possibly violent reaction could occur. This would cast doubt as to whether or not Howard had actually tried to rape Elizabeth, or if he was an Elizabeth love interest who had fallen astray of Elizabeth or Anthony. The surprising part was how easy it was to find those situations. Elizabeth is pretty violent. There are more to come with witnesses in the future, assuming the monthly letters don’t give the verdict away tomorrow.

What I would really like is for qnjones to take her psychology background and make up a Candace Halloran as a Howard defence witness testimony analyzing Liz’s propensity for setting up violent situations and ultimately choosing a man based upon whether or not he reacts violently and wins the fight (which is where Anthony is going to be as the only one of Liz’s boyfriends to get into a battle and win it.) qnjones could write it either as Candace or as Becky observing Candace. I thought about writing it up myself, but qnjones knows the ins and outs of the profession much more than I do. If you’re over the stomach flu, qnjones, that’s my special request.