Michael on Top Part IV
Now we have a For Better or For Worse reprint strip where Michael is not torturing John, but Elly. Of course, this time Elly brought it on herself, so it is difficult to blame anyone but Elly. The overall theme of this arc is still, “Michael has everything go his way”: Monday is practical jokes. Tuesday is sex jokes. Wednesday is explosions where nothing falls. Thursday is free lemonade. I am still waiting for a FBorFW website Coffee Talk comment which runs like, “I’ve been reading For Better or For Worse every day since 1979, and not a day has passed when I didn’t want to slap Michael.”
Today’s strip brings up lemonade stands and generically I can empathize with the strip. When I was a kid I did lemonade or Kool-Aid stands. Kool-Aid was easy. My kids have done a lemonade stand, because my wife was willing to sacrifice the frozen concentrated lemonade to the cause. (We disagreed on this point.) The way this is the same between my family and this strip:
a. There is lemonade, a table, a sign, cups, and kids for customers.
b. When my kids sold lemonade, my wife made the lemonade.
c. I set up a table for the kids and found them chairs to sit on.
d. I sat out with the kids while they sold lemonade to make sure no one tried to abduct them.
The way this is not the same between me and this strip:
e. As a kid, I made the Kool-Aid.
f. As a kid, I made the sign saying how much things cost. My kids did the same.
g. As a kid, I served the Kool-Aid. My kids did the same.
h. As a kid, I collected money for my services, which I kept. My kids did the same.
i. As a kid, I did not go around my neighbourhood recruiting people to come to the stand. It was not necessary, since most kids were outside anyway. My kids did the same.
j. As a kid, I set up my stand on the street, so passersby could see the stand and would stop.
I look at that list of “not the same” and I start to lose my empathy with the strip, particularly after 3 days of Michael untouched and unpunished for anything he has done. I look at that “not the same” list and I think, “Did Lynn Johnston really set up this kind of lemonade stand with Aaron, and do so many things differently from what I would consider standard lemonade stand operation? And if so, then why did she suggest it?” Lynn says she took many of the items in the strip from real life, but when I see today’s strip, I think, “This was someone else’s improperly documented life."
Today’s strip brings up lemonade stands and generically I can empathize with the strip. When I was a kid I did lemonade or Kool-Aid stands. Kool-Aid was easy. My kids have done a lemonade stand, because my wife was willing to sacrifice the frozen concentrated lemonade to the cause. (We disagreed on this point.) The way this is the same between my family and this strip:
a. There is lemonade, a table, a sign, cups, and kids for customers.
b. When my kids sold lemonade, my wife made the lemonade.
c. I set up a table for the kids and found them chairs to sit on.
d. I sat out with the kids while they sold lemonade to make sure no one tried to abduct them.
The way this is not the same between me and this strip:
e. As a kid, I made the Kool-Aid.
f. As a kid, I made the sign saying how much things cost. My kids did the same.
g. As a kid, I served the Kool-Aid. My kids did the same.
h. As a kid, I collected money for my services, which I kept. My kids did the same.
i. As a kid, I did not go around my neighbourhood recruiting people to come to the stand. It was not necessary, since most kids were outside anyway. My kids did the same.
j. As a kid, I set up my stand on the street, so passersby could see the stand and would stop.
I look at that list of “not the same” and I start to lose my empathy with the strip, particularly after 3 days of Michael untouched and unpunished for anything he has done. I look at that “not the same” list and I think, “Did Lynn Johnston really set up this kind of lemonade stand with Aaron, and do so many things differently from what I would consider standard lemonade stand operation? And if so, then why did she suggest it?” Lynn says she took many of the items in the strip from real life, but when I see today’s strip, I think, “This was someone else’s improperly documented life."
posted by howard at 9:42 PM
5 Comments:
I look at the strip and I see two people who don't know what they're doing and can't be bothered to learn because it takes too much time. It would take zero effort for someone t stop Michael from racing around playing with the water but no one took the time to stop him before John got scalded. Realizing Mike brought home a groaner from the playground would, again, not require much effort, nor would asking hiim to remain where he could be seen while Liz was being fed. Reading to him instead of letting him waste his life in front of the televsion would again require minimal effort. Being made part of a story instead of having one wash over him would give him plenty of ideas for time alone so this mess could have been avoided altogether if his parents could have pulled their heads out of their arses and actually been parents. Mike was and is lazy and unmotivated because he's surrounded by passive lumps.
I don't think this strip is about Michael at all. The charm of the strip is that Elly is clueless on how to sell lemonade. This is obviously her first time doing this, so she still has a lot to learn.
Anon NYC
Anon NYC
That is entirely possible. Maybe young mother, Elly Patterson, saw someone else doing a lemonade stand, and decided that it would be fun for Michael Patterson to do (as opposed to doing an activity she has done with him before, like “toss the Super Teddy”). This would also presume that Elly Patterson never did a lemonade stand when she was growing up, because when my kids did one, all my old lemonade stand memories kicked into gear about how to do it.
The unfortunate part of the story-telling is that we have to presume this is the first very time Elly has ever done this from her cluelessness. Without this presumption, it just looks like mom took over setting up the stand from Michael, because he says the lemonade stand is his mom’s and not his, and she is paying the price for not letting or making him be more involved.
Oh, dear. Elly never having had a lemonade stand as a child never occurred to me. It should have, though. I've never seen her refer to her babysitting experience because, like Deanna, I don't think she had any. Even if she did take care of Phil growing up, it was simply as Marian's backup. I'd guess her childhood days were filled with chores instead of playing with other children because she looks like someone who's new to tending after younger kids.
dreadedcandiru2,
I am not sure on the difference in age between Phil and Elly. When the siblings are close in age, frequently the older sibling is not tagged with babysitter duty. For example, I don’t remember any Mike babysitting Liz strips, but there were plenty of strips with Liz doing that chore with the much younger Aypo. The only other possibility would be if Elly had decided to go the childcare job route with kids other than her brother, but my guess is that is not the case.
There was a generation of women where the expectation was that if you got married, you were going to have a lot of children. Born in 1951, Elly is definitely in the post-birth control pill generation, where the only married women (not in 3rd world countries) who had a lot of children were ones who were required to by their religion or their culture, two things which clearly have no effect on her. However, she is raised in the 1950s which, as my mother has explained to me, was a time when women were raised to be extraordinarily ignorant about childbirth and child-rearing. This is carried forth by the “accident” which led to Mike’s birth after medical technology and Elly were advanced enough to know better.
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