Elly Patterson: Waitress or Short Order Cook?
In today’s new-run of For Better or For Worse, Elly Patterson reads that newspaper she never has time to read in order to find a job. She says she could be a waitress or a short order cook. Elly Patterson? Bwah-ha-ha-ha!!
History says otherwise. Elly Patterson is terrible at dealing with the public. I still remember the classic, telephone-biting strip from 2006. I can just imagine her reaction the first time some person asked if they could do a substitution. We have also seen Elly cook and it was not exactly appetizing.
This strip deals with the theme for Elly’s life up until the time when John bought her Lilliputs’ toy and book store in 2000. Elly was constantly trying to find something to do outside of the house and away from the children. John never understood why Elly needed to have something out of the house. Then when Elly did get Lilliput’s, she started to talk about retirement 3 years later in 2003, and finally sold the store in April, 2006 just as it was starting to turn a profit. In many respects, I would think this would justify John’s skepticism in the early strips. All it really proved was the flighty nature of Elly’s desire for something outside of the house. Elly ended up trying a lot of different things and none of them stuck.
When look at today’s new-run however, I don’t understand John’s position. Elly is in the house with the kids all day long and from the last panel of today’s strip, it appears that she has completely lost control of the kids, the dog, and the cleanliness of the house. I would say to John, “John, let Elly have her chance. It’s not like she is going to suddenly become Mrs. Good Parent or Mrs. Housecleaner. The obsessive sheet-shaver doesn’t come until years later, when Lynn decides that Elly has to have no flaws.” Admittedly as a waitress or a short order cook, Elly is probably not going to make enough money to justify her taking that job. My guess is that her cook’s salary would be almost entirely eliminated by the expense of putting both her kids in some kind of child care so she could work the cook’s job. I also doubt that she would make enough to offset the lawsuits from the food poisoning she would regularly give to the patrons of the restaurant where she worked.
Oftentimes these strips had a parallel in Lynn Johnston’s real life. I wonder if Rod Johnston questioned whether or not Lynn Johnston should have taken the job as a cartoonist. It wouldn’t make much sense if he did. After all, she was making a tremendous amount of money and the nature of the job allowed her to still spend quite a bit of time with her children. In the 1980 CBC interview, Rod’s complaints at that time had little to do with Lynn’s job as a cartoonist and more to do with (1) the fact Lynn despised living in Lynn Lake, Manitoba and (2) the personal shots he was taking from her strip.
It didn’t seem like there was a real-life parallel. However, I remember being a little surprised when I learned that Lynn had lost interest in doing her strip after Charles Schulz died. The downward spiral of the quality of the strip since that time is what attracted me to writing this Blog. It makes me wonder if the real-life parallel was Lynn Johnston’s own desire to do something else other than this strip.
History says otherwise. Elly Patterson is terrible at dealing with the public. I still remember the classic, telephone-biting strip from 2006. I can just imagine her reaction the first time some person asked if they could do a substitution. We have also seen Elly cook and it was not exactly appetizing.
This strip deals with the theme for Elly’s life up until the time when John bought her Lilliputs’ toy and book store in 2000. Elly was constantly trying to find something to do outside of the house and away from the children. John never understood why Elly needed to have something out of the house. Then when Elly did get Lilliput’s, she started to talk about retirement 3 years later in 2003, and finally sold the store in April, 2006 just as it was starting to turn a profit. In many respects, I would think this would justify John’s skepticism in the early strips. All it really proved was the flighty nature of Elly’s desire for something outside of the house. Elly ended up trying a lot of different things and none of them stuck.
When look at today’s new-run however, I don’t understand John’s position. Elly is in the house with the kids all day long and from the last panel of today’s strip, it appears that she has completely lost control of the kids, the dog, and the cleanliness of the house. I would say to John, “John, let Elly have her chance. It’s not like she is going to suddenly become Mrs. Good Parent or Mrs. Housecleaner. The obsessive sheet-shaver doesn’t come until years later, when Lynn decides that Elly has to have no flaws.” Admittedly as a waitress or a short order cook, Elly is probably not going to make enough money to justify her taking that job. My guess is that her cook’s salary would be almost entirely eliminated by the expense of putting both her kids in some kind of child care so she could work the cook’s job. I also doubt that she would make enough to offset the lawsuits from the food poisoning she would regularly give to the patrons of the restaurant where she worked.
Oftentimes these strips had a parallel in Lynn Johnston’s real life. I wonder if Rod Johnston questioned whether or not Lynn Johnston should have taken the job as a cartoonist. It wouldn’t make much sense if he did. After all, she was making a tremendous amount of money and the nature of the job allowed her to still spend quite a bit of time with her children. In the 1980 CBC interview, Rod’s complaints at that time had little to do with Lynn’s job as a cartoonist and more to do with (1) the fact Lynn despised living in Lynn Lake, Manitoba and (2) the personal shots he was taking from her strip.
It didn’t seem like there was a real-life parallel. However, I remember being a little surprised when I learned that Lynn had lost interest in doing her strip after Charles Schulz died. The downward spiral of the quality of the strip since that time is what attracted me to writing this Blog. It makes me wonder if the real-life parallel was Lynn Johnston’s own desire to do something else other than this strip.
posted by howard at 11:39 PM
6 Comments:
That telephone book biting thing was so weird! It made me wonder if John was supposed to be experimenting with new kinds of tooth enamel or something -- biting through an entire phone directory would be quite an impressive feat. I've never known anyone whose response to frustration was to bite a big chunk out of something.
Yup, every time I think I need a relaxing job to get me away from constant household drudgery and annoying people, I fantasize about becoming a waitress or a short-order cook. Sounds rational to me.
Maybe the point of looking at the want ads is for Elly to remind herself that things could be worse.
Then when Elly did get Lilliput’s, she started to talk about retirement 3 years later in 2003, and finally sold the store in April, 2006 just as it was starting to turn a profit. In many respects, I would think this would justify John’s skepticism in the early strips. All it really proved was the flighty nature of Elly’s desire for something outside of the house. Elly ended up trying a lot of different things and none of them stuck.This puts his commentary about his wanting to keep Elly at home into some sort of perspective. Even someone as dim as he was realized that he wouldn't be believed if he said that Elly was too out of it to make a go of things; it's better in his mind that he be thought of as an ogre keeping a good woman down than admit that he married an idiot.
Lynn actually did the telephone bite...
I actually wondered over at the Foobiverse whether Elly even *could* be a short order cook - don't you need some food hygiene training course? Why isn't she mentioning something a HS or bit-of-college-English background is expected? (Store clerk, fast-food worker...?)
Anonymous,
Lynn actually did the telephone bite...What?!! I would love to hear the details of that, if you would be so kind to share them. It sounds like a great story.
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