“Lizzie just locked herself in the bathroom.”
This is an interesting situation in today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse. When my kids were Lizzie’s age, this never happened. Of course we had all those childproof door knob covers on the doors, which I could barely turn myself. For a comparable experience I would have to go to my youth, before the days of childproofing. Again, I come up with a blank. All the doors in the house I grew up in had a little hole on the exterior door knob, where you could poke a long slender rod in and unlock the door. Even if a young kid were to, by some miracle, manage to turn the lock on the door, my parents could always unlock the door from the outside.
The biggest problem we had with locks was with cars. Both my wife and I were notorious for locking our keys in the car. I remember one occasion in particular where my wife locked her keys in the car, borrowed my keys to unlock the car to get her keys and somehow managed to lock both sets of keys in the car. She is very talented. Fortunately on none of these occasions were there kids still in the car.
For this joke to work, little Lizzie has to be able to lock and unlock the bathroom door at will, and the lock on the bathroom door has to be one that does not have an exterior unlocking mechanism. I suppose such locks exist; but they did not exist in the house I was brought up in the 1960s nor has it existed in any house I have lived in since.
The funny part about the strip is not how the Pattersons have to work so hard to get Lizzie out of the bathroom. The real joke is that little Lizzie, whose age is somewhere between 1-2 years old can obviously lock and unlock the bathroom door whenever she wants. She has manual dexterity far exceeding her age, which is a pretty common trait for children in this strip. Presumably, the rest of her family comes to realize this and that they were going to a lot of effort for no reason. Of course these are Pattersons, and they may have gone through the same sequence of “Lizzie locks herself in. Her parents try to rescue her and fail. Lizzie gets out by herself. Repeat.” several times before they finally realized this. Fortunately, Lynn Johnston limits us to only 2 times. At least until she reprints this strip again next year.
The biggest problem we had with locks was with cars. Both my wife and I were notorious for locking our keys in the car. I remember one occasion in particular where my wife locked her keys in the car, borrowed my keys to unlock the car to get her keys and somehow managed to lock both sets of keys in the car. She is very talented. Fortunately on none of these occasions were there kids still in the car.
For this joke to work, little Lizzie has to be able to lock and unlock the bathroom door at will, and the lock on the bathroom door has to be one that does not have an exterior unlocking mechanism. I suppose such locks exist; but they did not exist in the house I was brought up in the 1960s nor has it existed in any house I have lived in since.
The funny part about the strip is not how the Pattersons have to work so hard to get Lizzie out of the bathroom. The real joke is that little Lizzie, whose age is somewhere between 1-2 years old can obviously lock and unlock the bathroom door whenever she wants. She has manual dexterity far exceeding her age, which is a pretty common trait for children in this strip. Presumably, the rest of her family comes to realize this and that they were going to a lot of effort for no reason. Of course these are Pattersons, and they may have gone through the same sequence of “Lizzie locks herself in. Her parents try to rescue her and fail. Lizzie gets out by herself. Repeat.” several times before they finally realized this. Fortunately, Lynn Johnston limits us to only 2 times. At least until she reprints this strip again next year.
posted by howard at 10:30 PM
5 Comments:
howard,She has manual dexterity far exceeding her age, which is a pretty common trait for children in this strip. Presumably, the rest of her family comes to realize this and that they were going to a lot of effort for no reason. Of course these are Pattersons, and they may have gone through the same sequence of “Lizzie locks herself in. Her parents try to rescue her and fail. Lizzie gets out by herself. Repeat.” several times before they finally realized this.Perhaps as many as ten times; that's because they never thought on any of those occasions to make sure that Lizzie was on the other side of the door after they opened it.
dreadedcandiru2,
I figure at some point they would realize that instead of a dangerous situation, they have a situation like when a small child drops a toy and realizes that an adult picked it up for them, and so they drop it again. After a little bit of this, eventually an intelligent adult will stop picking up the toy or not hand the toy back to the kid. It's hard to say with a Patterson. After all, Elly's first thought after Lizzie opens the door is not to grab Lizzie and make sure the door is unlocked, but to run all tbe way around outside to John on the ladder, as if he can't see through that window that Lizzie unlocked the door.
When my kids were Lizzie’s age, this never happened. Of course we had all those childproof door knob covers on the doors, which I could barely turn myself.Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about going through the covered-doorknob phase. We had those, too. :)
Even if a young kid were to, by some miracle, manage to turn the lock on the door, my parents could always unlock the door from the outside.My son actually did this recently, at age six (so I can imagine this more plausibly for Michael rather than Liz). I guess he was fiddling with the lock when he was in the bathroom, and he locked himself in by mistake. Then he couldn't get out, and at first I tried to just get him to turn it back, but between his panic over being locked in and unfamiliarity with the lock, he wasn't able to do it.
But that's where the stories diverge. The outside doorknob has a slot where you can use a screwdriver to unlock the door. So my husband got a screwdriver, popped the door open, and it was no muss, no fuss. And my son hasn't relocked himself in because he really didn't like the experience of being locked in there!
For this joke to work, little Lizzie has to be able to lock and unlock the bathroom door at will, and the lock on the bathroom door has to be one that does not have an exterior unlocking mechanism. I suppose such locks exist; but they did not exist in the house I was brought up in the 1960s nor has it existed in any house I have lived in since.My suspicion? It's not that their doors wouldn't have had the unlocking mechanism; it's that John and Elly would both have been too clueless and bumbling to know that such mechanisms exist.
aprilp_katje,
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about going through the covered-doorknob phase. We had those, too. :)-
I remember those very well. Our were not only child-proof but adult-proof too. I had to open doors for many of the adults who visited us during this time. We also kept them on the doors well past the age where they were necessary for the kids, which actually worked out pretty well when we sold our house in Texas, because the family moving in had small children, and we left the child-proofing material with them.
And my son hasn't relocked himself in because he really didn't like the experience of being locked in there!-
My kids are 11 and 13 now, so I have the opposite problem. They lock their door each and every time they go into their bedroom, and the banter to get them to get up and unlock the door can be a little irritating.
My suspicion? It's not that their doors wouldn't have had the unlocking mechanism; it's that John and Elly would both have been too clueless and bumbling to know that such mechanisms exist.-
And by John and Elly, you mean Rod and Lynn. If they knew how to handle the situation in real life, Lynn Johnston would have never put it into a comic strip.
And by John and Elly, you mean Rod and Lynn. If they knew how to handle the situation in real life, Lynn Johnston would have never put it into a comic strip. Precisely. :)
Post a Comment
<< Home