Elly Patterson Can Open a Can, Can’t She?
With today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse, we actually tread into dangerous territory. Elly Patterson genuinely does something that a lot of people do. Let me caveat to say that it is not the usually Elly-ism, where only part of what she does is remotely like what people do, while the rest of it is crazy.
Elly has cooking devices that she doesn’t use. I can relate. My most recent acquisition in this department was a gift that allows you to microwave Smores. It is microwave safe and has a little device that, oh-so-delicately holds the graham cracker, marshmallow and chocolate combination together as the microwave melts the chocolate and the marshmallow. I also got a gift cup not too long ago that would automatically mix together chocolate sauce and milk to make chocolate milk right in the cup. The difference between my acquisitions and the ones in Elly’s kitchen is that Anne Nichols has declared them to be beautiful and not only that, capable.
The joke is that Elly does not know how to use those devices and apparently has no ambition to use them. She prefers the can opener. As those of us who are familiar with Elly’s “sploit” soup, this comes as no surprise. In fact, this is Elly’s appliance of preference for years to come.
Among the things which are visually interesting for this strip are:
a. The Silhouette. In panel 2, Anne is the focus of the conversation and yet, she is completely blacked out. As is the usual trend for Lynn Johnston’s silhouettes, this one has some anatomically unusual features, not the least of which is the fact that Anne Nichols has a knee on her right leg that is not the same height as the knee on her left leg.
b. The mysterious coffee cup. We know that Anne is probably just picking up a coffee cup near where Elly is. However, Lynn Johnston often loses track of the coffee cup and this strip is a good example of that. The drawing makes it look like Anne is grabbing Elly’s cup and drinking out of it (or maybe doing a modified spit-take).
Elly has cooking devices that she doesn’t use. I can relate. My most recent acquisition in this department was a gift that allows you to microwave Smores. It is microwave safe and has a little device that, oh-so-delicately holds the graham cracker, marshmallow and chocolate combination together as the microwave melts the chocolate and the marshmallow. I also got a gift cup not too long ago that would automatically mix together chocolate sauce and milk to make chocolate milk right in the cup. The difference between my acquisitions and the ones in Elly’s kitchen is that Anne Nichols has declared them to be beautiful and not only that, capable.
The joke is that Elly does not know how to use those devices and apparently has no ambition to use them. She prefers the can opener. As those of us who are familiar with Elly’s “sploit” soup, this comes as no surprise. In fact, this is Elly’s appliance of preference for years to come.
Among the things which are visually interesting for this strip are:
a. The Silhouette. In panel 2, Anne is the focus of the conversation and yet, she is completely blacked out. As is the usual trend for Lynn Johnston’s silhouettes, this one has some anatomically unusual features, not the least of which is the fact that Anne Nichols has a knee on her right leg that is not the same height as the knee on her left leg.
b. The mysterious coffee cup. We know that Anne is probably just picking up a coffee cup near where Elly is. However, Lynn Johnston often loses track of the coffee cup and this strip is a good example of that. The drawing makes it look like Anne is grabbing Elly’s cup and drinking out of it (or maybe doing a modified spit-take).
posted by howard at 10:27 PM
6 Comments:
howard,
The joke is that Elly does not know how to use those devices and apparently has no ambition to use them. She prefers the can opener. As those of us who are familiar with Elly’s “sploit” soup, this comes as no surprise. In fact, this is Elly’s appliance of preference for years to come.
She's passed the same inertia down to Liz, I fear; I know that she, Anthony and the kids are going to end up subsisting on a diet of store-brand macaroni and cheese, wieners that are almost all filler and the baked cloud in the polka-dotted wrapper she calls 'white bread'. They'll also be subjected to experimentation with crap she sees in magazines and bland food whenever she thinks she's too fat.
With Elizabeth, we certainly saw all that you said during her single years. I remember that when Elizabeth moved into her apartment in Milborough, it appeared as thought Lynn was trying to show that she was grown up. Her apartment looked clean, and every time she made a food contribution to a meal, it was salad. As for Elizabeth, post-marriage, who knows? With Deanna, we saw that she was constantly serving carrots, which we know is a Lynn Johnston favourite, even if she doesn't know that she has to wash them.
With Deanna, we saw that she was constantly serving carrots, which we know is a Lynn Johnston favourite, even if she doesn't know that she has to wash them.
No, she doesn't; she also doesn't know to not drink the water. I know of someone who did; the parasites in the water and meds used to treat them turned his brain into cottage cheese and he hasn't been right since.
Maybe that's what happened to John and Elly to turn them into goofolas in the last years of the strip. They clearly had some sort of brain damage.
Maybe that's what happened to John and Elly to turn them into goofolas in the last years of the strip.-
Possibly, except they were that way before they made trips to Mexico. I suspect there is something in the water in Milborough. You know, the kind of thing that makes you want to return back to the town and marry your childhood sweetheart, and tell the woman who spent most of your childhood screaming at you that she was a superb mother.
For a minute I thought, well why the heck can't Anthony be the one to cook? There's nothing that says Liz has to be the one to make the meals. But then I remembered this is FBofW. If Anthony had to cook a meal he'd start whining to someone that he had no home.
Clio,
If Anthony had to cook a meal he'd start whining to someone that he had no home.-
It was OK to show Anthony had agreed to take care of his child, but everyone realized that this was a violation of the natural order of things. I am sure it would be the same with cooking. Anthony would be allowed to grill outdoors and cook indoors, if Liz was ever incapacitated. If Anthony was caught cooking for Liz, when she was in good health, then Liz would hear about it from Elly.
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