Elly Gets a Smock Smack Down
Lynn Johnston hasn’t gone to straight reprints yet. The intermediate strips originally published between the one yesterday and today’s reprint in For Better or For Worse, involving Mike talking about his teacher and John talking about Lizzie growing up, have been skipped over to get back to the “Elly goes to work” story.
In today’s strip Lynn approaches a reasonable aspect of going back to work, i.e. the work wardrobe. In Tucson, where everyone dresses casually to everything, including weddings and funerals (believe it or not), there is essentially no work wardrobe for most jobs. However, in the medical field, even in Tucson, you would be required to own a few of those medical smocks. This is what Elly has done in the strip today – she bought a medical smock very much like the one Jean Baker wears in this strip. As to whether Elly will wear the same medical smock all week, I don’t know and I am not sure I care to know.
Nevertheless, whenever moms consider going back to work part-time or otherwise, the financial questions do raise their ugly heads. Will mom’s take home salary offset the expense of work clothes, child care, and vehicle costs? Naturally, Elly does not even consider these aspects. Instead, Elly buys the work clothes and then takes a hit from her friend Anne Nichols for exchanging one uniform for another. Let me tell you Anne (self-righteous mom) Nichols, I have seen Elly’s clothes she wears around the house and there is no way that those shapeless, formless clothes are any kind of a uniform.
Speaking of “not uniform” there is always the handling of the Nichols boy. Compared to the new run last week, he’s back to being little Christopher again, once again proving Lynn's uncanny ability to pick strips to reprint without actually looking at them.
In today’s strip Lynn approaches a reasonable aspect of going back to work, i.e. the work wardrobe. In Tucson, where everyone dresses casually to everything, including weddings and funerals (believe it or not), there is essentially no work wardrobe for most jobs. However, in the medical field, even in Tucson, you would be required to own a few of those medical smocks. This is what Elly has done in the strip today – she bought a medical smock very much like the one Jean Baker wears in this strip. As to whether Elly will wear the same medical smock all week, I don’t know and I am not sure I care to know.
Nevertheless, whenever moms consider going back to work part-time or otherwise, the financial questions do raise their ugly heads. Will mom’s take home salary offset the expense of work clothes, child care, and vehicle costs? Naturally, Elly does not even consider these aspects. Instead, Elly buys the work clothes and then takes a hit from her friend Anne Nichols for exchanging one uniform for another. Let me tell you Anne (self-righteous mom) Nichols, I have seen Elly’s clothes she wears around the house and there is no way that those shapeless, formless clothes are any kind of a uniform.
Speaking of “not uniform” there is always the handling of the Nichols boy. Compared to the new run last week, he’s back to being little Christopher again, once again proving Lynn's uncanny ability to pick strips to reprint without actually looking at them.
posted by howard at 10:04 PM
4 Comments:
Nevertheless, whenever moms consider going back to work part-time or otherwise, the financial questions do raise their ugly heads. Will mom’s take home salary offset the expense of work clothes, child care, and vehicle costs? Naturally, Elly does not even consider these aspects.
This is the problem I have with the way this whole thing has been handled; instead of the discussion Anna M from Winnipeg seems to have seen, what we have is Big Daddy John indulging his child wife in one of her crazes in the hopes that something less inconvenient will distract her.
"Smock Smack Down" made me laugh.
DreadedCandiru2,
…what we have is Big Daddy John indulging his child wife in one of her crazes in the hopes that something less inconvenient will distract her.
That is the way it comes off. In yesterday’s comments, aprilp_katje pointed out how similar this sequence is to the sequence in 2000, when John bought Lilliput’s for Elly, i.e. “Elly looks at want ads, considers going back to school, and John finds something for her to do.” I had not thought about it that way the first time I read the strips, but this does seem to be a recurring theme.
Clio
"Smock Smack Down" made me laugh.
Thanks.
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