Food Sealer
Last year around Christmas, Lynn Johnston reprinted this strip where Elly lamented to Anne that John got her a dishwasher instead of a suede coat. This was something Lynn apparently forgot when she did this strip. In any case, Lynn Johnston can’t reprint that strip, so we have a new-run in today’s For Better or For Worse. The joke that John doesn’t buy Elly jewellery and almost always gets her appliances continued through almost 30 years of the strip. Looking at the jewellery strips over the years, it appears that Elly buys her jewellery almost exclusively in Mexico. One of the only strips to accurately show why it is that John doesn’t buy things like this for Elly is in this strip, where it appears Elly is so passive that John cannot figure out what she wants.
The only time I can find where John did get Elly jewellery was in this strip, and then it was a gift he bought for Elly that April accidentally found. The implication is that John may buy Elly jewellery, but he just forgets he did it. The other implication is that John has virtually no short term memory and April got the pearls herself and tricked John into giving them to Elly. Certainly the long term evidence of the strip would favour that assumption, since I have never actually seen John buying Elly jewellery.
My all time favourite gift John gave Elly is the tool kit from this strip. However, my reason has less to do with the strip than with the monthly letter which went along with it. I think it is one of the all-time best John letters.
John's Letter, December 2005
I just love these tool kits you can buy at the hardware stores these days. They have almost everything you need around the house, and they come in these very well organized plastic containers. If if you ask me what a great present is, personally, I think everyone should get these as gifts! I mean, they are not only useful, but they are conversation pieces at various social functions with other guys. With enough of these, they could have a serious toolkit collection, with each one marked as to what year it was made, with the model types, and get into documenting the changes that the kits had each year. Hmm, that makes me think about my tie collection. I should document who sent me which one, and have them marked as to the occasions that I have to wear them, in case the giver happens to be there, and I want to afford them the thrill of recognizing the tie they gave me.
Now that I think of it, the wives would have been the ones purchasing the ties, so it would be a great excuse to talk to all sorts of lovely ladies. Here, I guess you would not want to document the conversations. Just the year, who they came from, and how you felt about it when you opened the present. Yes, I can see it all now, inviting all sorts of people over to see your tie collection, joining the tie collectors club, going to tie collectors conventions in exotic places like Milwaukee, or Peduka, or Porcupine Ontario.
In comparison it makes tool kit collecting seem pretty exciting, AND they are useful. I mean what is a tie good for? Spilling soup on? If they were at least absorbent, you could wipe things up with them. I wonder why ties were originally invented?
Anyway, if I was to give everyone a toolkit for Christmas, year after year, it might solve this problem of gift wars. If you knew I was giving you a present this year, and you knew it was a tool kit, you might just write me a note and suggest that perhaps we NOT exchange gifts this year! It could even be in the form of a legal agreement so no one would be sued for not having given a gift.
Sorry, I not only digress, I have flown off into a complete tangent! On other fronts, we've had a bit of snow, and being truly macho, I, after seeing that half an inch of snow had fallen, started up the old snow blower (36", heavy duty tracks, 8 horsepower, turbocharged) and blew off the sidewalk. One thing I had not thought to do was to get rid of a few stones, and some leftover leaves and branches from a windstorm, and in my macho save-the-world-from-snow mode, I just happened to break one of the front windows. Incidentally, I want you to know that I had to use one of my toolkits to fix the snow blower first. Once the window was broken, I finished snow blowing, turning the chute AWAY from the house. Then I had something to do! I used my toolkit to remove the window and got a replacement one from the hardware store. Isn't modern technology great?
Luckily hardware stores stay open late now, so I was able to get the piece of glass I needed, but would you believe it, they had these absolutely fantastic toolkits with more parts included than I had ever seen, and they were on sale for an unbelievably low price. I don't know how they could ever produce them for such a low price. So I bought three of them, in case I have to come up with an emergency gift for someone!
When I got home, the original toolkit that I had used did not have one particular tool that I needed, but the new toolkits did! Of course I had to open a new toolkit to get the window installed. Well, now that it's been opened, I can't give it as a gift anymore, so... I guess I'll just have to keep it for myself! Thank goodness there are still two unopened ones that I can give away. I wonder if Jean, my assistant at the office, needs another toolkit?
Perhaps you don't personally share my toolkit fixation, so I think this is a good time for me to go. This letter brings an old song to mind: "I'm a Ramblin' Man".
Some ad-vice: Have a good December!
'Til next time!
The only time I can find where John did get Elly jewellery was in this strip, and then it was a gift he bought for Elly that April accidentally found. The implication is that John may buy Elly jewellery, but he just forgets he did it. The other implication is that John has virtually no short term memory and April got the pearls herself and tricked John into giving them to Elly. Certainly the long term evidence of the strip would favour that assumption, since I have never actually seen John buying Elly jewellery.
My all time favourite gift John gave Elly is the tool kit from this strip. However, my reason has less to do with the strip than with the monthly letter which went along with it. I think it is one of the all-time best John letters.
John's Letter, December 2005
I just love these tool kits you can buy at the hardware stores these days. They have almost everything you need around the house, and they come in these very well organized plastic containers. If if you ask me what a great present is, personally, I think everyone should get these as gifts! I mean, they are not only useful, but they are conversation pieces at various social functions with other guys. With enough of these, they could have a serious toolkit collection, with each one marked as to what year it was made, with the model types, and get into documenting the changes that the kits had each year. Hmm, that makes me think about my tie collection. I should document who sent me which one, and have them marked as to the occasions that I have to wear them, in case the giver happens to be there, and I want to afford them the thrill of recognizing the tie they gave me.
Now that I think of it, the wives would have been the ones purchasing the ties, so it would be a great excuse to talk to all sorts of lovely ladies. Here, I guess you would not want to document the conversations. Just the year, who they came from, and how you felt about it when you opened the present. Yes, I can see it all now, inviting all sorts of people over to see your tie collection, joining the tie collectors club, going to tie collectors conventions in exotic places like Milwaukee, or Peduka, or Porcupine Ontario.
In comparison it makes tool kit collecting seem pretty exciting, AND they are useful. I mean what is a tie good for? Spilling soup on? If they were at least absorbent, you could wipe things up with them. I wonder why ties were originally invented?
Anyway, if I was to give everyone a toolkit for Christmas, year after year, it might solve this problem of gift wars. If you knew I was giving you a present this year, and you knew it was a tool kit, you might just write me a note and suggest that perhaps we NOT exchange gifts this year! It could even be in the form of a legal agreement so no one would be sued for not having given a gift.
Sorry, I not only digress, I have flown off into a complete tangent! On other fronts, we've had a bit of snow, and being truly macho, I, after seeing that half an inch of snow had fallen, started up the old snow blower (36", heavy duty tracks, 8 horsepower, turbocharged) and blew off the sidewalk. One thing I had not thought to do was to get rid of a few stones, and some leftover leaves and branches from a windstorm, and in my macho save-the-world-from-snow mode, I just happened to break one of the front windows. Incidentally, I want you to know that I had to use one of my toolkits to fix the snow blower first. Once the window was broken, I finished snow blowing, turning the chute AWAY from the house. Then I had something to do! I used my toolkit to remove the window and got a replacement one from the hardware store. Isn't modern technology great?
Luckily hardware stores stay open late now, so I was able to get the piece of glass I needed, but would you believe it, they had these absolutely fantastic toolkits with more parts included than I had ever seen, and they were on sale for an unbelievably low price. I don't know how they could ever produce them for such a low price. So I bought three of them, in case I have to come up with an emergency gift for someone!
When I got home, the original toolkit that I had used did not have one particular tool that I needed, but the new toolkits did! Of course I had to open a new toolkit to get the window installed. Well, now that it's been opened, I can't give it as a gift anymore, so... I guess I'll just have to keep it for myself! Thank goodness there are still two unopened ones that I can give away. I wonder if Jean, my assistant at the office, needs another toolkit?
Perhaps you don't personally share my toolkit fixation, so I think this is a good time for me to go. This letter brings an old song to mind: "I'm a Ramblin' Man".
Some ad-vice: Have a good December!
'Til next time!
posted by howard at 6:41 AM
8 Comments:
Poor, clueless John; not only is he stuck with a passive twit wife who expects him to read her mind, he gets shot down because he buys her something out of something approaching actual thoughtfulness.
There is a whole contingent of folks out there that consider a Christmas gift for a wife that is anything other than jewellery to be a gross insult to the wife. It is to these folks that Lynn is trying to appeal.
On the other hand, there are women out there thinking, "I would love a food sealer" who think John is a great husband.
Any way you look at it, a food sealer is a more personal and thoughtful gift than the standard pants and a tie.
I know; the problem, of course, is that Elly poses as something she isn't: the sort of woman who wants practical things that make her life easier. What she wants to do is complain about how horrible her life is so things that simplify her existence are, by definition, bad.
On one hand you have the sheet-shaver who only buys jewellery when it is cheap in Mexico and she picks it herself.
On the other hand, you have the woman who wants her husband to buy her pearls and diamonds and considers the food sealer to be an unromantic insult.
Either way John goes, he can't win. However, from the complainer's perspective, either way John goes, there is something to complain about. Ultimately, no matter what John picks, Elly will be happy because she will get to complain.
howtheduck, when LJ did that reprint you posted in your first link, she changed the text in the punchline. In the original version, Elly says, "I Was Thinking Fur Coat - While He Was Thinking Trash Compactor." So it was more a case of Lynn having forgotten the buying-a-dishwasher arc when she text-edited her reprint.
On the other hand, you have the woman who wants her husband to buy her pearls and diamonds and considers the food sealer to be an unromantic insult.
I think John is projecting when he claims that Elly is too practical for jewelry. I think it's John who is too practical for jewelry.
"John's" letter sounds like it was written by a rambley gushy woman (think "letter to Phyllis Diller") trying to pretend to write like a man.
Guys just don't gush on and on about tool kits, ties, big screen TVs, golf clubs, fill-in-the-blank stereotype "guy" toy...
Verification word: "hocki"
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