The Kid’s Injured But Your Guilt is More Important
While I was looking for a keyword for pulling up today’s reprint of For Better or For Worse out of the Comic Strip Catalog, I searched for the word “fault” and came up with this selection of guilt-laden strips. The only one where Elly lays blame to herself in the whole bunch of them is the strip we have today.
We have a mysterious, moustached, receding hairline man in glasses (Nicholas Browne, Lawrence’s life partner from the future?) who appears from nowhere to lift broken-legged Lawrence into his car and then to take Lawrence to a his shack down by the river, I mean, into Elly’s car, so Elly can take Lawrence to the hospital. Although the man is physically interested in Lawrence’s situation, he seems to be more interested in assuaging Elly’s guilt.
My experience with people around injured kids is that they usually pay attention to the kids and not so much to the adults. However, since this is an Elly-centric strip, the important part is not an injured child, but Elly’s guilt. It is taken to the point where Elly is standing there thinking it is all her fault, instead of getting in her car and driving. Naturally that makes me think it is the other man who is driving Lawrence to the hospital and Elly follows later on, after she’s cleaned the house and changed clothes. I'm not kidding about this suggestion. If the story continues to the next strip originally printed after this, we see Elly in the hospital in a different shirt.
We have a mysterious, moustached, receding hairline man in glasses (Nicholas Browne, Lawrence’s life partner from the future?) who appears from nowhere to lift broken-legged Lawrence into his car and then to take Lawrence to a his shack down by the river, I mean, into Elly’s car, so Elly can take Lawrence to the hospital. Although the man is physically interested in Lawrence’s situation, he seems to be more interested in assuaging Elly’s guilt.
My experience with people around injured kids is that they usually pay attention to the kids and not so much to the adults. However, since this is an Elly-centric strip, the important part is not an injured child, but Elly’s guilt. It is taken to the point where Elly is standing there thinking it is all her fault, instead of getting in her car and driving. Naturally that makes me think it is the other man who is driving Lawrence to the hospital and Elly follows later on, after she’s cleaned the house and changed clothes. I'm not kidding about this suggestion. If the story continues to the next strip originally printed after this, we see Elly in the hospital in a different shirt.
posted by howard at 10:13 AM
8 Comments:
My experience with people around injured kids is that they usually pay attention to the kids and not so much to the adults.
That's my experience as well; in real life, Mustache Guy would be telling Elly to get out of his way and stop trolling for free sympathy.
Why on earth did no one call an ambulance? They really don't know whether it's safe to move him.
DreadedCandiru2,
That's my experience as well; in real life, Mustache Guy would be telling Elly to get out of his way and stop trolling for free sympathy.
In the real life situation, her son would have the broken leg and Lynn would be wondering why no one was feeling sorry for her.
aprilp_katje,
Why on earth did no one call an ambulance? They really don't know whether it's safe to move him.
Despite being married to a doctor, Lynn Johnston appears to be an idiot when it comes to things medical. Remember this moment from Oaxaca?
Kate was sick for much of the night. Around 2am, I looked for the Imodium I always carry and she took a good dose. It didn’t work, so she took some more. Later, when the problem continued, she checked the expiry date on the package. It had expired in 1999!!!
Alanna and I went down to the farmácia and bought fresh stuff and Cypro, an antibiotic you can get over the counter, there. It’s what they gave us in Peru and Alanna, through experience, thought it would do the trick.
Ugh, how could I forget? Poor Kate. Yes, it's a wonder Lynn didn't kill her.
Poor Kate--who got sick in the first place because Lynn didn't bother to wash the carrots with pure water. Which violates the first rule of staying healthy where he water supply may be dicey. Serves Kate right for actually eating a raw vegetable!
--Still befuddled that Lynn went to Oaxaca, where the cuisine is famous. Then ate a few snacks & bought carrots & brocolli from the market! http://www.oaxaca-restaurants.com/
--not Bridget
aprilp_katje,
Ugh, how could I forget? Poor Kate. Yes, it's a wonder Lynn didn't kill her.
Just think how it would be if Kate broke her leg when she was young. My guess is it wouldn’t be a lot different from what we see with Lawrence today.
not Bridget
--Still befuddled that Lynn went to Oaxaca, where the cuisine is famous. Then ate a few snacks & bought carrots & brocolli from the market! http://www.oaxaca-restaurants.com/
Those places look pretty good. I know I would not be able to resist them. My suspicion is that Lynn’s diet consists of snacks (not the carrots & broccoli which she obviously did not eat) and Cervesa (her spelling), or in other words – borderline eating disorder and alcohol problem.
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