Car Vacuum of Terror
Apparently Michael escaped from the pressure hose unscathed by either injury or even slight wetness from yesterday’s new-run of For Better or For Worse. Today’s new-run moves on to a disaster with the vacuum cleaner as John lets Michael loose with it, but does not take the time to explain “Only vacuum up the dirt” or “Before you vacuum, let me make sure the valuables are out of the way” or anything a sensible person would say before turning a 6-year-old loose with a high-powered vacuum. In this area I speak with some experience, because I discovered when my children were at a very young age, they loved vacuuming because it was so easy to do. Naturally, at that age, they had to be monitored and things had to be removed from their influence to prevent disaster from happening. Any idiot who ever vacuumed knows that, but apparently not Dr. John Patterson. No doubt this is due to his complete and utter lack of experience with vacuuming.
So, the joke is that once again, due to his inexperience and incompetence, John Patterson’s car keys get vacuumed up. Or more importantly, John did not learn his lesson from yesterday’s strip. Lost keys are a regular source of humour with Lynn Johnston as you can tell from looking at this series of strips on this theme. She has done many variations on this joke.
The question that arises next, especially after seeing no consequence whatsoever of the strip’s antics yesterday, is whether or not there will be consequence from the loss of the keys in today’s strip. I get the feeling that we are seeing something like a Warner Brother’s Road Runner cartoon, where the coyote suffers some injury and then moves onto his next scheme with no effect whatsoever from the prior scheme. With this idea in mind, the next disaster we would see would be little Michael using the air to over inflate the tires on the car so it floats in the air or his spilling oil all over the car engine while changing out the oil filter or some other brand of nonsense from his doing things 6-year-olds ought not to do.
The overall point of this strip and yesterday’s strip seems to me to be that John should have stayed in his chair, kept reading his paper, and rejoiced in the fact that he had resisted any temptation to spend time with his son which, as we can see, would simply have been one disaster after another.
So, the joke is that once again, due to his inexperience and incompetence, John Patterson’s car keys get vacuumed up. Or more importantly, John did not learn his lesson from yesterday’s strip. Lost keys are a regular source of humour with Lynn Johnston as you can tell from looking at this series of strips on this theme. She has done many variations on this joke.
The question that arises next, especially after seeing no consequence whatsoever of the strip’s antics yesterday, is whether or not there will be consequence from the loss of the keys in today’s strip. I get the feeling that we are seeing something like a Warner Brother’s Road Runner cartoon, where the coyote suffers some injury and then moves onto his next scheme with no effect whatsoever from the prior scheme. With this idea in mind, the next disaster we would see would be little Michael using the air to over inflate the tires on the car so it floats in the air or his spilling oil all over the car engine while changing out the oil filter or some other brand of nonsense from his doing things 6-year-olds ought not to do.
The overall point of this strip and yesterday’s strip seems to me to be that John should have stayed in his chair, kept reading his paper, and rejoiced in the fact that he had resisted any temptation to spend time with his son which, as we can see, would simply have been one disaster after another.
posted by howard at 9:54 PM
4 Comments:
The overall point of this strip and yesterday’s strip seems to me to be that John should have stayed in his chair, kept reading his paper, and rejoiced in the fact that he had resisted any temptation to spend time with his son which, as we can see, would simply have been one disaster after another.
This does seem to be the stupid point Lynn is trying to make; the problem is that it requires John to be as big an imbecile as Elly is when she assigns Mike the chore of watching over Lizzir for her. In both instances, a dunce parent gets to stand and whine because someone who doesn't know what he's doing makes a mistake that could have been avoided had his parents not been idiots.
(Good golly, I call them morons a lot, don't I?)
Dreadedcandiru2,
(Good golly, I call them morons a lot, don't I?)
In this case, it is a well-deserved statement.
Is it really the case that anyone getting out of their car for any length of time still leaves the keys in it? Especially loose? Where were they, on the floormat? At least Mike's future of leaving them in the ignition is partially understandable. Perhaps it's a Canadian thing, related somehow to their front doors all being unlocked all the time. All I know is I don't step out of my car without my keys already in my jacket pocket. Of course, I also don't remember to check for them until after I'm out and I've locked the car, so I'm sure I'll have my comeuppance someday and the passersby will share a sticky-out tongue laugh at my expense. Hopefully I'll remember to snap instantly into a violent scrunchy-pout like the Perfect Pattersons can. Then at least they'll all know I'm still better than them.
Flint Paper,
All I know is I don't step out of my car without my keys already in my jacket pocket. Of course, I also don't remember to check for them until after I'm out and I've locked the car, so I'm sure I'll have my comeuppance someday and the passersby will share a sticky-out tongue laugh at my expense.
That happened to me often enough where I realized any change to my routine in getting out of my car could result in my locking the keys in the car. My solution: I always carry two sets of car keys. Of course there was the one time my wife locked one set of keys in the car, wanted to borrow my other set of keys to get in the car, and then promptly locked them in too. Then I wished I had 3 sets of keys.
Hopefully I'll remember to snap instantly into a violent scrunchy-pout like the Perfect Pattersons can. Then at least they'll all know I'm still better than them.
But you won’t be. John’s saving grace is that there is no place in Milborough that’s not within walking distance of his house. Every time he locks his keys in the car or lets Michael suck them up in the vacuum, he can just walk home. I’ll bet you don’t have that advantage.
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