For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for January 28, 2010

she has got to stop taking on the guilt of the world! (of course, it would be a lot less funny that way, but…)

C’mon, Elly, kids do stupid things, I did my share of stupid things, I still do.

True it wasn’t her fault, but it’s difficult to not feel guilty when it’s someone else’s child that’s been injured.

Not only kids try to ride their bikes in the winter, some adults do too. Some were doing that during the recent bus strike we had here and had no way to get to work. But it’s dangerous.

I never saw these early ones. Wonder what Connie’s reaction will be…

I’m with you, green_engineer. While you can’t watch them 100% of the time, you still don’t want them injured on your watch. I recently went chasing after a child who went straight down our driveway towards our garage, at the risk of twisting my ankle. Fortunately she had her helmet on and all was fine, but my heart was racing.

Before I learned to drive, I rode my bike to work, groceries etc. In the winter I tried to find nice straight ruts from car tires; I just wore plenty of layers so I didn’t hurt myself when I fell (and that was before helmets were used, as I’ve been driving about 50 years now). Now I moved where we have no snow.

I’m lucky to be alive with some of the stupid things I did as a kid.

Rode my bike with no helmet skateboarded with no pads climbed to the top of 200’ suspension bridges sledded down 2’ wide paths through the woods etc etc etc

Trips to the ER are a normal part of being a parent to two male children. Been there, done that.

I even ran with scissors as a kid!

Where’s the baby? >.>

I wish I had a dime for everytime I’ve taken one of my kids to the ER. The latest was a slightly dislocated shoulder snowboarding during school Ski night. To his credit, he brushed it off, continued snowboarding, and didn’t even tell me til he got home.

when I was 8, my sister was 11 … her boyfriend somehow broke his leg at our house. My ‘mother’ blamed herself for a month afterward.

this is where great childhood stories are born!

stop trippin’ elly, connie pretty much forced you into watching lawrence so she could try to hook up with someone she hardly knows

technically i think it is connie’s fault

Thankfully, I’ve never been to the ER.

howtheduck, its probably a paramedic. Either that, or Canadians are very trusting.

My worst was son jumping off five foot porch with sucker in his mouth, and the sucker stick going up into the roof of the mouth. He was at a neighbor’s house, and I certainly didn’t blame her. Gave him an ice cube to stop the bleeding and off to one of his several ER trips. Of the three boys, he was the accident prone one. ER people looked at me funny when he came in with second clavicle break in six weeks. Now he’s a grandparent!!!

my daughter is accident prone,, 2 yrs ago in the span of 8 months,, broke her collar-bone, had a baseball crack her elbow, then needed stitches in her hand,, all on the left side,, and she’s a lefty! wasn’t going to let her skip out on school though! got someone to write out her work for her!

Statistically, riding a bike has the same injury/death rate per mile as walking. (You can cover more miles in the same time, though.) I’ve been biking 7 miles each way to work all year ‘round for 5 years.

For the cost of running one cheap used car (depreciation+insurance+maintenance+gas ~= $400/mo), you can get health insurance (full funded HSA with high deductible insurance). The HMOs are the main factor running up retail health care costs.

Allen, your sister had a boyfriend at 11??? Seriously, though, I broke my arm while horseback riding at a friend’s house on her horse, and I don’t THINK my parents blamed them. Kids will break a bone or two, in all liklihood. That said, if I were Connie, I would be at the airport, hysterically screaming at a hapless agent to get me on the NEXT FLIGHT HOME!!!!

I’m almost 55. Two weeks ago I rode my bike to church on a 22 degree morning. It was great.

Who is the stranger that Elly is letting take Lawrence to the hospital? Why is she not taking him, since he was left in her care, or phoning for an ambulance? That is creepy. All Lawrence needs is to get molested or kidnapped in addition to the accident!

He’s stepping forward to help when everyone else is standing back and he knows Elly’s name. I’m guessing he’s a neighbor who knows the family but not a friend since he calls her Mrs. Patterson and not Elly. He’s not in uniform that I can tell and the vehicle doesn’t look like an ambulance so I doubt he’s a paramedic.

Who says he’s loading Lawrence into his own car? I believe it’s Elly’s car. We see him walk up, not drive up. And I don’t think Elly’s is SO wracked with guilt that she’d let a complete stranger drive off with a child who is in her care.

His purpose is to provide the voice of reason in the strip so we can see how badly Elly feels. Nothing quite so sinister as some of you are making out.

The man is obviously someone Elly knows and who knows her. If he is not a paramedic, my guess is that he is a neighbor.

I rode my bike to work for about 2 yrs, I did have a bad day where I hit 2 ice slicks and went down.. on the right hip both times. Didn’t do enough damage to stop me from riding the rest of the way home and the rest of the week.

Elly should stop blaming herself. Even the most caring and vigilant of parents can’t be with their child(ren) 24/7/365. Kids this age are just too young to realize the consequence of their actions in cases like this. Experience will bring them the knowledge they need in order to avoid situations like this in the future (hopefully!).

But if anyone’s to blame here, I’d lay it all on Connie, who couldn’t dump her kid off on Elly fast enough with that lame “I need a vacation so I might as well return Phil’s pipe” excuse to go chasing after a man who said he only wants to be “just friends” with her. If she had been home, being a responsible parent, then maybe it wouldn’t have happened. I’m hoping that Lynn’s update will have Connie rushing home to be at her injured child’s side, just as it would normally be in real life (or at least should be anyhow!).

It doesn’t get very cold down here, but it rains all the time. A car may cost a lot more than a bike, but I find it much more valuable not having to go through my day soaking wet.

Thanks Paul Jones! :o)

Well, we know he survives, despite, his absentee tramp of a mother.

How can Elly stop blaming herself when that’s what so many of these comments do? She didn’t do anything wrong – she tried to help out a friend who is acting foolishly granted, but Connie did secure reasonable care for her child while she was away. Should parents never get away from their kids for even a few days? Maybe the commenters could stop being soooooo judgmental all the time.

If Connie and Elly were to get in a fight and each blame the other it could destroy their friendship. I think they remain friends don’t they? So it must not turn out that way.