For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for January 04, 2021

It’s a New Year and apparently Dr. John Patterson has decided his New Year’s resolution is stop torturing his daughter with a dental appliance. Elizabeth is free at last!! Yay!!

Don’t think about it, Liz. I see it in your eyes.

I saw that up / down arrow and first thing I though was that I’m being told that I need to move my video game joystick up and down very rapidly to make her hand do something.

It looks similar to animated symbols in some games I’ve played telling me to wiggle the stick to escape some trap or game feature. Then I realized it must be an elevator button on the wall.

I’ve played TOO many video games.

Elizabeth’s big life achievement.. It’s all downhill from here..

You shouldn’t have been doing it in the first place at your age.

Maybe she’ll get a boyfriend.

When my son was 2 and still sucking his thumb, he developed a wart on his thumb. The other thumb was just no good for him. The fix was wart medication, which he was sternly admonished from putting in his mouth. When it was all over, so were his thumb sucking days.

Growing up doesn’t suck, apparently. I think there is some irony in there but I’m going to let it be.

Lynn’s Comments:

I clearly remember sucking my thumb. I think I did this until I was in grade one. I remember the feel and the taste and the comfort. The good thing about thumbs (I thought at the time) is that they are permanently attached and always available.

Kind of like quitting smoking.

If you think the end of this realtionship is painful, wait until a boy dumps you. That will be painful. I was completely blindsided (at age 20, granted) when my girlfriend of two years dumped me. I was a mess immediately afterward. But I got over before too long.

I never cared for the thumb sucking arc. It really reminded me of how controlling parents can be. As a kid, you just have to take it. No outs.

End of kids calling her Daffy Duck and Sylvester, the funk singer who wrote “Do You Wanna Dance” for Trading Places.

Next patient: Linus Van Pelt.

Wait! Forgive me if I asked this before, but isn’t it illegal for doctors to work on their own relatives? Or is that just a USA thing?

When a little kid asked me what my e-cigarette was, I told her,“A grown-up’s pacifier.”

All have to go thumb time

well, fortunately, you don’t have to kiss it goodbye