For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for January 27, 2021

can’t be to careful for extra “cargo”

Love the new car smell. My 2018 Nissan Versa smelled new for a year.

Though this is clearly after that, there was a time when women weren’t “supposed” to drive. Maybe it was transmissions going from mostly manual to mostly automatic. Whatever it was, my Mom didn’t get her driver’s license until after she was thirty.

New car? The value goes down $5000 as soon as you drive it off the lot.

A new car that is ready to drive off the premises the minute you buy it? Does it work that way in Canada? And what’s with all the ‘she’ and ‘her’, FFS!

Good job. The car payments are more than your take home pay.

No kidding. Kids trash everything.

Where doesn’t it work like that? Every car I ever bought, I drove right off the lot after buying it.

Can Elle drive a 4-speed manual? Does she want one?

I don´t anthropormophise my cars, bikes etc. they are all “It” until they don´t start, then I add a qualifier!

Elly better hope she does not get laid off from her job as an acting assistant assistant librarian. If that does happen, she has a date with the repo man.

I can never wait to get home and open the rear of my vehicle for the dog to jump in and give her approval. We always own a Bernese Mountain Dog so that rear belongs to our dog.

Every used car I ever bought had that crappy-air-freshener-shaped-like-a-Christmas-tree smell.

I had that done this fall and it doesn’t smell at all

About the kids and dog…that is a true statement!

When I was a kid, my mom got a new car. Like Ellie, she didn’t want us boys messing it up. She told the dealership NOT to remove the plastic from the door panels and seats. It took a year before she removed them.

As you drive it off the lot, the “ching” you hear is the 30% of its value disappearing!

Three words: Seat covers/Rules

The last car I bought – I put down a deposit for them to not sell it, and showed up the next day with a check to pay for a cash sale (no financing discussions); and it still took 10 hours to get my car and drive it away.

Do I detect Canadian feminism at play here??

Shoulder belts were added for the 2021 version of this comic strip. The colourist changed Elly coat belt into a seat belt colour to create a lap belt for her in panel 2.

Panel 3: Elly doing her best Joe Biden impersonation.

Yes it is always the ride home to enjoy the new car feel. Once the dog and kids inhabit it, the newness fades fast and it is time for a car deodorizer.

Once back in ’58 I was walking to the Library and passed the Ford dealership as Mom,Dad & the kids were just driving out in their new Station Wagon, the Smiling salesman waving them God speed & happy times…Before Dad got the rear wheels off the lot some Bozo Broadsided them “Crunch -big time”Better than a Mack Sennett comedy…Laughed all the way to the Library….I still laugh…Classic…

The facial expressions all round…Oliver Hardy at his best…

I know exactly how she feels.