For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for July 21, 2023

The laundry part should make Ellie happy.

Sounds like it has a winning spot there!

Bet he brings the laundry anyway.

That’s about my situation in college. I was 45 minutes away, but there was no public transit and I didn’t have a car. I didn’t get my license until I was 22, as I was scared of driving. Laundry was easier to do on campus, since the laundry room was just downstairs (and doubled as a tornado shelter). It was cheaper on campus. If I brought it home, we’d be going to a laundromat at the end of the block. I didn’t go home every weekend. When I did, I ate very well and Mom loaded me down with food and drink for my cube fridge and a little hot pot that held enough for ramen or about three cups of tea.

So, in panel 3 Michael seems to be pulling out a white pamphlet or travel brochure that he brought along from London with the name MEK on it. So what does Mek mean? Is it the name of the London University dorm?

Potsdam, New York was far away from everybody. Almost all the college kids had to either do their own laundry or wait for school break to take it home (which never happened….. I hope).

I don’t get the whole hating laundry thing, it’s not like we’re taking a truck load of clothes to the river and beating them against rocks or scrubbing them on a washboard.

Toss the clothes in a machine, add detergent, push a couple of buttons and go do something else. When that machine is done, toss them in another machine (or better yet hang them on a line outside) push a couple of more buttons and go do something else.

Even in a laundromat, I used the time to read a book while the machines did the work.

By the time my kids got to college, they knew how to do their own laundry and were welcome to use my machines when they were back. It’s a necessary life skill

I used to launder at Penn State on Fridays when the place was deserted. The grocery shopping was the same.

Never.

Never understood the idea of bringing your laundry home for mommy to wash – it always seemed insulting to everyone involved.

Our son’s been doing his own laundry since he was 12. So many of my generation went off to college not knowing how to do laundry – the guys always seemed to have a load that turned out all pink. I made sure our son knew the basic life skills. He knows how to cook, too.

Oh the small favors that sometimes bless our lives, however, teenagers in college have a knack for getting their dirty laundry home so then don’t have to pay to do it themselves.

LOL – having had a daughter just finish up four years at Western University, I would hardly describe London as “a cool place!” Guess it is all in what you search for!

Yeah, getting the little bird out of the nest is the easy part. Keeping the little peeper out can be a challenge.

Future strips you can bet we will see…

Michael never comes home empty-handed, where he has a trash bag with a fancy bow

Elly: “What a nice boy, he brought us something.”

John: “Oh for Pete’s sake, it’s only his dirty laundry!”

Elly: “I know, but look how nicely he wrapped it!”

Michael never returns to his dormitory empty-handed, where he has a bag full of food

Elly: “Don’t be angry. Look how skinny he is. I told him he could help himself to anything in the refrigerator.”

John: “I don’t mind the chicken, or the eggs, or the milk. But the ice cubes? The thermometer? The little light bulb that activates when someone opens the door?”

John is Asian in the last panel.

My son goes to college 8 hours away, so there are no weekend visits, with or without laundry. When he came home for Spring Break his freshman year, he decided to do laundry there a few days before he came home, so that he would get back to clean clothes that were already put away. He did a quick load of his sheets and towels the night before, so he also returned to clean sheets and towels, etc. Good thing, because he didn’t go back that time due to COVID. All those kids who left wet towels hanging, baskets full of dirty clothes, etc…it wasn’t fun for them to go back to that after 3+ months. He decided that doing laundry before he comes home and including what little he wore after that, with whatever other clothes he packed was what he would always do when he came home.

I guess my mom taught me well. She did the laundry while I was at home but I learned how to do it. So when I went to college I either used the laundromat or if I brought it home I did it there.

I remember those days. At the university, old car, cheap rent, part time job, care free !

I never helped my mother with the family laundry when I was still at home. When I went off to college at the age of eighteen, my main worry was learning how to do my laundry in the dorm laundry room. Doing well with my studies, a piece of cake!

He can (hopefully} learn some responsibility…

Don’t count on it – gold miners shipped their laundry all the way to china and back and college kids are worse then greedy – they’re lazy.