For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for August 16, 2023

  1. Missing large
    9thCapricorn  over 1 year ago

    Mike. It will never be a spare room until you get married, Mike. During college years, you’ll come home and sleep in your room. Until your wedding day or a permanent residence in another city or in town with a permanent job which enables you to buy a home of your own, this stays your room.

     •  Reply
  2. 16873788307 800b4ae7a8 b
    Last Rose Of Summer Premium Member over 1 year ago

    Which will sit there, like a shrine, to be dusted but not disturbed.

     •  Reply
  3. Missing large
    Sephten  over 1 year ago

    Back in 1972 my pal went to uni, and I persuaded his parents to rent his room to a colleague of mine!

     •  Reply
  4. Ktf 2 12 2023 1
    Wren Fahel  over 1 year ago

    When my husband was a teen he went to Europe to visit with his father for a while. When he went home there was no one to pick him up at the airport. He managed to get a ride to his house only to find that his key didn’t fit the lock any more. He knocked on the door. A stranger opened it, handed him a note & closed the door. The note was from his mother. The note said that she & his sisters had moved (she didn’t tell him where) and she had placed his stuff with friends.

     •  Reply
  5. Missing large
    Robert Nowall Premium Member over 1 year ago

    He’ll be back with dirty laundry before you know it.

     •  Reply
  6. Missing large
    birkemeyerjulie  over 1 year ago

    I miss my childhood home. Both my parents died some years ago and the house was sold. It’s weird to know other people live in it.

     •  Reply
  7. Reg
    rhartt4363  over 1 year ago

    “School is an institution built on the axiom that learning is the result of teaching. And institutional wisdom continues to accept this axiom, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary,”—Ivan Illich. “We get three educations. The first is from our parents; the second is from our schoolmasters. The third is from life. The last makes liars of the first two.”—Montesquieu. “I had wonderful teachers in the first and second grades who taught me everything I know. After that, I’m afraid, the teachers were nice, but they were dopes…I have a lack of ideology, and not because I have an animus against any particular ideology; it’s just that they don’t make sense to me…they get in the way of thinking. I don’t see what use they are…University and uniformity, as ideals, have subtly influenced how people thought about education, politics, economics, government, everything…We are misled by universities and other intellectual institutions to believe that there are separate fields of knowledge. But it’s clear there are no separate fields of knowledge. It is a seamless web.”-Jane Jacobs, author of THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES

     •  Reply
  8. 101718piglet
    joe piglet Premium Member over 1 year ago

    Where I live; London is just down the road, going to visit my mother, who still lives there. Maybe I should buy a bus, charge $40 and start a FBoFW tour company.

     •  Reply
  9. Menew
    Thomas Scott Roberts creator over 1 year ago

    This is still London Ontario, I guess? I was in the other London recently.

     •  Reply
  10. Red skelton
    Daltongang Premium Member over 1 year ago

    Excellent philosophy Michael, from a well adjusted, understanding son. Life moves on, you can live in the past or take charge of the future. Your future doesn’t mean leaving others behind, it just means living you life, as they too need to live theirs. There will always be a place for you when you come back to visit.

     •  Reply
  11. Photo
    DawnQuinn1  over 1 year ago

    My son is 35 years old, has a good job, and lives in another city… he comes to visit, he sleeps in “his” room. It will ALWAYS be his room.

     •  Reply
  12. 250
    ladykat  over 1 year ago

    Don’t say that, Mike; you will want your room back from time to time.

     •  Reply
  13. Louis2
    PoodleGroomer  over 1 year ago

    One guy’s parents moved while he was in boot camp and didn’t give him the new address.

     •  Reply
  14. Cat by ola liola
    Jelliqal  over 1 year ago

    i went to college and returned for break. Mom gave my room to my sister and I was relegated to the sleeper sofa. hmm Wonder why I didn’t visit more?

     •  Reply
  15. Pirate63
    Linguist  over 1 year ago

    My final two years of high school were spent in a boarding school out of state. After that, between college, Army, employment, travel, and marriages, I was only home for holidays, school vacations, and later for occasional short visits. But until my mother passed away in 2001 and the house was sold, my bedroom and my brother’s room, were virtually unchanged after we’d left home – same beds, dressers, desks, etc.

    It was a very strange feeling being in that room on the week of Mom’s funeral, knowing that after 57 years, it would be the last time I would ever sleep in my bedroom.

     •  Reply
  16. Profile msn
    vaughnrl2003 Premium Member over 1 year ago

    Looks like April is going to get a room of her own.

     •  Reply
  17. Me4
    CitizenOfTheValley  over 1 year ago

    Wow. Mike sure has matured. And look how tall!

     •  Reply
  18. Missing large
    g04922  over 1 year ago

    Knew a “Mom” once who kept her son’s room just as he left it – years after he had married and moved on. Yes, the family used it as a spare room / guest room, but all of his things were as he left it. It was sort of nice visiting and staying overnight.

     •  Reply
  19. Picture
    CoreyTaylor1  over 1 year ago

    Relax, Cru-Elly. You still have a teenage daughter to nag, stalk, and order about until she’s miserable.

     •  Reply
  20. Missing large
    John Jorgensen  over 1 year ago

    He doesn’t leave for awhile yet? I should think the semester starts in two or three weeks, and they’ll want him to report sooner than that for freshman orientation.

     •  Reply
  21. Missing large
    n32816  over 1 year ago

    Better yet, a spare closet. Moms never meet an empty closet they don’t commadere.

     •  Reply
  22. Sam 4666
    one more ole man  over 1 year ago

    Had my old room until the house was torn down to become the front lawn of a bank. Would use it during visits even after I had my own place for years.

     •  Reply
  23. Monty python french1
    French Persons Premium Member over 1 year ago

    Getting some peace and quiet and a lot less slip.

     •  Reply
  24. Us flag day poster 1917
    Billy Yank  over 1 year ago

    Our daughter has a home and family of her own but Mom still refers to her childhood bedroom using our daughter’s name.

     •  Reply
  25. Missing large
    eced52  over 1 year ago

    Or in the case of the Patterson’s another room for April to trash.

     •  Reply
  26. Americauna chicks 1 week 003
    howtheduck  over 1 year ago

    Mike will be back. Don’t worry, readers. Lynn Johnston’s real life kids left home for school and did not come back, so I expect this comic strip reflects that reality for the author.

     •  Reply
  27. Dogs 003
    EXCALABUR  over 1 year ago

    At least the people grow up in this Comic.

     •  Reply
  28. Missing large
    saylorgirl  over 1 year ago

    Just what any mom wants to hear…not!

     •  Reply
  29. Missing large
    garyyoungs  over 1 year ago

    My parents were living in Iran where my dad had been transferred, and I was going to college in Idaho. My mother insisted that the apartment they rented would have a Gary’s room.

     •  Reply
Sign in to comment

More From For Better or For Worse