For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for September 03, 2023

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    drivingfuriously Premium Member about 1 year ago

    Children don’t, can’t know all that goes into a household. My kids did a lot of chores growing up. Now they are better suited to handle the world they are in. Now all the housework falls back to my wife and me.

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    PicaraJustina  about 1 year ago

    Unless he has a secret second family, she is his elder daughter.

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    howtheduck  about 1 year ago

    I love the way the colors of the stripes on Elizabeth’s shirt move around. I used to have a shirt like that. It was great.

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    cmxx  about 1 year ago

    ::sigh:: With the power vested in him. ::re-sigh::

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    Sephten  about 1 year ago

    Ask Mr Gumbo to do it!

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    Dk1989  about 1 year ago

    The thing I miss the most is, after coming home with the groceries, telling the kids to unload the car and then put the groceries away.

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    freewaydog  about 1 year ago

    My dad used to say, “I’ll tell you what, since you’re such a good girl, I’ll let ya’ take out the garbage!”

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    dcdete.  about 1 year ago

    Dad; “I have been thinking, (over the past two days) now that your brother has gone away, YOU are the ELDEST CHILD in the HOUSE!”

    That’s the problem of having a college educated dentist for a father! Nothing gets past them. They have been trained to think quickly on their feet using their brains!

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    French Persons Premium Member about 1 year ago

    Avoid those juice boxes. A study was done a while back, which showed that those things get covered with mold on the inside… So you’re drinking juice that’s been soaked in mold.

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    dcdete.  about 1 year ago

    Funny back in the mid nineties here in Ontario, Canada the recycling bins were all blue colored instead of the white color of regular garbage pails. So that you would get used to recycling blue.

    But to give the colorist credit. It looks like they began to color it blue from the lower corner, but they ran out of the blue paint from coloring the shirt!

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    Doug K  about 1 year ago

    Yay?

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    goboboyd  about 1 year ago

    With a little practice, you’ll learn to shirk the responsibility as well as your brother.

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    Redd Panda  about 1 year ago

    Ahh, with great power, comes great responsibility.

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    Jingles  about 1 year ago

    when i bailed out, ya think my step-mother allowed my sister to be tasked with taking the garbage to the burn barrel? nope. when i came home on leave and found the farm gone to weeds, i asked him (recalling girls that plowed, baled, etc) why isn’t my sister working? “she’s with her french class in paris for the summer”. he went bankrupt and sold the farm. that’s a grudge i held against my step-mother to this day, 50 years later.

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    birkemeyerjulie  about 1 year ago

    I did chores as well. Especially as my parents got older. My sister and I would clean the whole house and cook dinner for them.

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    NeedaChuckle Premium Member about 1 year ago

    I knew it was gonna be the garbage from the start.

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    grocks  about 1 year ago

    I was expecting it to be mowing the lawn

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    vaughnrl2003 Premium Member about 1 year ago

    Yup, the more responsibility they give you the more work they want out of you. All I want is a raise.

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    WoT_Hog Premium Member about 1 year ago

    Missing at the end: “I miss my brother!”

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    rshive  about 1 year ago

    As the saying goes, there’s good and bad in everything.

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    pixiekitten Premium Member about 1 year ago

    Dad found someone to pass off his duty too ;P

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    MuddyUSA  Premium Member about 1 year ago

    She graduated…….?

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    figuratively speaking  about 1 year ago

    Elizabeth’s dream fulfilled.

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    The Great_Black President  about 1 year ago

    Alternate strip…

    Elizabeth: “Could have taken out the garbage, washed the toilet, calculated the taxes and seen the Godfather trilogy with the same time it took you to do that needless ‘eldest child’ ritual!”

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    flagmichael  about 1 year ago

    In the largest sense, sanitation is what allows civilizations. In 1665 the Great Plague killed as much as a fifth of the population in London. It all starts with control of refuse.

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    raybarb44  about 1 year ago

    And THAT’S only the beginning……

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    Jelliqal  about 1 year ago

    I taught my son enough that anything he needs to do – he can figure it out. He can read and prepare any recipe, follow assembly instructions, read usage directions. And I taught him never ever fix electrical or any significant plumbing issue on his own. Some things is worth paying a professional. When son went off to college, he crowed about how he was having to help the other guys with the basics.

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    Daltongang Premium Member about 1 year ago

    And with your promotion Elizabeth comes nothing, nada, not one red cent more in you allowance. Now go build some character and take the garbage out. You don’t want to be like Sarah Sylvia Cynthia Stout.

    Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout

    Would not take the garbage out.

    She’d wash the dishes and scrub the pans Cook the yams and spice the hams,

    And though her parents would scream and shout, She simply would not take the garbage out. And so it piled up to the ceiling:

    Coffee grounds, potato peelings,

    Brown bananas and rotten peas,

    Chunks of sour cottage cheese.

    It filled the can, it covered the floor,

    It cracked the windows and blocked the door, With bacon rinds and chicken bones, Drippy ends of ice cream cones,

    Prune pits, peach pits, orange peels, Gloppy glumps of cold oatmeal,

    Pizza crusts and withered greens,

    Soggy beans, and tangerines,

    Crusts of black-burned buttered toast, Grisly bits of beefy roast.

    The garbage rolled on down the halls,

    It raised the roof, it broke the walls,

    I mean, greasy napkins, cookie crumbs, Blobs of gooey bubble gum, Cellophane from old bologna, Rubbery, blubbery macaroni,

    Peanut butter, caked and dry,

    Curdled milk, and crusts of pie,

    Rotting melons, dried-up mustard, Eggshells mixed with lemon custard,

    Cold French fries and rancid meat, Yellow lumps of Cream of Wheat.

    At last the garbage reached so high

    That finally it touched the sky,

    And none of her friends would come to play, And all of her neighbors moved away;

    And finally, Sarah Cynthia Stout

    Said, “Okay, I’ll take the garbage out!”

    But then, of course it was too late,

    The garbage reached across the state, From New York to the Golden Gate;

    And there in the garbage she did hate

    Poor Sarah met an awful fate

    That I cannot right now relate

    Because the hour is much too late

    But children, remember Sarah Stout,

    And always take the garbage out.

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    Space_cat  about 1 year ago

    I chuckled every time I knew she had to take out the trash, mow the lawn, shovel the snow, rake the leaves, and wash the dishes. Yep, it was no longer my problem, now I had to deal with my own mess instead of the whole family’s, the joke was on me.

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    ktrabbit  about 1 year ago

    Why does everybody in this strip drool when they eat anything? At least she isn’t making gross noises this time.

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    tammyspeakslife Premium Member about 1 year ago

    This is much nicer than most of us boomer/x-ers were told to take out the trash

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    Angry Indeed Premium Member about 1 year ago

    I’ve had that job off-and-on for as long as I can remember. A fitting epitaph for me would be: “Who’s going to take out the trash now?”

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    The Pro from Dover  about 1 year ago

    Take out the papers and the trash or you don’t get no spending cash

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    kamoolah  about 1 year ago

    Elizabeth realizes her relationship to John and Elly. She is their:

    Subordinate

    Loving

    Adept

    Valuable

    Educated

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    JanLC  about 1 year ago

    Given the state of her bedroom, I doubt Liz will ever realize that the trash needs to be taken out unless Elly yells at her.

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    Carlos Berbereia Premium Member about 1 year ago

    LOL,

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    oish  about 1 year ago

    I still ask my late 20’s nephew to take the cans up the hill whenever he visits. I figure until he’s married, has a kid or acts like a responsible adult, I can still treat him like a kid.

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    soaringblocks  about 1 year ago

    this is great! lol

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    hagarthehorrible  about 1 year ago

    Fair enough Elizabeth. You are major contributor of the garbage now.

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    eced52  about 1 year ago

    Imperious Rex.

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