Sunday, 18 November 2018
Liz tries to help out by pretty much kit-bashing together a bunch of nearly empty cereal boxes together to make a sort of pot luck breakfast food. Lynn 'demonstrates' how 'foolish' this idea is by having someone with no brains or standards be the only dentist who'll eat it.

Panel 1: We find ourselves watching Elizabeth grab a cereal box out of the cupboard. It might look as if we're about to watch her eat breakfast but we're not.

Panel 2: What we're watching instead is her shaking the box to see how much is in it.

Panel 3: The strip proper begins with Elly asking Liz why it is that she's brought down what looks like every box of cereal they have.

Panel 4: She tells Elly and Michael that most of the boxes only gots a little bit of cereal in'em.

Panel 5: Since this is obviously a pointless waste of real estate, she tells a baffled Elly that this is why she's putting them all in one box.

Panel 6: Since this obvious solution to pointless waste baffles the Hell out of Elly, she tells her it's a nice idea before trailing off.

Panel 7: Since Mike is a picky eater who can't stand the idea of a hybrid cereal and also since he lives to make Liz feel stupid, he asks who would ever eat this mess.

Panel 8: We cut to John eating the mixed cereal like it ain't no thing. This is meant to indicate that he's just this big slob who Elly can never make mature.

Summary: What it actually makes him is someone who ain't as fussy as Mike or as stupid as an Elly who just lets her kids eat just a little of each cereal until there's a whole lot of nearly empty cereal boxes gathering dust in her cupboards.

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Saturday, 17 November 2018
We end this stupid arc with John trying to jolly Elly into not wanting to murder her horrible children for stupidly stealing yet another victory from her by the masterstroke of insisting that dogs are fated to get covered in shit and it can't be prevented.

Panel 1: When John gets home, Elly tells him that she had Farley groomed today and wishes that he could have seen him when he was clean and beautiful. John mutters a non-committal "Yeah, too bad" in response.

Panel 2: Because yet another chance to win and be happy has been stolen from her, Elly rages about how it makes her so angry. John tries to settle down the little woman by telling her that she can't expect a dog to stay out of the dirt.

This, of course, is a load of old bollocks because you so can keep a dog out of the dirt. All you need to do is not blindly open the door every time he gets close to it and keep track of his comings and goings instead of being a fucking hillbilly like the Pattersons are.

Panel 3: Yes, sir, he says, the family dog, he sheds, he stinks, he tracks in much but you know you love him anyway. The subtext of this treacly nonsense is that it's futile to even try to pretty him up because he's just going to get dirty anyway so smile and admit defeat and wait for the next not actually unpreventable (despite the Pattersons' clear belief otherwise) onslaught.

Panel 4: We end with a stupid sight gag that reveals that John has forgotten to take off his shoes and has tracked in more mud for Elly to clean up.

Summary: I guess that's another onslaught that she can't possibly prevent either. No damned wonder Liz left the door open. Her whole family is stupid and negligent and Elly is too dumb to stop it. Eventually, Farley dies of this.

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Friday, 16 November 2018
Liz proves herself to be her mother's daughter by trying her damnedest to avoid being blamed for having the brains of a tub of Spackle again.

Panel 1: When pissed-off Elly asks Liz how she could have let Farley go out and get dirty, Liz angers her more by saying it was an accident. This is because Elly never wants to believe that her children aren't plotting her ruin because it takes all the fun out of yelling "BAD! BAD! BAD! Stop crying!!" at them.

Panel 2: Elly bellows that Farley was so pretty when she brought him home just five hours ago.

Panel 3: She then tells Liz that it cost sixty dollars to have him groomed and that she wanted him to stay groomed as long as possible before setting up the sitcom punchline by asking what she's supposed to tell John.

Panel 4: Liz makes a stupid remark about how five hours is as long as possible. This causes Elly's brain to go into safe mode resulting in the deer in the headlights stare her face is frozen in most of the time.

Summary: What we are looking at is another example of Elly thinking that children are horrible monsters who only pretend to feel regret because she doesn't want to remember that her 'But if I let them know I care about them, they'll just give up trying and sit in a puddle of their own filth and die' parenting style leads directly to their 'Why bother trying? We can never please her anyway!' attitude.

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Thursday, 15 November 2018
We come to the home stretch of the arc when Liz and Mike stupidly leave the door open allowing Farley to get out and root around in the muck because they were set up to fail by their idiot of a mother.

Panel 1: We find ourselves watching Liz and Mike return home from school. Mike notes that Mom is at work and asks Liz if she's got her house key. Liz says "Uh-huh."

Panel 2: When Mike calls Liz's attention to how great Farley looks, Liz points out the note on the end table. You will notice that Liz thoughtlessly left the door wide the Hell open because her brain can only handle one task at a time and has also been accidentally taught to let the dog go out whenever he gets to the door.

Panel 3: The note says "Dear kids, I've just had the dog groomed. Please don't let him get dirty! I'll be home soon. Love, Mom."

Panel 4: When Mike asks where Farley is, a panicked Liz stands next to the door she didn't think to close and tells him that he's out getting dirty.

Summary: This strip makes a nonsense of John's idiotic comment about how they can't prevent Farley from roaming around in the muck because, boy, howdy, was it ever preventable. All it would have taken is for Elly to put the note telling the kids she was taking the dog to the pet salon and didn't want him roaming around outside on the door so that they'd know to keep it closed. Since that would require her to understand that people can't read her damned mind, the inevitable result is Liz not knowing to close the door and her getting yelled at.

Come to think of it, it also makes a nonsense of any sort of claim that this is happening in the present day because most kids have cell phones and Elly could have simply texted them....unless, of course, she's one of those people who don't hold with giving kids cell phones. Maybe that's what this one's notes will be about.

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Wednesday, 14 November 2018
It would appear that Elly has not taken the time to sweep out all of the loose dog hair; this allows us to have fun at Connie's expense when she is mildly inconvenienced.

Panel 1: We see a happy Elly driving home with Farley as the wind picks up out of nowhere. This becomes important.

Panel 2: Now that she's home, she lets Connie talk her way into bumming a ride downtown. You will notice that she leaves Farley at home because she has to go back to work. This also becomes important.

Panel 3: As she and Connie head to their destination, it starts to rain. This is also important.

Panel 4: Having been dropped off, we see Connie look all disgusted because her outfit is covered in loose dog hair. This slapdash, no-think attitude of Elly's also becomes important.

Summary: The interesting thing is that it's funny when Elly is too damned busy and really easily distracted to clean up her car but not so funny when Elizabeth is too narrowly focused on the note on the end table to remember to close the door. The fact that the Pattersons make Dory look like Ms Memory always comes back to bite them in the ass and we're about to see that tomorrow.

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Tuesday, 13 November 2018
Farley turns into a cartoon dog when Elly is called out on being mildly hypocritical about his taking up time sniffing hydrants.

Panel 1: As they walk to the car (which baffles me because Elly parked the damned thing right outside the pet salon), we find her watching Farley sniff a hydrant.

Panel 2: As he continues to do so, she rolls her eyes in irritation.

Panel 3: She then tells him "Oh, for Heaven's sake, HURRY UP!!!" because he's taking too long.

Panel 4: For some reason, she's fixated by a window display while he frowns at us in irritation.

Summary: Just as Lynn never wants to understand that she can't have a character be a cartoon mutant and a normal person at the same time, she never understood that Farley can't turn into a person and revert to being a dog depending on the situation. Jan Eliot is slightly more clever and has Biscuit be a sarcastic little girl in a dog costume whose motivation is opaque to the people in the strip because they cannot read thought bubbles.

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Monday, 12 November 2018
Elly is all smiles about how great Farley looks right up until she learns how much it cost to get him that way.

Panel 1: After the grooming session, we see the woman at the salon tell Elly that her baby is all clean and prettied up. Since Farley seems to be fairly happy, one would think that this an experience that Elly would repeat. Saturday's stupid "moral" lesson will explain why this never happens.

Panel 2: Elly reacts to a clean, well-groomed Farley by babbling in baby talk and asking if he's a woofie, her pretty puppy and her fuzzy baby and saying that yes, he is.

Panel 3: He's about to turn back into a mangy fleabag when the woman tells her that that'll be sixty dollars. Elly repeats the price incredulously.

Panel 4: After all, that's a lot of money for just brushing a DOG!!!!

Summary: The 'good' thing about the 'unreasonable' price is that it's a club Elly can beat Liz over the head with Friday when she's called on the carpet for letting Farley outside to get filthy again because she's been accidentally trained to let the dog out whenever he gets near a door by her idiot parents.

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Remembrance Day 2018
For some reason, we get a dialogue free mess that starts with Farley begging for food and ends with John getting a nasty surprise in his slippers.

Panel 1: We start things off with Farley watching Mike staring in the fridge in the hopes that he can will the stuff he'd like to eat to appear.

Panel 2: Since that doesn't actually work, he settles for an apple.

Panel 3: Farley looks on with a longing look on his face as Mike noisily eats the apple while reading an issue of Nacho Man comics.

Panel 4: Mike is confused when he looks at Farley's face; this is because the dog looks as if he's starving to death.

Panel 5: Rather than admit that training him to eat people food like an idiot got him in this mess, Mike gets all irritated.

Panel 6: He then does something that sets off alarm signals in my head by using the dog as a garbage disposal. Five bucks says that if there are notes, Lynn will get all fucking smug and simper that no dog poisoned to death by apple seeds wrote into complain so our concerns are utterly invalid and why do we hate her anyway.

Panel 7: Farley turns into a short confused guy in a suit and stops eating the apple because it tastes yuck.

Panel 8: Farley saunters down the hall with the offending item in his mouth.

Panel 9: He spits the core into someone's slippers out of disgust and spite.

Panel 10: John is horrified because there's something wet and slimy and dog-poop like in his slippers.

Summary: Today's exercise in cringe comedy seems to be Lynn trying to see how close she can get to laughing at John when he finds dog crap in his footwear. What a lovely way to honour both of our nation's veterans.

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Saturday, 10 November 2018
We end the week with a cartoonish sight gag that not only doesn't make the blindest bit of sense, it also assumes that the victim is a flat-out cretin.

Panel 1: We begin to see part of the problem Elly has with Farley when she tries going "Here, boy" to coax him out of the alley. Not only is he too fast for her, he's also terrified of her.

Panel 2: As he struggles to get away from LOUD ALWAYS ANGRY THING and whatever painful thing it has planned for him, Rage-Faced Elly is filled with rage when she snarls "Oh, for Heaven's sake....it's only a bath and a brushing! What are you worried about?!" because it never once occurred to her that dogs have an instinctive dread of being drowned.

Panel 3: We switch from Elly being Girl Fred Flintstone to something really stupid. Said really stupid thing is the woman at the salon reeling in horror when it looks as if Farley is telling her that he's here for his ten o'clock appointment. Since a woman's voice is coming out of Farley's mouth and since someone is carrying him, she'd have to be either the stupidest person alive or stoned out of her mind not to know that the voice she hears is coming from whoever is carrying the dog.

Panel 4: That being said, we end up having Elly ask "Hello?" because the woman has fainted dead away 'because the dog spoke to her.'

Summary: I should think that this might be the other occasion that occasions notes. Notes about haters who told Lynn that the woman came across as being a cartoon moron who took a creamy dump all over their willing suspension of disbelief.

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Friday, 9 November 2018
When she and Farley get to the pet grooming salon, Farley balks because he remembers that when the loud and angry creature acts friendly, it leads to pain.

Panel 1: We start off with Farley reacting positively when for once, the Loud Angry THING makes happy sounding noises: "Wanna go out, Farl? Wanna go car ride? Wanna go downtown? Wanna remind people that Lynn has an idiosyncratic way of writing 'Hmmm?'"

Panel 2: As Farley BOUNDS into the back part of the station wagon, Elly gets all sappy sounding about how he's going to the Puppy Parlour to get prettied up.

Panel 3: This cheery, upbeat tone continues when she tells Farley that he's a good boy abnd a lucky doggie. This turns out to be a mistake.

Panel 4: This is because Farley balks when they get to the grooming salon because Loud Angry Creature only ever sounds like a friend when it wants to hurt him and put him in the scary place of sharp things. As he resists being forced into what he thinks is another round at the vet, Angry Elly thought-bubbles that Farley is smarter than he looks.

Summary: While it is rather obvious that he's a short guy in a dog suit again today, the fact of the matter is that Elly has proven herself to not be his friend no matter how friendly her tone of voice might be at any given time. Farley's brain can't help but associate Shouting Monstrosity with discomfort and being hollered at for no reason.

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Thursday, 8 November 2018
Elly's need to take Farley to the groomer because she can't be bothered with doing stupid things like "keeping him from roaming around unsupervised" collides with John's need to take ridiculous shortcuts and results in a stupid sight gag.

Panel 1: Since for some reason that escapes her, Farley acts as if he's intense pain when she brushes him gently, Elly declares that she's had it and can't do anything so the dog has to be taken to a professional groomer. Since Farley is a cartoon dog today, he reacts to this by being afraid.

Panel 2: Since John's head is stuffed with idiotic life hacks designed to save money and also to be fucking ridiculous and destructive, he boggles at the expense of not making Farley look butt fucking ugly and asks if it wouldn't be cheaper simply to shave him down.

Panel 3: Rather than ask her idiot husband what his deal is with shaving dogs down, Elly points out that winter is coming and asking him how Farley is supposed to stay warm.

Panel 4: When John bundles a disgruntled Farley in a snow hat, scarf and sweater, he deflects Elly's comment that her mother made those by saying that they're his colour.

Summary: The difference between John's stupid suggestions and Red Green's idiotic inventions is that Steve Smith was aware that Red was a bit of an idiot. Since Elly's only objection to shaving Farley down is that it'll be cold soon, I think that Lynn doesn't get that John is being a moron.

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Thursday, 8 November 2018
The decision to take Farley to a groomer in order to counteract the effects of their stupidly allowing him to roam around collides messily with John's twitching eagerness to shave Farley for stupid reasons.

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Wednesday, 7 November 2018
Elly's being frustrated by Mike failing to do his alleged job of deciding where Farley walks leads to yet another strip in which Lynn breezily equates children with dogs because they both make messes in order to destroy her freedom of expression.

Panel 1: The plot, such as it is, gets kickstarted into motion when Elly gets frustrated and angry when BRUSH-BRUSH-BRUSHing Farley because there's debris in his fur.

Panel 2: She yells for Mike so as to ask him if he let Farley out into the ravine where he eventually dies again. Mike says that he did and asks what the problem with his brainless negligence is.

Panel 3: Elly tries to explain what the problem is by forcing him to look at the end result while pointing out that it'll take hours to brush the dirt and burrs out of his coat.

Panel 4: Elly is gobsmacked when she shouldn't be again when Mike says that this amazes him because dirt and burrs just plain fall offa his coat. This is because she should have pieced together the fact that her children are dimwits who are too stupid to know why they're driving her nuts years ago.

Summary: As one could expect, it's the blank-eyed stupidity of her children that causes the problem and it's the altar on which her need to show off and be praised is sacrificed on. Elly's constant mistake is assuming that her children are smart enough to understand what they're doing to drive her wacko-jacko.

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Tuesday, 6 November 2018
Farley is displeased because Elly's idea of giving him the attention he wants consists of brushing him; this is probably because Elly never bothered learning that other entities feel pain.

Panel 1: Having realized that Farley is acting up because he has nothing to do, Elly gets all smiley and sappy when she asks him if his trouble that he's bored.

Panel 2: She continues on asking "He wants some atttention, does he? No one to play with? Nothing to do?" as they walk down the hallway.

Panel 3: We see a doggie 'smile' on his face when she tells him that she's going to this puppy lots of love and attention.

Panel 4: His mood sours when 'love and attention' turns out to be brushing out his fur. This is because he remembers that when the loud creature doesn't know her own strength.

Summary: Since the Pattersons don't bother with a boring thing like supervising him and since Mike is kind of stupid in choosing where they go, she'll have plenty of opportunity to yank at his coat because it's loaded with burrs and other debris.

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Monday, 5 November 2018
We have a place-holder arc about Farley and how it's impossible to keep him groomed with Elly being too stupid to realize that dogs need attention too again.

Panel 1: We start off with Elly thought-bubbling "Darned dog" because Farley's barking because he's been left outside to go crazy by his idiot owners again disrupts her going ticka-tacka-tappa about being the library mule.

Panel 2: She then does the very futile thing she does of talking to Farley as if he can answer her back and asks him what's the matter with him.

Panel 3: She then tries to convince him to stop barking by telling him that given that the squirrels are hibernating and the birds down south, there's nothing for him to bark at.

Panel 4: Liz speculates that this is why he's barking.

Summary: The problem is not just that Elly is too stupid to remember that Farley isn't a big, shaggy lump she can forget for days at a time. The problem is also that she and John have diametrically opposite stupid ideas of how to deal with his being a very furry dog.

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Sunday, 4 November 2018
Today's Sunday strip displays hopeless social maladroit Mike's lack of anything like manners, intellect and self-awareness in full bloom against a leafy-green background of thinking that his family exists to make him look like a fool.

Panel 1: We start things off with John, Elly and Liz getting ready to go out. As they do so, John tells Mike that the three of them are going out to dinner and asks him if he'd like to come with them. Mike says "Sure."

Panel 2: Mike then pretty much writes the strip by thought-bubbling that there's nothing else to do.

Panel 3: We find ourselves at a Chinese restaurant which I'll call the Happy Lucky Golden Dragon. As the others order, Mike thought-bubbles that there he is on a Saturday night with his parents and his dumb sister before hoping that they don't do anything to make him look stoopid.

This is funny to me because Mike was born stupid and Meredith and Robin will eventually have to pay to have their flat-out incurable moron of a father cremated; this means that he doesn't need their help looking stupid because he can manage that his own damned self.

Panel 4: Mike proves me right by rolling his damned eyes in theatrical despair because Elizabeth brought her doll to the restaurant. Trying to get the idiot to explain exactly why it's wrong would be like asking him exactly what image he's trying to protect.

Panel 5: He then mopes because John is trying to order in Chinese and asks our pardon as he dies a thousand deaths. This is all kinds of dumb because it's just good manners to at least try to order a food item in the host language name.

Panel 6: Mike is an equal opportunity malcontent because Elly's need to remind the family of how to do something they don't do much makes her famous chopstick demonstration a war crime of sorts.

Panel 7: We get back to that being stupid part as he slurrrrrrrps down his cola beverage.

Panel 8: As he wipes his face on the back of his hand like the ignorant God-damned pig he is, he whines about the cruelty of being out with people who make a point of embarrassing his dumb ass in public.

Summary: This combination of being completely unaware of being a disgusting freak while picking apart others for minor annoyances is not just for driving a wedge between him and his family; it's also why his love life is a chaos. He does nothing but make a huge fool of himself but blames other people because he's too stupid to notice that he needs a spotter to breathe.

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Saturday, 3 November 2018
We come to the stupid sitcom moral of this stupid sitcom plot and get told that it all happened to make the Pattersons grateful for what they have.

Panel 1: As they walk to the bus stop, John and Elly agree that it's been a bad week for both of them.

Panel 2: Neither of them can remember when they've had so many white people problems.

Panel 3: When she remembers that most of the problems she has are just in her head and that they're usually so lucky, John starts to mouth Received Sitcom Moral One when he says that it's probably why they had problems.

Panel 4: They both smile and wait for the applause of the studio audience as he says that it's to remind them of how lucky they are.

Summary: The problem with stealing plots from sitcoms like Lynn does is that sitcom characters tend towards the static. This means that they'll promptly forget what they learned here and revert to declaring getting the wrong sweetener in their coffee the greatest tragedy that has ever occurred or ever will and go back to trying to eat each other's faces off.

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Friday, 2 November 2018
John doesn't understand the woman he married because if he did, he'd realize that the reason she's not okay with being forgiven is that she hates to waste feeling like shit.

Panel 1: We find ourselves at a diner watching Elly lament the fact that she only had John's car one day and it got smashed into. Oafish Putz John has been replaced by his mirror universe counterpart Kindly Nincompoop John and tells her that it's okay because it can be fixed.

Panel 2: When she tries to apologize for being bad, Understanding John says that as long as she isn't hurt, his car doesn't matter as much.

Panel 3: Since her feelings aren't being taken seriously, she tells him that she feels embarrassed and stupid and miserable and wants him to stop being understanding and get mad at her.

Panel 4: When he asks her why she wants him to be angry, she tells him that it would make her feel better.

Summary: We don't know which John we're going to get on a day-to-day basis. The only thing that is a constant is that his wife's point of view is always a baffling mystery to him. Also, Elly was expecting condemnation and scorn and has no idea what to do with tolerance and reassurance.

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Thursday, 1 November 2018
We reach the depths of bathos as John mourns the injury to his fucking car to the extent that he doesn't notice what it's doing to his wife.

Panel 1: We find ourselves at Richard and Ted's body shop watching John look at his damaged car in a way that he'd probably never look at his own family. As Elly stares at us in a fixed expressiob of horror, the on-duty mechanic looks at the mawkish display in the service bay with the same look of sorrow John has and asks her if they should leave them alone together.

Summary: This is not the weirdest and silliest thing in this arc. The weird and silly thing is the shocking swerve in John's attitude tomorrow. It's only after he realizes that Elly wants to be punished that he calms down so he can continue to find women baffling.

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Halloween 2018
Elly doesn't realize that the kids are listening in to hear the argument she and John are having about the car because as evil children (who as all children do hate and yearn to see the destruction of the woman who gave up her life for them), they're twitchingly eager to hear her cries of pain and sorrow.

Panel 1: It's late at night and we find Mike and Liz in their pajamas standing next to a closed door. As he listens in to a conversation he's not meant to, Liz asks Mike if Mommy is tellin'Daddy 'bout the accident. He says yes and that she's at the part about the school bus.

Panel 2: When she asks "What now?", Mike tells Liz that Elly says that she didn't see the other guy until he hit her.

Panel 3: Liz is panicky and Mike is delighted when John screams "NOT MY SPORTS CAR!!!"

Panel 4: We switch to a look at Rage-Faced Fucktard John boil over as Elly warns him that he'll wake the children.

Summary: What Elly doesn't get is that he ain't mad at her because he regards her as ballast really. The guy he wants to vent his spleen on is the moron who killed his baby and also almost killed his wife.

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