(Strip Number 7217, Original Publication Date, 18 May 1986)
Panel 1: We find ourselves at a corner store watching a bored clerk waiting for Mike and Lizzie decide what candy to waste their allowances on.
Panel 2: Mike hands him a single for a package of the evil gum Lynn hates.
Panel 3: The strip proper begins with Mike handing Lizzie a square of the evil, unhygienic product.
Panel 4: They prove their hatred of their mother, niceness, goodness, cleanliness and their mother by playing with their gum.
Panel 5: Mike delights Lizzie by balancing a bubble on his nose.
Panel 6: They laugh because Mike has stuck it on the television in such a manner as to cover an anchorman's eyes.
Panel 7: Lizzie laughs because he stuck a big glob on his forehead.
Panel 8: He then sets up the punchline by saying that Mom says they gotta wash their hands before supper.
Panel 9: Lizzie whines an'asks howcome?
Panel 10: Mike asks her if she wants all them germs goin'into her mouth like some kinda dummy.
Summary: The non-joke is, of course, that it's too late for that. Also, while I respect her decision to not like gum, her aggressive need to talk about the filthiness of it borders on the obsessive....perhaps because it's the only thing she ever agreed with Ursula on.