(Strip Number 4990, Original Publication Date, 4 July 1988)
Panel 1: As Elly trims the hedges, she asks Mike where he and Gordon are headed; Mike tells her that they're going inside.
Panel 2: Elly does that damned 'I'm closing my eyes because as an adult, I am morally superior and thus cannot even look at you horrible children' thing as she piously intones that there's a lot of construction going on in there so she doesn't want them getting into trouble.
Panel 3: An exasperated Mike tells Gordon that his mom treats him like a baby who has to be nursemaided all the time (which, given what we know of his inadequately supervised history, is a ridiculous assertion) before asking what kind of trouble they could get into there.
Panel 4: Since Lynn was brought up to fear the poor, Gordon gets what she thinks is a wicked look on his face and says that he doesn't know but maybe they can find something.
Summary: This arc is a mixed blessing as it and the mess with the fridge box mark the long-overdue end of Lynn wailing about evil boys and evil dogs ruining the lives of We Moms. The problem is that said sad theme is replaced by Gordon's idiotic hormone attacks, Carol's worrying about Brian not being a social lion and Mike being a ridiculously inadequate and self-absorbed boyfriend who blames the girls he stupidly and cravenly mistreats for his failings as a love interest. (Also by Lawrence using Martha as his beard before he responds to the threat of Mike going Jeff Varner on his ass by outing himself and thus transitioning from 'character' to 'plot device'.)