(Strip Number 6752, Original Publication Date, 6 August 1989)
Panel 1: We begin this dialogue-free strip with John explaining to Elizabeth that he'd like her to join him and Mike fishing.
Panel 2: Mike boasts about the size of a fish he once caught.
Panel 3: When they get to the lake, we see John buying fishing gear for Elizabeth. This betrays his standard lack of foresight and need to throw money at a problem. A smarter man would already have a rod and reel at the ready and it would be far less expensive than what our boy is paying.
Panel 4: He then goes to Bob's Bait to, well, buy himself some bait.
Panel 5: As Liz familiarizes herself with her new fishing rod and Mike pulls the boat up to the dock, we find John at the boat rental stand.
Panel 6: Mike and John are delighted because Elizabeth caught herself a big one.
Panel 7: She looks on in as John gets ready to put that sucker in the net he's got.
Panel 8: When she actually reels the fish in, its size scares the crap out of her; this causes her to let go of the reel as a knee-jerk reflex and this means that her fish is about to carry the rod away.
Panel 9: As both fish and reel go under the water, John laments the loss of the $79.99 he paid for the damned thing. You would think that he'd be mad at himself for paying that much, this is a PATTERSON we're talking about.
Panel 10: As Liz boasts about The One That Got Away, John goes all rage-faced because she lost him a shit-load of money because he's a Patterson.
Summary: What we have here is that we've always had: an asshole dad who can't live in a world of unintentional screw-ups because the alternative is not feeling sorry for himself. John needs something: Vitamin "Kick To The Nuts" for being an omnishambles.