(Original Publication Date, 26 September 1989)
Panel 1: We start things off with Mike having poked one of the grapes John bought up his nose and asking Liz if she has a handkerchief. Rather than ask "Doesn't that hurt, Idiot?" (because poking a grape up your nose is gonna hurt like crazy), she yells "EEEEWWW!!! GROSS!!!" because Lynn thinks that makes him look as if he's got a big load of snot up his nose instead of looking like a dope with a grape up his snoot.
Panel 2: Liz does something she should know better than to do when she tries to alert Elly to the problem. Elly does what Elly does and says that she simply doesn't want to hear about it because she has based her life on the belief that caring about what children do reduces her to the status of child.
Panel 3: She then delivers the same canned speech about rising above it she's delivered since Liz was three when she tells her that as a big girl, she should find something else to do if Mike is 'bothering' her.
Panel 4: Liz glumly tells herself that tattling isn't as fun any more.
Summary: Way to be useless, Elly. My guess is that if Mike had clobbered Liz last June, Dumbass would have huffed "Honestly! If Mike is pulverizing you because of something you did or didn't do, it's somehow your fault for not giving him what he wants."