(Original Publication Date, 16 December 1990)
Panel 1: We find Michael in his room paying the price for being a lazy prick who won't put his dirty clothes in the hamper as he sniffs a pair of slacks to determine whether it's wearable.
Panel 2: Since it ain't, he yells for MOM!!!! because it's her job to grin like a moron as she picks up after a slug-like and entitled piece of crap.
Panel 3: The strip proper begins with his whining that there's nothing to wear.
Panel 4: Elly shuts him down by saying that he won't go shopping with her (which is kind of reasonable of him because no teenage boy wants to be seen shopping with his mother) and when she does give him (not nearly enough) money to buy things, he doesn't (because he doesn't wanna have to shop at a thrift shop like he's Macklemore).
You will notice at this point, Mike starts to stop being the bigger idiot. This is for a very good reason that has a lot to do with the fact that she isn't telling him to wash his clothes instead of just buying more stuff to get filthy and let marinate.
Panel 5: He then says that there's nothing to do.
Panel 6: When Elly points out that Brian asked him to go swimming and John wanted him to go down town with him and he turned them both down, we remember something Elly is at pains to forget: Mike wants to hang out with THAT HUSSY who's probably on the dope.
Panel 7: He then irritates her further by saying that there's nothing to watch. He should be complaining that he looks like Beaker and his buttocks are where his genitalia belong again.
Panel 8: She doesn't understand that he's really saying that there's nothing he'd like to watch right now when she blathers about the plenty of (boring) channels to watch and the video games he's played before.
Panel 9: When John makes the scene, he looks at a Mike who rightly thinks that his mother doesn't care a bit about his feelings and asks Elly what's wrong. If you ask me, he should also be asking why she's carving the Who Roast Beast with an X-Acto knife.
Panel 10: The hypocrite makes a nasty comment about how there's nothing to complain about.
Summary: This one angers me no end because Elly's life is one long yowl of angst about things no one should actually worry about. It's like Mike is being punished for stealing her litany of boredom and frustration again. God help him if he ever points out that they know that all her suicides are fake.